Addison, Agnes, 1842?-1903

Broomfield, Agnes, 1842?-1903

Edinburgh-born, the child of Margaret Fairbairn and her husband, Joseph Broomfield. Agnes Broomfield was a 32-year-old hat trimmer at the time of her marriage to Robert Addison, a carpenter, in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 19 August 1874. On 31 October 1874 Agnes and Robert Addison sailed for New Zealand on the clipper Michael Angelo as assisted immigrants. They disembarked at Nelson on 22 January 1875, and on 29 January crossed the Hokitika River. They were to have 3 daughters. Agnes Addison won a reputation as a teetotaller and a woman of high moral standards. After Robert's death at Hokitika on 26 November 1885, ownership of 27 perches of town land, two cottages and two stores, and responsibility for their four daughters, fell solely to Agnes. By 1890 Addison's drapery was firmly established and Agnes Addison was a leading businesswoman in Hokitika in the 1890s. (Source of information: DNZB)