In the later 19th century, women in New Zealand were becoming increasingly visible. Women gained the vote in 1893, following the campaign for women’s suffrage and the presentation of a suffrage petition, signed by over 30,000 people, the majority of whom were women. There was increased emphasis on education for young women and women’s organisations were being formed at both local and national levels. These included the formation of the first women’s trade union, the Tailoresses’ Union, in 1889 and the formation of the National Council of Women in 1896.

Many of these women’s organisations were Christian in character and focused on moral and social issues, particularly those affecting women and children. They included the Women’s Christian Temperance Union which campaigned for the regulation of alcohol, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), the Methodist Women’s Missionary Auxiliary, and the Anglican Mother’s Union.

It was out of this environment that the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union (PWMU) was born. During the 1890s there were several New Zealand Presbyterian women’s organisations with a focus on the support of foreign missions. By 1905 these groups had merged to form the New Zealand PWMU, modelled on the Australian PWMU in Victoria. In 1906 they began publishing a national journal, The Harvest Field.

“Probably no feature of our time is more noteworthy than the prominence of women in work of every description” said Bessie Gray Dixon, writing in The Harvest Field in April 1909. ‘Many kinds of labour from which they held aloof, or were debarred by force of public opinion, have in these days become recognised spheres of women’s work; …”

The activities of the PWMU were born out of a desire to help those in need in foreign countries, both in terms of physical needs such as food and healthcare, but also in terms of spiritual needs, as so many had had no chance to hear the Christian message. The means to achieving these goals was through supporting the foreign missions of the New Zealand Presbyterian Church in India, China, and the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). They focused particularly on supporting women and children, something that Bessie Gray Dixon referred to as “women’s work for women”.

There was also an interest in missions closer to home among Māori. A major way of raising funds for this mission was through the Māori Mission Birthday League, where women were encouraged to donate one shilling to the mission on their birthday each year.

Fundraising was one of the major activities of the PWMU and something at which they were phenomenally successful. Bazaars and sales of handcrafts were popular, as were mission boxes and the sale of products from missionary communities, such as arrowroot from the New Hebrides. As well as providing funds for evangelisation, this money supported the provision of much needed schools and health care.

Much of the money raised went to support the work of women in the mission field. The PWMU paid for women to train as missionaries and financially supported them in their work, much of which was among women and families. They also provided significant financial support for the Presbyterian Women’s Training Institute in Dunedin which trained women as deaconesses to serve both in the foreign mission fields and at home in New Zealand.

As well as raising money, the meetings and activities of the PWMU played an important social role in the lives of many women. They also provided an outlet for their talents within the church, particularly in the fields of organisation, administration, and public speaking, at a time when similar roles were denied to them within the wider church because of their gender.