Atkinson, Jane Maria (1824–1914)
Atkinson, Jane Maria (1824–1914)
New Zealand letter writer and diarist. Name variations: Jane Maria Richmond. Born Jane Maria Richmond, Sept 15, 1824, in London, England; died at Nelson, New Zealand, Sept 29, 1914; dau. of Christopher Richmond (barrister) and Maria (Wilson) Richmond; attended school for young women at Highgate; m. Arthur Samuel Atkinson, 1854; children: 4.
Immigrated to Taranaki, New Zealand, and settled with family (1853); through letters and diary entries, recorded communal life in colonial region, British mismanagement, and the abandonment of the settlement (early 1860s); relocated to Nelson (1867), where she started a school for family's children; involved in women's suffrage and temperance movements; purported to have been the 1st white woman to climb Mt Egmont.
See also Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (Vol. 1); Frances Porter, Born to New Zealand: A Biography of Jane Maria Atkinson (Bridget Williams Books, 1985).