Rachel Selina Reynolds

Rachel Selina Reynolds (née Pinkerton, 19 December 1838 – 21 August 1928) was a New Zealand social worker and community leader. She grew up in the Australian outback, acquiring skills such as rounding up wild cattle. Life was rough and dangerous, however, and in 1855 the family moved to New Zealand. They established a sheep farm in Tapanui, in the southern province of Otago, and lived in Dunedin.

Adult life At the age of 17, in 1856, Reynolds married local merchant and politician William Reynolds.

Reynolds was active in a wide range of social justice causes. In the 1860s she was one of a group of Dunedin residents who lobbied for the establishment of a girls' secondary school, resulting in the opening of Otago Girls' High School in 1871. She was also active in encouraging the University of Otago to admit women students, a goal which was also realised in 1871. She later became the president of the Dunedin Free Kindergarten Association, and oversaw the establishment of a further seven kindergartens in the city.

In the 1880s and early 1890s, Reynolds was active in the women's suffrage movement and in 1892 became vice-president of an independent women's franchise league formed in Dunedin that year.

Reynolds' husband died in 1899, after which Reynolds travelled to England and Europe and wrote her memoirs, published in 1929 as Pioneering in Australia and New Zealand.

Reynolds died in Dunedin in 1928.