Mrs Patten

Biography contributed by Rose Webber

Annie Patten (nee Hardley), born 1857, Peterborough, England was the first child and only daughter of Isaac and Mary Hardley (nee Cheetham). When she was 16 Annie emigrated to New Zealand with her parents and brothers George, John and Isaac. Isaac senior was a tinsmith/plumber and the family were Government assisted emigrants on the Columbus, landing at Port Canterbury (Lyttleton), 12 September 1873.

They then travelled to Isaac’s brother Samuel and family in Charleston, the boom West Coast gold rush town. Samuel had come out to New Zealand 10 years earlier and had a thriving hardware business supplying miners. Getting to Charleston would have been a difficult and risky journey either by sea or overland through the mountains.

Annie was 17 when she married a 24 year old miner, Edward Henry Patten, in October 1874. Their first child Ettie was born in April 1875, followed in 1876 by Clara, Edward in 1877, William in 1878 and finally Annie in 1882. All of Annie’s children were born in Charleston before she was 25 years old.

By 1885 the family had moved to Westport where in 1893 Annie, Ettie and Clara signed the Suffrage Petition. Annie was 39-years-old when she is first listed on the Electoral Roll in 1896 and was living in Bentham St, Westport with Ettie, a dressmaker.

In 1905 Annie was living with her parents in Hawera, Taranaki. It appears that Annie and Edward parted ways around 1900-1905. Isaac died in 1912, Annie’s widowed daughter Ettie and children had come to live with her by 1920, and Mary died in 1922. Edward Patten remained on the West Coast, dying in 1921 and is buried in Orowaiti Cemetery, Westport.

Annie was aged 79 when she died in 1936 and is buried in Hawera cemetery with her parents.

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