Alice May Parkinson

Parkinson was born in Hampden, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, in 1889.^[1] She was one of 12 children of George Parkinson, a farm labourer and Isabella Beazley. Her parents belonged to the Salvation Army of New Zealand. She left home at fourteen years of age (1903) and undertook a period of initial domestic service in Hastings in the Hawkes Bay area of New Zealand, until she moved to Napier and later became a pantrymaid at the Masonic and General Hotels in that same city, in 1909. At that time, she became involved with Walter Albert West, a railway worker, and had a relationship with him, which lasted for six years. Parkinson became pregnant in 1914 but produced a stillbirth on 1 January 1915.^[2]

Although Walter West had initially promised to wed Parkinson, he ultimately broke that promise. In March 1915, she travelled to Nelson Crescent in Napier, and shot him in the head and chest, thereafter trying to kill herself through a bullet wound to her temple. She was convicted of manslaughter due to the perceived provocation involved and Chief Justice Stout sentenced her to life imprisonment and hard labour at Christchurch's Addington Prison.^[2]

However, her conviction and imprisonment did not prevent the emergence of a widespread leniency campaign. The writer and penal reformer Blanche Baughan regularly visited Parkinson from about 1917 onwards and campaigned for her welfare and release.^[3] Harry Holland and his Social Democrat Party (New Zealand), as well as the New Zealand Truth newspaper all campaigned for her early release. The Release Alice Parkinson campaign rallies were well attended publicly. Socialist and feminist organisations also mobilised and Parkinson was released in 1921, into the custody of her widowed mother in Tinokino. Thereafter, she married Charles O'Loughlin, a carpenter in 1924. They had several children together and O'Loughlin died in 1942. On 21 July 1949, Parkinson died.^[4]