Sarah Ann Couper

Biographical information provided by Fiona Oliver for the He Tohu exhibition:

Sarah Ann Couper (nee Hallett) was one of the early pioneers to New Zealand, arriving with her family in Wellington on the Clifton in 1842. Her parents proceeded to Waimarama, then to Meanee. She married in 1859 and moved with her husband, William Couper, to Frasertown on the East Cape, where she would have been worried about the 1869 massacre at neighbouring Mohaka. When she died in 1916 she left three daughters, seven sons, 57 grandchildren and 38 great-grandchildren. At least two of her daughters, Louise Couper and Jane Hallett Beckett, and a daughter-in-law, Emily Couper, also signed the Petition.