Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Agnes Smith was born on 25 June 1857 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland – the daughter of James Smith, a farm labourer, and Janet Ledingham.
She emigrated to Otago with her family on the Pladda, arriving in 1860.
The family lived in Dunedin, Orepuki, Riverton, Warepa and Balclutha before settling in Kelso in the 1870s.
Agnes married James Balneaves on 25 July 1882 at her parents’ home and when she signed the suffrage petition they were living in Glenorchy at the head of Lake Wakatipu and James was working as a farm manager.
They had seven daughters and one son, William, who died during the First World War.
In the 1900s the family moved to Myross Bush in Southland where James died in 1930 and Agnes died on 1 February 1936.
They are buried in the family grave in the Invercargill Eastern Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Presbyterian Research Centre https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/
Invercargill City Council https://icc.govt.nz
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