Biographical information provided by Fiona Oliver for the He Tohu exhibition:
Elizabeth Stiles was born in Foleshill, Warwickshire (England) around 1823. She worked as a laundress and was 19 years old when she married William Jordan, but he is presumed to have died soon after because three years later, in 1847, she married Henry Bromwich, a labourer and brickmaker. They had six children – all daughters – and lived in Kentish Town, London. Her oldest daughter, Fanny, died at 12 years old at the St Pancras Workhouse.
Elizabeth emigrated with her husband and three of her children to Wellington in 1873, aboard the Duke of Edinburgh; a year earlier, two of her daughters had come to Wellington with their uncle, Elizabeth’s brother. In Wellington, Elizabeth settled with her family at Wallace St, Mt Cook. She died of stomach cancer in 1894, aged 71.
