Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert.
Fanny (or Fannie) Elizabeth Southgate was born 1862 in Warkworth, one of the 14 children of John Southgate and Elizabeth Harper. When Fanny was 12 years old, her mother died in childbirth, and three of her siblings died before they were ten. Her sister Annie also survived to adulthood.
In 1895 Fanny married Albert Dean Cooke, publican of a house "situate at Waiwera, and known as the Waiwera Hot Springs Hotel, containing one hundred rooms, exclusive of those required for the use of the family".
In Waiwere they had their only child Ernest Edgar, born 1898. From the electoral rolls it is evident that they lived there all their lives, where Albert was described as licensee or settler.
Albert died accidentally on 11 August 1933. He was “presumed to have walked in his sleep last night... [he] fell from the cliffs near the top of Waiwera Hill to the rocks below, and was either killed or drowned”. He was buried at Holy Trinity Cemetery, Silverdale, north of Auckland.
Fanny lived on in Waiwera until she died on 7 July 1946. She left a will naming her son Ernest as executor and sole beneficiary. She is buried in Holy Trinity Cemetery, Silverdale, with her husband and his mother Sarah.
Sources
Papers Past
- "Wade Licensing District", New Zealand Herald, 8 May 1889
- "Sleep-walker's fate", Evening Star, 12 August 1933
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