80 m hurdles champion (1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1950)
Noeline Brokenshire (néeGourley; 1 December 1925 – 3 April 2022) was a New Zealand sportswoman, who represented her country in field hockey, and as a hurdler at the 1950 British Empire Games. Later she was a gallery owner and noted woodturner, and the founder and publisher of New Zealand's first woodworking magazine, Touch Wood.
A hurdler, Gourley won the New Zealand national 80 m hurdles title on five occasions: in consecutive years from 1945 to 1948, and in 1950.[4] She represented New Zealand at the 1950 British Empire Games in Auckland, competing in the 80 metre hurdles.[5] In the final she finished in fourth place, behind the Australian winner, Shirley Strickland, and New Zealand teammates June Schoch and Janet Shackleton.[6]
Honours
Gourley was awarded university blues for athletics and hockey.[2]
Brokenshire's husband, David, turned from his original career of architecture to pottery, and Noeline became a woodturner.[2] They both became members of the New Zealand chapter of the World Crafts Council,[7] and held their first joint exhibition of pottery and turned wood in Christchurch in 1966.[8] Noeline Brokenshire exhibited her work widely in New Zealand, including at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in Wellington,[2] a joint exhibition of wood and pottery with Peter Stichbury in Dunedin in 1972,[9] and a combined show with her husband and weaver Karin Wakely in Christchurch in 1969.[8] Her work, which "very sensitively" wedded form to grain, was generally of domestic size and utility.[8]
In 1983, Brokenshire established New Zealand's first woodworking magazine, Touch Wood, which she owned and edited.[7] She solicited articles from subscribers, but researched and wrote much of the content herself.[7] In her editorials in the magazine, which was published three times a year, Brokenshire was a strong advocate for design, professionalism, and a national organisation for woodworkers.[7][10] Brokenshaw sold Touch Wood in March 1988 after 14 issues, and the magazine was transformed by its new owner into The New Zealand Woodworker with a focus more on trade than craft.[7] It survived until 1991.[7] Brokenshire later wrote Fired clay: the story of the Canterbury Potters' Association, 1870–1989, published in 2000.[11]
In 1986, the Association of Designers and Furniture Makers New Zealand was formed, and Brokenshire was its inaugural secretary.[7]
Gallery owner
Brokenshire opened Cave Rock Gallery in Sumner in 1987, and it moved to the Christchurch Arts Centre the following year.[7][12] From November 1990, she operated the Salamander Gallery, also in the Christchurch Arts Centre.[13][14]
Later life and death
Brokenshire was widowed by the death of her husband, David, on 26 April 2014.[15] She died in Christchurch on 3 April 2022, at the age of 96.[16]