Biographical information provided by Pat Booth for the He Tohu exhibition:
Mary Ann Gifford (nee Ford) was born in Ulley, Gloucestershire, in 1825. She sailed from Gravesend on 18 December 1841, in the “Clifford” (460 tons - compare the Interislander ferries of about 20,000 tons) arriving in Nelson on 1 May 1842 with her father Charles (registered as an agricultural labourer), mother Hannah (nee Mills) and five younger siblings. Mary was registered as a ‘servant’. The family soon settled at Waimea West. When she was 19 years old, she married Isaac Gifford and settled in the Wairau where she brought up twelve children. She died in 1921 aged 95 years, and is buried in the Rapaura Cemetery, Spring Creek, near Blenheim.
Mary Ann signed the petition aged 68 years.