Early Life
Sheppard was born Catherine Wilson Malcolm in Liverpool, England to Scottish parents Jemima Crawford Souter and Andrew Wilson Malcolm. She generally preferred to spell her given name "Katherine", or abbreviate it to "Kate". She received a good education, and was noted for her intellectual ability. Kate's father had a love of music which he passed on to her. For a time she lived with her uncle, a minister of the free church at Nairn. In 1869, several years after the death of her father, Sheppard and her siblings were taken by their mother to Christchurch. She married Walter Allen Sheppard three years later, and their only child Douglas was born on 8 December 1880.
In 1885, Kate Sheppard became involved in establishing the New Zealand Women's Christian Temperance Union, part of the larger temperance movement. Sheppard's involvement arose primarily from her religious beliefs, which she had derived from her mother.
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