Four locals have earned King's Birthday honours for 2025. Throughout the day Nelson App will be sharing the story of the four recipients.
Preserving historical garments and uncovering the stories of the people who wore them has long fascinated Karen Richards who has been awarded a King’s Service Medal for her work.
Back in 2008, the former home economics teacher at Waimea College was awarded a fellowship to work at the Nelson Provincial Museum Research and Collection Facility and learn more about preservation practices of historical textiles. For the past 18 years she has been a volunteer at the museum, supporting the documentation, preservation and display of clothing items that give us some insight into the lives of the people who wore them. So far, she has catalogued more than 1,000 textile objects into the museum collection.
She is also a volunteer textile technician at Broadgreen Historic House where she has catalogued more than 800 textile items and been at the forefront of remedial textile conservation.
“What I love about it is that there is nothing closer to a person than their clothes and the stories those clothes tell are fascinating. Unfortunately, when clothes were donated, they didn’t always come with provenance.
“You have stories you want to pick at and pick at a bit more, so research is a huge part. Having hated history at school, I love it now.”
Many of the garments have come from Britain on sailing ships with early European settlers and she says some of the most revealing information is in the undergarments which are seldom donated.
“When people donate clothes, they usually only give the best things and don’t want to give the worn things which often give the best stories.
“I feel very privileged to be able to work with these significant things because I’m handling the stories of people’s lives.”
One of the highlights of her work at the museum was to prepare a silk gown that belonged to Hūria Mātenga who became known as the Grace Darling of New Zealand after rescuing the crew of the Delaware which struck rocks close to Pepin Island in 1863. To restore the dress, Karen researched and handmade a bodice overlay to insert at the front of the dress.
Working on Ernest Rutherford’s leather satchel was another thrill, as well as the green silk wedding dress of his mother, Martha.
More recently was a pith helmet brought to her by the local RSA for restoration because the pith was breaking up and the crown as well as brim were detached. The helmet from World War II had the hand-written names and addresses of fellow soldiers written all over the outside.
“That’s such a unique object. I didn’t have a clue how to restore it, so I had to do a lot of research and then build the pith layers up with layers of muslin.”
Over the years, Karen has co-curated six exhibitions and has given exhibition tours and lectures at events including Nelson’s TUKU Heritage festival and the Costume and Textiles Symposium in Oamaru.
