She earned her living as a silk marker, and at the age of twenty-one, on Christmas Day 1850, she married Thomas Kirk, a bookkeeper in the local timber company.

[5] Fresh off the boat, Thomas Kirk earned money by breaking stones at Mount Eden for building roads.

[6] By 1867 Thomas Kirk had begun his scientific explorations of the natural world, becoming well known for his specimen collections and writings on the botany of New Zealand.

[8] Despite the hard work of maintaining a large family and with a husband often absent on research trips, Kirk began crafting her role of church and civic engagement.

From the beginning New Zealand's Baptist women took active roles in prayer meetings and serving as missionary evangelists.

[11] The Kirk women contributed regularly to outreach missionary work for the church, and the eldest daughter Amy served as a Sunday School teacher for over thirty years.

[13] Only a few years later, the group opened in 1881 a Home for Destitute and Friendless Women in Hanson Street, Newtown, a working-class area on the southern outskirts of Wellington.

For a few months, the group also sponsored a Female Refuge on Nairn Street with a managing committee led by Lady Elizabeth Jervois, the Governor's wife.

In 1906 she wrote a letter to the editor of the WCTU NZ White Ribbon encouraging the membership to support the No-License referendum of 1908.

[15] On Saturday, 15 January 1916, Sarah Jane Kirk died at her residence at 30 Pirie Street in Wellington, New Zealand.