Biography contributed by Jenny Robertston for the He Tohu exhibtion
Amelia Leith née Oaten b 1836, London to Charlotte Amelia Oaten née Pellett and John Oaten, confectioner/master baker. The family migrated unassisted on the Luconia to Victoria, Australia, June 1854.
There, Amelia married Peter Goodwin Leith, 27, from Banff, Scotland, a timber measurer in 1855. About 1863 the family moved to Dunedin with four children: Agnes Henderson b 1855, John b 1857, Elizabeth Oaten b 1859, and Samuel Pellett b 1862. Others followed: Charles Edward 1864/5, Charlotte Amelia 1869, Margaret Hood 1871, George 1874, and Helen 1877.
By 1877 they lived in High St, Dunedin in six-roomed ‘Euston Villa’. Peter experienced bankruptcies in 1866 and 1877.
With six of her nine children still living, Amelia died in Dunedin hospital on 22 June 1907 and is buried in Dunedin’s Northern Cemetery.
Her daughter, Elizabeth (136 Mrs T. Brown), also signed the petition.