Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley.
Annie Taylor Blacke was born on February 5th 1865 in Belfast, Ireland – the daughter of David Estler Blacke, a clerk, and Annie Taylor Randall.
In 1875 Annie emigrated to Otago on the Earl of Zetland with her family and they settled in Dunedin.
When Annie signed the suffrage petition she was living with her mother and siblings in Heriot Row working as an artist.
In 1896 she was advertising her art classes – landscape, flower painting and drawing.
In December 1898 her pupils presented Annie with “a handsome purse and a card case” before she sailed for London with her mother.
They settled in Kensington and Annie “continued her studies in art under the more favourable advantages afforded by an older country”.
In 1901 she was “elected a member of the Ninety-one Art Club, which holds rank as the leading art club for ladies in London”.
Around this time she also became known as Nattie or Natalie and, in 1904, one of her pictures was “hung on the walls of the Paris Salon”.
Her mother died in 1904 and shortly after Annie returned to New Zealand, until 1906 when she went to live in Cornwall with her sister Lizzie for a few months.
Annie married Christopher Lear Comyns, a coffee planter, artist and clergyman, in Essex.
They lived in Chelsea until 1914 when they sailed for India.
Annie died on July 25th 1919 in Bangalore, she is buried in the Ossoor/Hosur Road Cemetery.
Christopher remarried in England in 1928, he died in 1938.
Sources
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