Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert
Ada Legge was born in 1867 to John and Emma nee Broughton. They were both from Berkshire, England and arrived in Auckland September 1862 on board the Matilda Wattenbach. They took up a land grant at Port Albert where Ada and four more siblings were born.
Ada lived with her parents on the family farm and became a nurse. She left for London on board the Athenic in January 1911. When Ada’s father John died in July, Ada was still overseas. Later that year newspapers reported, 'Dr. and Mrs. H. O. Jones, of Auckland, and Miss Legge, will leave for New Zealand by the ‘Corinthic’ on October 12. They have been in this country since the beginning of May. During this time Dr. Jones has confined himself to the study of children's diseases, having attended the Children's Hospital; Glasgow, and the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond-street.'
Ada was left 100 pounds from her father’s will, but she was not to receive it until her mother died ten years later. She moved away from Port Albert and for the next thirty years she lived at various addresses around central Auckland, probably working as a nurse.
Ada travelled again to London when she was 70-years-old, she travelled on the Arawa and was away over a year. She died in October 1947 and was buried in Port Albert. Her probate split her property evenly between her nieces Gladys Smith, Doris Adams, and Leo Treadwell, after smaller bequests to friends in Port Albert.
Ada is the daughter of 24 Emma LEGGE Port Albert
Sources
PAPERS PAST Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVIII, Issue 1602, 9 September 1862, Page 3
PAPERS PAST Evening Star, Issue 14728, 21 November 1911, Page 6
PAPERS PAST New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 147800, 2 October 1911, Page 9