Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
John Jack is one of the few men who signed the suffrage petition.
He was born about 1822 in Glasgow, Scotland and he married Lillias Twaddle on 14 June 1850 in Glasgow.
John worked as a cooper and they had nine children, two who died in infancy, before the family emigrated to Otago around 1874.
John was elected as a councillor for the Musselburgh Ward in the borough of St Kilda in 1878 and appears to have had a successful business.
In 1886 he was advertising that he 'having received large consignment of oak staves from New York, can supply the trade with first-class butter firkins and general cooper work of all descriptions at the most moderate prices.'
He exhibited his works at the Otago Agricultural and Pastoral Society’s annual show in 1886 and 1887 and, in 1890, he exhibited at the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition. 'The exhibit is unfortunately hidden in an out-of-the-way corner, where few people will be likely to look for it.'
When John signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Begg St, Musselburgh, Dunedin.
He died at his home on 28 June 1896 and Lillias died in 1910 in Christchurch, they are buried in the family grave in the Southern 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
Scotlands People https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
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