Helen Mary Wilson OBE (née Ostler; 4 May 1869 – 16 April 1957) was a New Zealand teacher, farmer, community leader and writer. She was born in Oamaru, New Zealand, in 1869. [1]
Wilson was active in the Women's Division of the Farmer's Union and one of the early Dominion presidents. She founded the Piopio branch of the organisation in 1927, [2] and in the 1937 Coronation Honours, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, in recognition of her service as Dominion president of the Women's Division. [3]
Interviewed for a radio program during the 1950s, Wilson recalled the process involved for women in New Zealand in obtaining the right to vote and also discussed the Married Women's Property Act. [4]
Wilson was the author of several books, including the autobiography My First Eighty Years. [2] This book is regarded as a New Zealand classic. [5]
Wilson spent several years in the North Island town of Levin with her mother, prominent businesswoman and women's suffrage campaigner Emma Ostler. [5] Helen Wilson married politician Charles Kendall Wilson on 16 May 1892. [6] She lived for most of her adult life in Piopio in the Waitomo district of the North Island. She moved to Hamilton in 1942.