page break

Biographical Note

Helen M. Simpson (nee Richmond) was descended from distinguished pioneer stock. After a brilliant career at Victoria and Canterbury University Colleges, she won a scholarship to the Royal Holloway College where she gained a London Ph.D.

She had extensive experience as a teacher, and as a lecturer in English at the Christchurch Teachers' Training College and Canterbury University College. Later, she was a member of the Canterbury University College Council for many years. While on the Council she fought staunchly for any cause she considered morally right. In 1944, for example, she joined in an attempt to have a pacifist appointed to a lectureship. She was one of the Council's delegates to the Tutorial Class Committee of the W.E.A. until her death.

During the last years of Dr. Simpson's life, her husband's ill-health forced her to give up most outside activities. After his death in 1959 her own health failed and she died in November, 1960.

Dr. Simpson's links with the pioneering past, her extensive travels and her scholarship made her admirably equipped to write this sympathetic study of New Zealand women. But to her family and her friends her chief strength lay in her gentleness, her humanity and her great integrity. She typified the best in New Zealand culture and tradition.