Mrs Dalziel

Signed family name

Dalziel

Signed given name

Mrs

Given address

Hillside

Sheet number

Town/Suburb

South Dunedin

City/Region

Dunedin

Notes

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakely

Note: also signed page 46 of the petition as Mrs Dalziel

Ann Nicolson was born on 1 August 1839 in Fetlar, Shetland Islands – the daughter of John Nicolson & Margaret Gaunson.

Ann’s father died when she was young & Ann travelled to Victoria, Australia where she married Jeremiah Dalziel, a fisherman & boat builder also from Shetland, in 1867.

On 2 November 1867 the couple arrived at Hokitika, New Zealand on the Alhambra. They settled on the West Coast & had five children, two of who died in infancy, before they travelled to the ill-fated Special Settlement at Jackson Bay in South Westland in March 1875.

They were living in a wooden hut in the Arawata district when their sixth child was born.

The Jackson Bay Settlement was not a success & Jeremiah took up gold mining at Martins Bay to the south where their last child was born in 1878.

Later that year, in August, Jeremiah & their 10 year old son James drowned while travelling from Jackson Bay to Martins Bay in a boat.

Ann & the children were left destitute & the Shetland Society in Dunedin took up a subscription to raise money for the family.

They moved to Dunedin where Ann’s son worked as a law clerk. When she signed the suffrage petition Ann was living with her family in Main South Rd, Caversham.

Her son later moved to Wellington, Ann & her three remaining daughters later also moved to Wellington.

Ann died on 3 June 1920, she is buried in the Karori Cemetery, Wellington with her son & daughter.