Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Annie Wyllie Heddle Malcolm was born about 1835 in Orkney, Scotland.
She married David Bethune, a flesher or butcher, in Edinburgh on 22 June 1860.
They had two children before the family emigrated to Otago in 1862 on the Sevilla and a further seven children were born in New Zealand.
David was declared bankrupt in 1869. The family lived in North East Valley in an area now known as Bethune’s Gully where David ran a timber business as well as a slaughter yard.
The family moved into Dunedin in the 1880s and were living in Great King St when their son William died in 1888.
David was again declared bankrupt in 1889 and when Annie signed the suffrage petition she was living in Cumberland St.
David appears to have had a drinking problem and a prohibition order was made against him in 1898.
He died in 1903 in a boarding house in Dunedin.
Annie died at her daughter’s home in Dunedin on 9 June 1916, she is buried with David in the family grave in the Northern 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
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
Community contributions