Wilhelmina Sherriff Bain
Teacher, librarian, feminist, peace activist, writer
Wilhelmina Sherriff Bain (5 September 1848 – 26 January 1944) was a Scottish-born New Zealand teacher, librarian, feminist, peace activist and writer.
Early life
Sheriff Bain was born in Midlothian, near Edinburgh, Scotland, to John and Elizabeth Middlemass Bain. She had six siblings, one of whom, James Walker Bain, emigrated to Invercargill, New Zealand. Sheriff Bain, her parents and the remaining siblings followed him, travelling on the Gloucester and arriving in 1858.
Career
Sheriff Bain became a teacher in 1879 and was a strong campaigner for equality for women teachers, who were often paid half the salary of male teachers. In 1894 her father died, and she moved to Christchurch, where she worked as a librarian and joined the Canterbury Women's Institute. She became the president, and in this role chaired the first meeting of the National Council of Women in 1896. Kate Sheppard was appointed the president of the council, Ada Wells secretary and Sheriff Bain treasurer.
She was a passionate advocate for peace and arbitration, and presented a number of papers on these topics at conventions and meetings. She was particularly opposed to the Boer War and in 1900 delivered a strong anti-war speech at the conference of the National Council of Women.
“Wilhelmina Sherriff Bain” enters the record as teacher, librarian, feminist, peace activist, writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wilhelmina, Sherriff and Bain 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 May 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8002378. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1848, 1944, 1858 and 1879.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wilhelmina Sherriff Bain” 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.