Annie Southgate

Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert.

Annie Southgate born 1864 in Warkworth, one of the 14 children of John Southgate and Elizabeth Harper. Annie was 10 years old when her mother died in childbirth, and three of her siblings died before they were ten. Her sister Fanny also survived to adulthood.

See 378 Fannie Southgate

When Annie was a young woman, she participated in fundraising and church activities, where she sang solos and was credited with “being the neatest and best lady dancer in the room”. In 1885, she completed her first year as a Pupil Teacher.

In 1891 Richard Nelson Warin, an engine driver, married another of Annie's sisters, Minnie Catherine Southgate. The couple had four children before Minnie died in 1906 aged 38.

Four years later he married Annie. In previous times such a marriage would not have been permitted, but the Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Act of 1880 made “it expedient to permit the marriage of a man with the sister of his deceased wife”. Richard and Annie had no children of their own.

In 1914 Annie died, recorded in the newspaper as: “Death of an old resident. The death occurred on Saturday evening after a long illness of Mrs. Richard Warin, wife of Mr. R. Warin. Deceased was a daughter of the late Mr. J. Southgate, and had lived in Warkworth all her life.”

After Annie’s death Richard moved to Portland and worked at the cement works as a foreman. By 1938 he had retired and lived in Ponsonby, Auckland, until he died on 19 November 1948. He was cremated at Waikumete.

Sources

Find a Grave

Ancestry

New Zealand Legal Information Institute

Papers Past

• "Brief mention", Observer, 18 February 1882 (note: racial slur in text)
• "Board of Education", New Zealand Herald, 1 August 1885
• "Country news", New Zealand Herald, 7 October 1914