Esther James
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image Esther Marion Pretoria James (5 November 1900 – 7 January 1990) was an entrepreneur who once walked the length of New Zealand to raise awareness of New Zealand-made goods.
Career
James patented a cutlery washer and rinser that was sold and used in many homes.[1]
James was an architectural student of WA Cumming (architect) in Auckland for three years.
James was one of New Zealand's first professional fashion models and a keen supporter of "buy New Zealand-made." James walked the length of New Zealand in 1931–32 to raise awareness of New Zealand-made goods and improve trade during the depression.[2] She was the first person to do this walk from Spirits Bay to Stewart Island and wore only New Zealand-made clothing and shoes. The walk took six months.[3] She also walked from Melbourne to Brisbane in Australia to promote tourism to New Zealand to Australians.[1]
James purchased land in Tauranga and built a house, saying she made 4000 concrete bricks.[1][4] The sale of that property gave her profits and went on to build a larger house in Remuera, Auckland.[1]
James wrote a best-selling autobiography titled Jobbing Along published in Christchurch in 1965 by Whitcombe & Tombs.[4][5]
In 1969 she was promoting herself as a candidate for a new political party the Independent Women's Party.[4] She said:
A women spends, on average, 25 years of her married life in her home - without praise or pay. Then her husband can take her matrimonial home away from her.' (Esther James 1969)[1]
James lost all her assets in the divorce from her first husband in 1935 including 'the family home-and-income property she had built in the mid-1920s with the proceeds of her earlier land deals'.[4] Her second husband did not approve of her entrepreneurialism and was controlling of their finances.[4]
Family
James was from Pahiatua, New Zealand.[6] She grew up on a farm and was one of the younger of ten siblings.[1] She had two children while her husband was in the army.[1]
The soldier and member of the New Zealand Legislative Council, George Stoddart Whitmore (1829–1903), was her great-grandfather.[3]
References
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