Ada R. Tily

Ada Rebecca Tily was born in 1868 in Portobello, Otago to Thomas Tily and Euphemia Ferguson Gray. Thomas was the headmaster of Portobello School and had come to Otago from Farnham in England, via Melbourne and Hobart. The family were Baptists.

In 1886, Ada was admitted to the Normal School, which was a teachers' training institution. In 1889, she passed her teachers’ examination.

In 1898, at her parents’ home, she married John Hewitt Taverner, a compositor. Her first son was born in Victoria, Australia, but the rest of her five children were born in Dunedin. They lived at first at Caversham and then farmed in the Brighton area.

Ada died in Dunedin in 1945.