M. A. Richardson

Biographical information provided by Canterbury Museum for the He Tohu exhibition:

Mary Ann Hay was born in Lincolnshire in May 1843, and met her future husband, John Bell Richardson, in 1864. A young Methodist minister, Richardson was preparing to emigrate to New Zealand. A correspondence between the two led to Mary Ann travelling out to New Zealand to marry Richardson in August 1868. At the time he was Minister of the Kaiapoi Wesleyan Church.

In March 1870 the couple moved from Kaiapoi to an appointment in Blenheim. In March 1873 they moved again, this time to Lower Hutt and two years later they moved to Greytown. In 1879 the family moved to St Albans, Christchurch.

Mary Ann had eight children but lost four of them, two sons dying in a diptheria epidemic. Further tragedy was to follow. In April 1881 John Bell Richardson was drowned when the Tararua was shipwrecked shortly after he had been elected the President of New Zealand Methodist Church. The Church took up a collection which enabled Mary Ann to build a house on Papanui Road which she named 'Covenham', after her birth place in Lincolnshire. To support herself and her family she took in boarders.

Mary Ann was elected President of the Christchurch Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1890, and remained in this position until 1894. As President she presided over many of the meetings which discussed and promoted women's franchise. Early in 1894 she went on a trip to England.

Mary Ann Richardson died in July 1897, aged only 54. Her daughter Jane Elizabeth Richardson (1870-1903) also signed the same Sheet of the Petition.