Jessie F. Bannister

Biography contributed by Sheryl Williams

Jessie Frances Bannister was born at Wellington in 1860, eighth of the fourteen children of Edwin Bannister, a compositor, and his wife Mary, née Tutchen.  Edwin was born in Staffordshire, England, and travelled to New Zealand with his family on the Bolton, arriving in April 1840, while the Tutchens, from South Petherton, Somerset, arrived on the Arab in October 1841.

In the mid-1870s Jessie’s family moved from Cuba Street, where they had been living since the 1850s, to ‘Woodlawn’ at section 21 in Porirua Road.  Jessie was still living at Johnsonville in 1896, however the 1900 electoral roll lists her as ’governess’, living at Fitzherbert, Palmerston North, and on all subsequent rolls she is listed as living in Campbell Street, Palmerston North. 

In 1901 she married John Hepworth, a herbalist and widower about twenty years her senior.  John died in 1931 and Jessie, childless, in 1951.

In her will Jessie directed that, following payment of personal bequests, the balance of her estate was to be divided equally among the Methodist Church on Cuba Street, Palmerston North, the Auckland Central Methodist Mission, the Salvation Army in Palmerston North and the Aged and Blind Club in Palmerston North.  

John, Jessie and John’s first wife, Sarah née Renshaw, are all buried at Terrace End Cemetery, Palmerston North.  

Sources

Carman, Arthur H. Tawa Flat and the Old Porirua Road 1840—1982. The author, Tawa, Revised edition, 1982, pp.64-65.
ancestry.co.uk, New Zealand Electoral Rolls, 1853-1981
ancestry.co.uk, New Zealand Cemetery Records, 1800-2007
familysearch.org, Archives New Zealand, Probate Records, 1843-1998
bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz