Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Ann Walker was born in 1851 in Gomersal, Yorkshire, England – the daughter of Joseph Walker, a grocer and flock dealer, and Mary Rowley.
She married Watson Rhodes, a farm labourer, in Yorkshire in 1874 and they had two daughters before they emigrated to Otago in 1879 on the Wellington.
The family settled in Clinton in South Otago where Ann signed the suffrage petition and Watson worked as a builder and famer.
Ann’s sister also signed the petition in Clinton (See 110 Martha Walker)
One of their daughters died in 1882 and they had a further nine children - the youngest four all died in infancy.
In the 1900s they moved to Roxburgh then to Dunedin where Watson died in 1925.
Ann died on 7 September 1930, she is buried with Watson in the family grave in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Free BDM https://www.freebmd.org.uk
GRO England https://www.gro.gov.uk
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Balclutha Geneaology Society http://www.balcluthagenealogy.org.nz