Noeline Baker

Isabel Noeline Baker (25 December 1878 – 25 August 1958) was a New Zealand suffragist, wartime women's labour administrator, gardener, and peace educator.

Biography She was born in the Christchurch suburb of Opawa, New Zealand on 25 December 1878 to Isabel Baker (née Strachey) and John Holland Baker, chief surveyor of Canterbury. a Tory member of parliament for Downton, Wiltshire.

She attended Samuel Marsden Collegiate School in Wellington, then known as Fitzherbert Terrace School. Her parents returned to England living in Guildford, Surrey, where Baker was active in the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and a founding member of the local branch. She was also a member of the London Society for Women's Suffrage.

She returned to New Zealand and built a house at Halfmoon Bay on Stewart Island called Moturau Moana, and used a checklist by botanist Leonard Cockayne to populate it with all the local indigenous plants. Today Moturau Moana is New Zealand's southernmost public garden after she donated it to the government. For her botanical work at Moturau Moana, Baker was awarded the Loder Cup in 1949. Other items of hers are held by Te Papa, the national museum in Wellington.

She edited her father's account of his time in New Zealand and performed music throughout her life.

Baker died on 25 August 1958 on Stewart Island.