BIOGRAPHY
Katrine Walker, also known as Catherine, Kitty and more commonly as Kate, was born in 1866. She attended Tokomairiro School in Milton and won a secondary scholarship in 1881 so she could attend Girls' High School in Dunedin. While at secondary school she met her future husband, James Reeve Wilkinson, who had recently graduated from Canterbury University and who coached girls for University Junior Scholarship. The couple became lovers. James Wilkinson did not get his teaching certificate promotion and took on an assistantship to Professor Shand at Otago University. Two 'breakdowns' followed so he went to Higham, Canterbury, where his brother was farming. In 1889 Katrine obtained a teaching position nearby in Canterbury, so she was close enough to ride regularly by pony to see him at the weekends.
James moved to live with another brother in Christchurch, and Katrine obtained a teaching position at Riccarton. Under the pseudonym "Theta", she regularly wrote the ladies page in the 'New Zealand Wheelman', and on 14 October 1893 she commented in relation to both cycling and women's franchise "...as the dainty wheel gives her a larger world to live in, so the wheel of progress has now given her a larger world to think in." The couple became involved in dress reform, and jointly wrote a pamphlet called
'Notes on Dress Reform and what it Implies'. In it they used aesthetic, moral and feminist argument to recommend change in women's undergarments and outer clothing.
In 1894 Alice Burn, who was to become the President of the New Zealand Rational Dress Association, advised that James and Katrine should marry. The couple married in Christchurch and a photograph of the wedding published in the 'New Zealand Graphic' apparently shocked its readers because of the very prominent knickerbockers, a public statement by the wedding party of their strongly held principles of the necessity of rational dress for women. The wedding attracted national attention as the
Dress Reform Wedding.
James and Katrine had a daughter in 1903. In 1911 James was appointed Clerk to the Ashley Country Council, based at Loburn in Canterbury. There he and Katrine remained until his retirement twenty-five years later. Katrine died in 1941 and James in 1951.
OBITUARY
MRS CATHERINE WILKINSON
Mrs Catherine Wilkinson, who died recently, was well known in Canterbury and Otago teaching circles. Born at Milton, Otago, she was a member of the large family of Mr Alex. Walker. Qualifying for scholarships, she acquired a good education at the Otago Girls' High School and Otago University. Later Miss Walker held positions in Otago and Canterbury. She married Mr J. R. Wilkinson in 1894, while she was infant mistress at Upper Riccarton, but continued teaching till she retired on superannuation from the Bushside School. She then joined her husband, who was county clerk at Loburn, and, except for a visit to England, she lived there until on Mr Wilkinson's retirement in 1936, they went to live at her home in Woodend road, Rangiora.
During the last war Mrs Wilkinson was secretary of the Lady Liverpool Fund for soldiers' benefits from Ashley County. Failing health confined her to domestic duties, though she enjoyed the Meetings of the Presbyterian Women's Guild. She is survived by her husband, a daughter, Mrs D. Buckhurst, Suva, and two granddaughters.
Source: The Press, 14 July 1941, Page 2.
Chris Korte's New Zealand Genealogy Project
1866 - 1941 (75 years)
Has 16 ancestors and 9 descendants in this family tree.
[1, 2] 
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