Originally transcribed as B. Manat
Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Barbara Joanna Mouat was working as postmistress at the South Dunedin Post Office when she signed the suffrage petition.
She is possibly the Barbara Joanna Mouat born about 1855 in the Shetland Islands.
In 1904 Barbara filed a patent for a new and improved fire grate.
The following year a trial exhibition was held at Cossens & Black’s foundry 'in the presence of a number of representatives from the leading engineering an ironmongery firms in town. The inventress has unquestionably struck a simple, original, yet ingenious idea which bids fair to revolutionise the grate business and gladden the hearts of thrifty housewives and their spouses who may have occasion to grumble at heavy coal bills in winter time...The inventress may reasonably expect to reap considerable pecuniary benefit as the result of her original conception.'
Barbara was still living in Dunedin in the 1920’s, she does not appear to have died in New Zealand and could be the 88-year-old Barbara who died in London in 1942.
Sources
GRO England https://www.gro.gov.uk
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz