Emily Acland
New Zealand artist (1830–1905)
Emily Weddell Acland (née Harper, 1830 – 24 July 1905) was a pioneer settler in New Zealand and a watercolour artist. She remains a prominent figure in colonial New Zealand history for questioning gender roles within domestic settings. Her paintings of early Christchurch are held in the collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery.
Biography
Acland was born in 1830, the eldest daughter of 15 children of her parents Henry Harper, who became Bishop of Christchurch (serving from 1869–1890), and Emily Harper (née Wooldridge). The family arrived in Christchurch on 23 December 1856 on the Egmont.
On 17 January 1860, she married politician John Acland at St Michael's Church in Christchurch. John Acland owned land in the Canterbury high country at Mount Peel, and the couple farmed there together. John even made Emily her own garden bed at Mt Peel for her own use not long after announcing their engagement. They had 11 children of whom two died in infancy. Acland became a keen mountaineer and the Emily Falls in Peel Forest are named after her.
“Emily Acland” enters the record as new Zealand artist (1830–1905). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Emily, Acland and Zealand can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 30, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q64361953. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1830, 1905, 1869 and 1890.
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This entry incorporates text from “Emily Acland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.