Honouring a Gisborne pioneer: Headstone for first woman on Cook Hospital Board

The Agnes Scott memorial committee (from left) of Ruth Newman, Jean Johnston and Jan Crawford with the Townley Maternity Home 1909 parchment paper which was found in a time capsule buried in the foundations of St Helen's Hospital in Childers Rd when it was demolished in 1976. Photo / Kim Parkinson

A memorial headstone for suffragist Agnes Scott, the first woman elected to the Cook Hospital Board, will be unveiled next month to acknowledge her considerable contribution to Gisborne.

Historian Jean Johnston included Scott in her book Ambitious Gisborne Women – The organisations they established and their impact on Tairawhiti 1875-1929.

Scott, a formidable force in Gisborne, had been forgotten in the history of Tairāwhiti and lay in an unmarked grave in Taruheru cemetery.

While Johnston was talking to a gathering of book groups late last year about the work of Scott, attendee Jan Crawford suggested that a memorial headstone be installed for Agnes and husband Francis Scott at the cemetery.

With a focus on Agnes Scott’s nursing and hospital board experience, retired nurse Ruth Newman also took up the plan for a memorial headstone and, along with Jean Johnston, the Agnes Scott Memorial Committee was established to make it happen.

About 1.45pm on Sunday, a procession will make its way to Agnes and Francis Scott’s graveside led by a piper from the Gisborne Highland Pipe Band.

This will be followed by a ceremony led by hospital chaplain Rev Patsy Ngata-Hills, which will emphasise Agnes Scott’s compassionate contribution to Tairāwhiti, and the memorial headstone will be unveiled.

The committee said it was grateful for the help of John Swiatsczak – group director operations at Gisborne Hospital – in the event arrangements.

One hundred years ago, at the end of April 1925, the Poverty Bay Herald printed Borough Council and Hospital Board results announcing that for the first time there would be a woman member on the Cook Hospital Board.

Agnes Scott had determinedly sought election since 1910, along with other women candidates over this 15-year period.

In 1886, nurse Agnes Murray became one of the first nurses appointed by the newly established Cook Hospital and Charitable Aid Board. She nursed under Matron Miss Guilbride in Gisborne’s first general hospital built in the area of Aberdeen and Roebuck roads near the Taruheru River.

Her marriage to blacksmith Francis Scott followed in 1887 and the couple made their home at Kaiti Beach, near his employment in Kaiti freezing works.

Agnes Scott’s name and her address, Freezing Works, can be found on the 1892 Gisborne Suffrage petition which 220 local women signed.

From this time onward she had roles in the Gisborne Women’s Political Association and as secretary of the Cook County Woman’s Guild where she was one of the promoters of the town’s first children’s creche that was later named the Heni Materoa Children’s Home.

Having no children of her own, she was a trustee for the remainder of her life.

Her signature was on the parchment of the Townley Maternity Home erected by the Cook County Woman’s Guild in 1910 in Childers Rd and later discovered in a time capsule buried on the site.

A strategic political worker in support of the liberal cause, she joined forces with and supported Margaret Home Sievwright when she addressed more than 200 women prior to Gisborne women voting for the first time in the parliamentary elections on November 28, 1893.

Her catchphrase to any visiting politician was “just push us forward”.

In her obituary in the Poverty Bay Herald of December 17, 1931, Agnes Scott was acknowledged as an “earnest social worker” and as the first woman member of the Cook Hospital board.

Having been re-elected, she was still in office when she died.