Trailblazer for women’s inclusion in church roles

Elizabeth Ayliffe Tipping blazed a trail for women in the Anglican Church, fighting for the inclusion of divorced and single women. Tipping, who has died aged 99, was the first woman inmany roles within the church’s Christchurch diocese. In 1969, she was instrumental in founding the Association of Anglican Women, a breakaway group formed to include divorced and single women.

Tipping was born in Oxford, England, and had four sisters. ‘‘Both her parents always championed their five daughters’ right to be independent and to make the most of their talents in every possible way,’’ son Simon says.

She married Kiwi

Pat Tipping in 1941 while he was in

England serving in the Royal Air Force during the early years of World War

II. The couple moved

14 times in their first two years together.

As soon as the war ended, the Tippings got on a troopship with their two young sons, a baby and a nanny, and moved to an RAF base in Singapore for three years.

In 1957, the family decided to move to New Zealand, where Elizabeth set up an interior decorating business in Christchurch. She worked for both corporate and private clients but her career in public service began when she was appointed as aMothers’ Union delegate to the National Council of Women, later becoming amember of its executive.

She chaired the hospitality committee for the 1965 Christchurch Festival, arranging activities for artists. She then joined the Christchurch Civic Trust, where in 1967 she spearheaded the drive to rehabilitate New Regent St by repairing the rundown shops and painting the whole street in a dramatic and co-ordinated colour scheme emphasising the Spanish style.

Her contribution to the Anglican Church began in the late 1960s when she attended an annualmeeting at St Mary’s Parish inMerivale.

‘‘When a vacancy was announced for a parish representative on the diocesan synod, a friend suggested sotto voce that she should put her name forward,’’ son Simon Tipping says. ‘‘She whispered, ‘Isn’t it always aman?’, to which her friend replied, ‘Not any more’ and nominated her.’’

Tipping was elected and spent the next 30 years serving on the synod, later as the first female member of the diocesan standing committee.

She also served on the diocesan social services council, the church property trustees and the City Mission social work subcommittee. She sat on several national bodies, including the General Synod of the Anglican Church and the St John’s Theological College board of governors.

Simon says that, in all these roles, she was valued for her clear thinking, warmth and ability to bring people together. Her long and wide-ranging service was recognised in 2006 by Bishop David Coles with a special award for national and diocesan church leadership, the same year she wrote her memoir, An Unexpected Path.

She became the first diocesan president of the Association of Anglican Women, which was formed in opposition to the membership rules of the worldwide Mothers’ Union to exclude divorced and singlewomen.

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