Signed family name
Townsend
Signed given name
Jessie
Given address
Waikouaiti
Notes
Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley.
Janet (Jessie) Lyall was born about 1850.
She emigrated to Otago in 1863 on the Viola. She married James Andrew Townsend, a farmer, in 1866.
They had 12 children and lived at first in Caversham near Dunedin where they had a dairy farm.
They later farmed at Taieri Mouth. While they were there James joined the police force and served as a constable for the next 10 years.
In the 1870s the family moved to Waikouaiti where Jessie signed the suffrage petition and where they farmed on the Hawksbury Estate.
James died at their home in 1915, and Jessie died in Waikouaiti on July 11th 1929. hey are buried in the family grave in the St John’s Anglican Cemetery, Waikouaiti.