Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Ann Matilda Corke was born in 1856 in the Isle of Wight in Hampshire, England – the daughter of George Corke, a ship’s carpenter, and Phoebe Snelling.
She emigrated to New Zealand where she married William Baird, a carver, in 1874.
They had eight children, one who died in infancy, and when Matilda signed the suffrage petition they were living in Fox Road in South Dunedin.
William died in 1910 and Matilda remarried in 1912 to James Hooper.
She died on 23 June 1917 at her daughter’s home in South Dunedin and is buried with William in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.
It is unclear where or when James Hooper died.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
GRO England https://www.gro.gov.uk
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz