Overview
Mary Ruddock made high quality children’s clothing in Wellington from the early 1930s until the 1960s under the name Mary Ruddock Ltd. Her clothing had a reputation for being of an exceptionally high standard, and a garment made by Mary was seen as an investment., She has left behind a legacy that documents a slice of New Zealand fashion industry: an archive of documents, photos, and design drawings related to her business and everyday working life.
The collection includes clothing designs, some illustrated by hand, which show the detail and style of clothes for children and women that Mary made. Also included is a baby’s dress, gifted to one of Mary’s newborn relatives, which survives as a tangible reminder of her beautifully made children’s clothing.
Early life
Mary Ruddock was born in Hastings, England on 2 April 1895 to David and Anne Ruddock (née Lush). She was the seventh child of eight, with three brothers and four sisters. The family moved to Napier in New Zealand when Mary was eight. Her father was the Archdeacon of Hawke’s Bay. After his death in 1920, her mother moved the large family to her parents’ home – the historic Ewelme Cottage in Parnell, Auckland. Ewelme cottage was first built in 1863 by Mary’s grandfather, Reverend Vicesimus Lush, and is now owned by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.
For some of her schooling, Mary attended St Margaret’s College in Christchurch. A 1912 newspaper report records that Mary played a solo violin piece and was awarded prizes in botany, needlework, and class work.
As a young woman, Mary was regarded as a very talented musician and she travelled to England in 1921 to enter the Guildhall School of Music. There she was a pupil of the Dutch violinist, Max Mossel, and was awarded the Carl Meyer Memorial Prize in 1925. She was described by one of her tutors as ‘a most serious and painstaking student’. Shortly after this, she travelled back to New Zealand where she placed adverts in the local Auckland papers offering her services as a music tutor.
From music to sewing
But not long after returning to New Zealand, Mary abandoned her musical roots and made a drastic decision – to take up dressmaking instead. Several years earlier, in the 1920s, Mary’s aunt had bequeathed her a sewing machine, which perhaps indicates Mary’s early interest in sewing.
Mary moved to Wellington in 1931 where she set up a children’s dressmaking business at 113 Molesworth St. She used her own name for her business, which was unusual in New Zealand at the time but common practice in Europe. She quickly set about employing a team of seamstresses to construct the garments, but retained strict control of the finished product and inspected each item before dispatch. She even once tore a finished blouse in half and told her employee ‘to make another one – better this time!’
Mary the story-teller
Much of Mary’s private life is unknown. Although she had a focused business-like mind, she was known to her friends as a rather eccentric character and regularly made up stories about her past. There were several different versions of how she arrived in Wellington. One invention was that she was abandoned as a baby at a church door; another that she was an adopted English child who was sent to New Zealand; and another that she was left stranded in Wellington as a result of the Great Depression (1929–34).
A cousin puts Mary’s eccentric manner down to bohemian friendships in Paris. This is possibly also where she was taught the expert sewing techniques that sparked her career in dressmaking.
Business days
In 1935, Mary moved her business across town to Vickers House in Woodward Street, but a few years shortly after this, perhaps due to her inexperience in business management, Mary Ruddock Ltd started the proceedings for voluntary liquidation. This was finalised in 1942.
In 1945, Mary Ruddock Ltd was registered again, this time in the Hannahs buildings on Lambton Quay in Wellington. It was in these later years that Mary was most successful. Her main clientele were children, but she also made clothes for women.
Among her customers in the 1950s were the children of Sir Willoughby Norrie, New Zealand’s Governor General at the time, and also novelist Ngaio Marsh, with whom Mary attended boarding school at St Margaret’s College in Christchurch.
The business continued until Mary was into her late 60s, when a newspaper clipping from 1963 announces that Mary Ruddock Ltd had suspended operations once more.