Even Elizabeth McCombs’ sisters thought she would not amount to much. Elizabeth followed her two older sisters Stella and Christina into the Progressive Liberal Association, a group with the aim of abolishing the inequalities between the sexes. Her husband was a member of the New Zealand Parliament, and starting in the late 1920s she too began campaigning for a seat, on the slogan of “Vote the first Woman to the New Zealand Parliament”.

On this day, September 13, in 1933, after her husband in office, McCombs won a by-election for his seat, becoming the first woman elected in New Zealand. Where her husband was elected by only a narrow margin, McCombs gathered an overwhelming majority of the vote.

Her popularity was no doubt increased by her tireless campaigning on behalf of women, and later on behalf of all unemployed. She forced the building of a crèche and women’s restrooms in Cathedral Square, a symbolic acknowledgement that women, too, went out for leisure to the city center. While in Parliament, she retained her focus on female equality — arguing eloquently for the need for equal pay, the extension of unemployment benefits to women, and the need for female police officers.