suffrage_petition
Surname: 
Hookham
Given names: 
Annie E.
Given address: 
Christchurch
Sheet No: 3
Town/Suburb: 
No suburb given
City/Region: 
Christchurch
Notes: 

Biographical information provided by Margaret Lovell-Smith for the He Tohu exhibition:

Annie Hookham (later Taylor) was born in London in 1856, and arrived in New Zealand as a nine year old. She became a teacher and as a young woman in her twenties she held responsible positions in the Riccarton and Papanui Primary Schools. However, at about the age of 30 she seems to have retired from teaching and lived quietly at home.

She became President of the Canterbury Women's Institute (CWI) in 1895 and remained an active member of the CWI committee for at least another ten years. She attended the first National Council of Women meeting in 1896 as a delegate from the Fabian Society, and gave a paper on 'constructive socialism.' She was quoted in The Lyttelton Times as saying that 'it was already widely recognised that the principle of individual competition on which society was based, was, viewed from an economic standpoint, radically erroneous, and the main cause of poverty, and all the evils entailed by it...'

The following year at the second National Council of Women meeting, also held in Christchurch, she said during a discussion on technical education that boys should be taught cooking and girls carpentering. 'It is unfair that girls, just because they are girls, should always have to perform work for which in many cases they are unfitted.'

In 1916, at the age of 59, she married Walter John Taylor, who died later the same year. She was a devout Anglican with a wide circle of friends and for the latter part of her life lived quietly with an unmarried sister. She died in Christchurch in 1931.

Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.

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