Museum Notebook: First day dress is November's Outfit of the Month

Bertha McRae's first day dress. Photo / Whanganui Regional Museum Collection: 1996.89.3

Featured as November's Ko te Kākahu o Marama - Outfit of the Month at the Whanganui Regional Museum is a wonderful jacket and dress worn by Bertha McRae, née Scott, the day after her wedding to Philip McRae on May 16, 1861. Wearing the "first day dress" signalled that Bertha was now a respectable married woman.

A "first day" garment was always made of colourful fabric. This two-piece outfit consists of a boned jacket with a long train made from burgundy and brown silk damask and a matching velvet skirt. The inner, hidden fabric changes from luxurious silk and velvet to very ordinary cotton twill. Luxury materials were enormously expensive to buy and import to New Zealand in the 1860s, so economies were made where they would not be seen.

Bertha Scott was born in 1845, the ninth of 11 children, in Launceston, Tasmania. Her father Richard Scott was a well-known sea captain and trader. Bertha's mother Sarah (née Catto) accompanied Richard on many of his voyages and the Scott family eventually settled in Port Arthur, Tasmania. They later migrated to Nelson, where Bertha met Philip McRae.

The day after her marriage, Bertha rode with her new husband on horseback for the three-day journey to the McRae homestead in the Awatere Valley, near Blenheim. Bertha would have worn her new outfit for at least the first day of her journey. Phillip's parents George and Helen McRae had left their Scottish highland farm in 1841. They emigrated to New Zealand with their 10 children, arriving in 1842, and established a large sheep and cattle farm named Blairich, after the place where George had lived in Sutherlandshire,

Phillip and Bertha lived in a cob house on the station, first built by the McRae family when they took up the land. In 1866, they moved to the "Big House", the large wooden farmhouse which was the McRaes' second home on the Blairich estate, when Philip's parents retired from the farm. Bertha and Philip farmed there and raised three children, Laura, George and Flinders. Bertha's father Captain Scott lived with them in his retirement.

Philip McRae drowned in 1885, aged fifty-one; Bertha was widowed at the age of forty-three. Bertha went to live with her other son Flinders, who had a farm, also named Blairich near Palmerston North. She later moved to Auckland to live with her widowed daughter Laura. Their house in Parnell was named Blairich as well. Bertha died in 1941 at the age of 97 after a long and productive life. Her granddaughter Jill Hanna, who married Leo Campion from Okirae Sheep Station near Fordell, inherited her first day dress.

She passed it on to her daughter Enid Campion (later Horsley), Bertha's great-granddaughter. Enid donated it to the museum, along with other McRae and Scott family clothing and memorabilia, after much discussion and consideration by the family. Enid's son Hamish Horsley was able to provide the museum with detailed information about his ancestors and the wonderful first day dress.

• Libby Sharpe is senior curator at Whanganui Regional Museum.