Name Noeline Baker | ||
Isabel Noeline Baker (25 December 1878 – 25 August 1958), known as Noeline Baker, was a New Zealand suffragist, wartime women's labour administrator, gardener and peace educator.
Biography
She was born in the Christchurch suburb of Opawa, New Zealand on 25 December 1878 to Isabel Baker (nee Strachey) and John Holland Baker, chief surveyor of Canterbury. Her parents returned to England living in Guildford, Surrey, where Baker was active in the National Union Of Women's Suffrage Societies and a founding member of the local branch. She was also a member of the London Society for Women's Suffrage. For her organising of women's labour during WWI, she received an MBE in 1920.
She returned to New Zealand and built a house at Halfmoon Bay called Moturau Moana, and used a checklist by botanist Leonard Cockayne to populate it with all the local indigenous plants. Today Moturau Moana is New Zealand's southernmost public garden after she donated it to the government. Other items of hers are in Te Papa.
She edited her father's account of his time in New Zealand and performed music throughout her life.