| Dame Jocelyn Fish | |
| Birth Name: | Jocelyn Barbara Green |
| Birth Date: | 29 September 1930 |
| Birth Place: | Whangārei, New Zealand |
| Death Place: | Hamilton, New Zealand |
| Children: | 3 |
| Occupation: | Schoolteacher |
| Alma Mater: | Auckland University College |
Dame Jocelyn Barbara Fish (née Green; 29 September 1930 – 19 September 2021) was a New Zealand women's rights campaigner.
Fish was born Jocelyn Barbara Green, the daughter of Edna and John Green, at Whangārei on 29 September 1930.[1] She was educated at Whangarei High School and Hamilton High School, and went on to study at Auckland University College, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1952.[1] [2] [3] She trained as a secondary school teacher, and taught at Fairfield College until her marriage to Robert John Malthus Fish, a farmer, in 1959.[1] [2] The couple had three children.[1]
In 1980, Jocelyn Fish was elected as a Piako County councillor, the first woman in that role, and served until 1989.[2] She was national president of the National Council of Women from 1986 to 1990, and served as a member of the Film and Literature Board of Review between 1981 and 1984.[2] She was a member of the New Zealand national commission of UNESCO between 1989 and 1995, and was one of a group of women who lobbied for 1993 to be recognised as Women's Suffrage Year in New Zealand.[2]
Fish died in Hamilton on 19 September 2021, aged 90.[4] [5]
In 1990, Fish received the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal.[1] The following year, in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the community, and in 1993 she was awarded the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal.[6] In the 2001 New Year Honours, Fish was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to women and the community,[7] and in 2009, following the restoration of titular honours by the New Zealand government, she accepted redesignation as a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.[8]