Ellen Kinnimont

Biography submitted by Helen Edwards.

Helen (Hellen, Ellen) Potter was the daughter of Henry Potter and Ann Boag, a Scots couple who were living in Livingstone, West Lothian, before they emigrated to Otago about 1861. Ellen, born in 1861, was the first of eight children to be born in New Zealand, and she had three elder brothers, born in Scotland.  

Her childhood was spent in Pine Hill, Dunedin, probably on the farm where her father was a dairyman.  He became the owner of the 100-acre farm in 1880.  

Not far away, Potters Road, named after Ellen’s family, runs off Norwood Street, in North East Valley, and members of the Potter family were still living there in 1919.  Ellen’s future husband also lived in the Pine Hill and North East Valley area. On 13 February 1880, she married Andrew Kininmont (also known as Kinninmont / Kinimont / Kinnimont / Kinninmonth) at Knox Church, Dunedin.  Helen was 18 and Andrew, a butcher, was 21.  

Andrew, born in Castlemaine, Victoria, was the son of Henry Kinninmonth (1826-1905) and Janet Renfrew (1824-1911), who emigrated to Otago about 1862.  Andrew Kininmont was first recorded in the 1886 Stone’s Directory as living in Broughton, Roslyn.  They moved to what was then known as Main West Taieri Road (now Taieri Road), about 1892.  Ellen signed herself Ellen Kinnimont on the petition; it was also the form of name used in directories.  On official documents ‘Kininmont’ was most commonly used.  

The Kininmonts had seven children between 1880 and 1897; most attended Kaikorai School.  Some of the wider Kininmont family moved to the Napier area, and the children lived with them for short periods.  

Ellen and Andrew left Roslyn about 1895 and died in the Gisborne area; Ellen on 17 July 1929, aged 69, and Andrew in June 1950, at the age of 92.  Both are buried in the Taruheru Cemetery. 

Main Sources:

ancestry.com
Kaikorai School Dunedin New Zealand Admission, Progress, Withdrawal Registers, 1879-1920: an alphabetical transcript.  Dunedin Branch, New Zealand Society of Genealogists, 1995
Knox Church, Dunedin.  Presbyterian church marriage registers : Knox Church, Dunedin, 1860-1920 [prepared by] Eleanor Leckie, 1988.
New Zealand burial locator. Electronic resource, Dunedin Public Library.
OASES. Toitu Otago Settlers’ Museum
Otago Nominal Index.  Hocken Collections, University of Otago.
Stone’s Otago and Southland commercial, municipal and general directory …  Dunedin: Stone & Co., 1884-