Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley.
Jane Brebner was born about 1826 in Renfrewshire, Scotland – the daughter of Alexander Brebner and Ann Glendinning.
She moved to Lancashire with her family where she married Richard Henry Cumberbeach, a cordwainer, on 24 May 1850 in Manchester.
They had four children before the family emigrated to Otago in 1856 on the “Strathmore”.
Richard died on the journey and Jane re-married in 1857 to Henry Barnett.
They lived for a short time at Moeraki before they moved to Waikouaiti arriving there on a surf boat.
They had four children and while Henry ran the farm Jane, “having a good knowledge of nursing was able to afford great assistance to her neighbours until there was a resident physician in the district”.
Henry died in 1880 and when Jane signed the suffrage petition she was living with her son in Blacks Road, North East Valley, Dunedin.
Jane died on 7 July 1918 – she is buried with Henry in the Waikouaiti 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