Sophie F Hooper

Biographical information provided by Stefanie Lash for the He Tohu exhibition:

Sophia Frances Hould was born in 1869. Katie Hould, who signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition just below her, is likely to have been her younger sister Kate, born in 1871.

Sophia married Richard Henry Hooper in 1892 in Devonport. They had three children, of whom the first, Kate Challis Excelsa Hooper OBE is well-known in New Zealand as Challis Hooper, a nurse, executive manager and agitator for the recognition of women’s rights and advancement of women’s leadership in the 20th century. Partly as a result of her work as the President of the Council for Equal Pay and Opportunity, the government passed the Equal Pay Act in 1960.

Sophia and her family lived in Devonport, Wellington and later Wanganui. Sophia died in Wellington in 1935.