Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Barbara Brown was born on 18 May 1831 in Abercorn, West Lothian, Scotland – the daughter of Robert Brown, an agricultural labourer, and Marion Hunter.
She married John Robertson, a joiner, on 6 June 1856 in Kirkliston, Linlithgowshire and they had seven children, one who died in infancy.
The family emigrated to Otago in 1880 on the Canterbury and they settled in Dunedin.
John died in 1886 and when Barbara signed the suffrage petition she was living with some of her children in Waverley St, Dunedin.
She died at her daughter’s home at Owaka in South Otago on 24 August 1921 and is buried with John in the family grave in the Southern Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Scotlands People https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
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