Stella Casey

Dame Stella Katherine Casey DBE (née Wright; 22 May 1924 – 7 July 2000) was a New Zealand campaigner for social issues as well as a prominent member of various national organisations.

Stella Katherine Wright was born in Taranaki in 1924. Her parents were William James Wright (1883–1959) and Stella Regina (née Hickey, 1887–1973); her mother was a teacher prior to her wedding.

In 1948, she married Maurice Eugene Casey, a lawyer born in 1923. The couple had either nine or ten children (sources vary).

Casey was a member of the Catholic Women's League, the National Council of Women, the Christchurch Polytechnic Council and the New Zealand branch of the Federation of University Women. She started her first campaign in 1969 in Browns Bay on Auckland's East Coast Bays when she objected to pornography being on display in shops; this resulted in a nationwide debate.

She was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1991 New Year Honours for services to the community. Later that year, her husband, by then a Court of Appeal judge, was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours. She died on 7 July 2000 at Wellington aged 76. Her husband died in 2012.