Sarah Cripps
{{Orphan|date=June 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Use New Zealand English|date=May 2015}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Sarah Cripps
|image =
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|birth_date = Sarah Rigelsford {{circa}} 1822
|birth_place = London, England
|death_date = 1892
|death_place = Wellington, New Zealand
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|nationality = English
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|known_for = Running accommodation house, store and post office at Whareama, Wairarapa, New Zealand; also community midwife for the area
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Sarah Ann Cripps ({{circa}} 1822 – 8 June 1892) was a New Zealand accommodation-house keeper, shopkeeper, postmistress and midwife.
Biography
Sarah Ann (née Rigelsford) Cripps, born in London, England, established a dressmaking business and married Isaac Cripps, a police officer, in 1844.
After participating in Charles Enderby's failed whaling settlement at Hardwicke on the Auckland Islands from 1849, Isaac and Sarah moved to the Wellington Region with their four young children and lived in Island Bay. In 1857 the Cripps bought 40 acres of land at Whareama on the route to the Hawke's Bay Region{{DNZB|Sutherland|G. H.|1c28|Sarah Ann Cripps|30 December 2011}} and established and ran an accommodation house there called "Sevenoaks". The homestead (pictured) was built in wattle and daub with toi-toi and raupo thatching.{{Cite web|title = Seven Oaks homestead : photograph|url = http://masterton.spydus.co.nz/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/FULL/OPAC/ARCENQ/30943581/39904492,7|website = masterton.spydus.co.nz|access-date = 2015-11-08}}
File:Sevenoaks homestead, Whareama, New Zealand, ca 1860s.jpg
Cripps was known in Wairarapa for running a guest house, a small shop and the local mail service. She also served as a mid-wife, which was important for the community as the nearest doctor was based in Masterton, some {{convert|20|mi}} away. She home-schooled her ten children: Mary Ann, Caroline, Emily, Harriet, Margaret, Ellen and Sarah (twins), Isaac, Thomas and George.
Cripps later moved to Wellington, where she lived on Adelaide Road in Newtown. She died in Wellington on 8 June 1892 after a long illness{{cite news |title=Deaths |url= http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EP18920608.2.9 |access-date=9 June 2014 |work=The Evening Post |volume=XLIII |issue=134 |date=8 June 1892 |page=2}} and is buried at Karori Cemetery.{{cite news |title=Funeral Notice |url= http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EP18920609.2.53.5 |access-date=9 June 2014 |work=The Evening Post |volume=XLIII |issue=135 |date=9 June 1892 |page=3}} After her death, she was called "the best loved woman from Wellington to Ahuriri",{{Cite book|title = Britannia's Daughters – Women of the British Empire|last = Trollope|first = Joanna|publisher = Pimlico|year = 1994|isbn = 9781845950187|location = London|page = 37}} the latter being the Māori name for Napier. She was survived by her husband, who died in 1904 at their daughter's place in Upper Plain near Masterton.{{cite news |title=Local and General |url= http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=WDT19041012.2.10 |access-date=9 June 2014 |work=Wairarapa Daily Times |volume=XXVIII |issue=7872 |date=12 October 1904 |page=4}}
Cripps is covered in volume 1 of Miriam Macgregor's book Petticoat Pioneers.{{cite book |last=Macgregor |first=Miriam Florence |year=1973 |title=Petticoat Pioneers; North Island Women of the Colonial Era, Volume 1 |location=Auckland |publisher=Reed Publishing |isbn=0589007718}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
Photograph of Sarah Cripps: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/3520/sarah-ann-cripps
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cripps, Sarah}}
Category:British emigrants to New Zealand
Category:New Zealand postmasters
Category:New Zealand hoteliers
Category:Merchants from London
Category:Burials at Karori Cemetery