Draft:Dulcie Stocker

Dulcie Stocker (née Watson) (1 April 1921–July 1999) was a lifetime social justice advocate, pacifist and 'unsung heroine' of the New Zealand peace movement. Her ongoing dedication and efforts as a fundraiser and humanitarian contributed to the emerging social justice and pacifist movements in New Zealand of the 1940s.

She supported diverse communities including Amnesty International, Nuclear Free Peacemaking Association, Restorative Justice Network, anti-Vietnam war protests and the anti-1981 Springbok Tour movement, along with local peace politics, mainly as an active volunteer at Sumner Peace Group and Council of Organisations for Relief Services Overseas (CORSO).

Biography
Stocker was born in Christchurch in 1921, to Francis George Watson (1890–1961) and Helen Watson (née Clark, 1890–1961). Her father was a cabinet maker. After her schooling at Christchurch Girls' High School, she did a commercial course at Digby's Commercial College, followed by maternity training at Essex Maternity Home (a refuge for unmarried mothers), and then practical training at Waikari Hospital and Rangiora Hospital and a district nurse course. She worked as a district nurse in Kaitaia and Tologa Bay. Nursing in these disadvantaged out-of-the-way Māori communities sharpened her social conscience.

In an interview in 1996, she recalls her lack of training in cultural practices and shock at both the outbreak of World War II and the emotional state of soldiers coming back from the war. After the war, she went nursing in the United Kingdom and hitchhiked around Europe at a time when that wasn't the 'done thing' for a single young woman.

Back home, she continued to nurse and met her future husband, Ernest Peter Stocker, an airline pilot for National Airways Corporation. They married in 1954 and settled in Christchurch. Dulcie retired from nursing to raise their four children (Paul, Jonathan, Julie and Scott), three of which are adopted. After his retirement, Peter was active in the local peace movement. Together they collected donations of money and clothes door to door.

After his death in 1990, Stocker continued to deliver flyers and raise funds for their causes. She became a regular contributor to the Letters to the Editor at the Christchurch Press, signed D. Stocker.

She died in July 1999.

Sumner Peace Group
The main function of the Sumner Peace Group was advocacy. It also raised money to give to specific peace causes, for instance Citizens for Demilitarisation of Harewood, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa and Anti-Bases Campaign. This money helped fund a range of expenses from rent for a venue through to travel and film making costs. Alongside Jean Thompson and Mary McAlpine, Stocker was a member of the Sumner Peace Group for many decades.

In 1973, at the so-called 'Battle of Harewood', people from peace causes invaded two Operation Deep Freeze air defence bases in Christchurch, at Harewood Airport and the nearby Weedons Stores Depot. The violent clashes, in which twenty-three were arrested, were the first anti-spy base demonstration in NZ and could be viewed as a forerunner to the Waihopai Station arrests and the violence that occurred in the 1981 Springbok Tour.

In 1982, Stocker and others gathered 80 signatures on a petition for Christchurch to become a nuclear-free city. Stocker presented it to the Christchurch City Council. This together with similar petitions from the Rangiora Peace Group and Lyttelton Peace Group lead, in 1982, to Christchurch becoming the first city in New Zealand to be declared nuclear-free. The government declared the entire country a nuclear-free zone five years later.

CORSO
CORSO (Council of Organisations for Relief Services Overseas) was founded on 16 August 1944, towards the end of World War II to aid the plight of millions suffering from the war. Sylvia Gytha de Lancey Chapman was one of the key figures recognising the difficulty of giving relief to the homeless, the starving, and the desperately ill. Stocker volunteered and fundraised for the charity for four decades, this included collecting, selling or re-homing second hand clothing. Despite the charity's internal and external upheavals, Stocker never wavered in her devotion to CORSO.

CORSO was New Zealand's largest aid agency until 1977, when it was overtaken by World Vision. It was government funded until 1979, when its NZ$40,000 annual grant was axed for being 'too political', and not aligned with the strategic direction of the government.