Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert
Ann Jane Williams born 1865 on Great Barrier Island, Auckland to Joseph and Jane nee Beaumont. Joseph had come to NZ in 1863 with the 43rd Monmouthshire regiment that had initially been posted to India. The Williams family went on to settle in Mahurangi, north of Auckland.
When Ann was 19, she married in 1884 at the Auckland Registry Office to John Southgate, a man 45 years older than her. John was a Cornishman and early settler to New Zealand. He was previously married to Elizabeth Ann Harper, who died in 1874, aged 42, in childbirth. They had 14 children, including the one that died with Elizabeth. John had run Southgate’s Accommodation Hotel, at Warkworth for over 20 years, when he retired after his first wife died. He moved little lower down the river, known as the Lime-kilns, where he had a hydraulic lime business.
After they were married, they had three girls born in Warkworth:
- Lillian Alice (1887–1957)
- Rose Margaret (1889–1979)
- Daisy Louisa (1891–1964)
On 1893 John was struck down by paralysis and died some months later in May 1894, aged 76. The newspaper reported that, 'During the whole time, his loving wife and daughters ministered to his personal comfort as none but those imbued with love could do.' He was buried with his first wife in the Warkworth Cemetery.
Ann was not yet 30 years old, left with three children under eight. They stayed in Mahurangi for a couple of years and then moved to Auckland, finally residing at Commercial Road, Grey Lynn. She died 24 Aug 1950 aged 84 and was buried at Purewa Cemetery. She never remarried and had been a widow for more than fifty years.
Ann Jane is the step-mother of #379 A. M. SOUTHGATE
Sources
PAPERS PAST Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXXI, Issue 5510, 21 April 1875, Page 3
PAPERS PAST Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 113, 12 May 1894, Page 5
Electoral Rolls (ancestry.com)
Historical BDMs
John SOUTHGATE death certificate 11 May 1894 (sighted)