Sonja Davies

Sonja Margaret Loveday Davies ONZ (née Vile, 11 November 1923 – 12 June 2005) was a New Zealand trade unionist, peace campaigner, and Member of Parliament. On 6 February 1987 Davies was the third appointee to the Order of New Zealand.

Sonja Vile was born in the Upper Hutt suburb of Wallaceville in 1923. Her mother was Gwladys Ilma Vile, a nurse, and a granddaughter of Job Vile. Sonja Vile only learned of her father's identity, the Irish army major Gerald Dempsey, when she was 20, but never made any contact. She had four different foster homes before her grandparents took her in, and they lived in Oamaru and Woodville. Aged seven, she went back to her mother in Wellington to live with her younger sister and her new step-father. The family moved to Dunedin, then Auckland, and in 1939 back to Wellington; by then, she also had a younger brother. The speeches by pacifists Ormond Burton and Arch Barrington appealed to her social conscience but caused tension with her parents, and she consequently left home aged 16 supporting herself by work in bookshops.

Davies helped to found the Working Women's Council, and in 1974 she became the first female executive of the Federation of Labour.

Davies became the Labour MP for Pencarrow in 1987 and served two terms, retiring in 1993; Trevor Mallard replaced her. Davies died in Wellington in 2005.

Her autobiography, Bread and Roses: Her Story, (ISBN 1-86953-162-0), was turned into a film in 1994. Directed by Gaylene Preston, the film was also called Bread and Roses. A second volume of autobiography, Marching On (ISBN 1-86941-296-6) was published in 1997.

• Bread and Roses (film, 1994) on IMDb