Maker: Margaret Cassie

Panel number: 59

Petition Sheet Number: 54

Person honouring: Annie Binnie

Relationship to makers: Great great grandmother

Annie Binnie was born Annie Hill in January 1838 in Wigan, Lancashire, England, daughter of Sarah and Thomas Hill. Her father died when she was two and her mother married Robert Murdoch when Annie was four. 

At the age of 21, Annie’s mother gave her a book of poetry, beautifully inscribed. Annie married Robert Binnie, a mechanic, on July 15, 1863, in Wiltshire, England. They had two daughters, Laura Roberta and Christine Isabel (my great grandmother), living in Banbury, Oxfordshire, before emigrating to New Zealand. 

In August 1878, Annie, her daughters and her parents, sailed from Gravesend in the Dunedin, arriving at Port Chalmers on 17 November. Annie settled with her husband, who had come to NZ earlier, on a smallholding ‘Craigieburn’ on Upper Junction Road, Mt Cargill, near Port Chalmers. The large macrocarpa trees they planted still stand along the roadway over 140 years on. 

We know little about Annie’s life here in NZ other than she was a strong woman, who loved her girls, believed in education and was an accomplished needlewoman. She signed the petition in 1893. In 1899 she won a medal for her ‘Collection of Fancy Sewing’. Examples of her lace, beading, sewing and embroidery exist today. 

At the age of 16, Christine Isabel, Annie’s youngest daughter, went to Otago Girls’ High School for three years 1882-1884, later attending Dunedin Teachers College (1885-86), before taking up teaching prior to marrying Nicholas Dodds in 1889. Christine owned land in her name and signed the petition in 1892. Laura, the eldest daughter, never married and continued to live with her parents and grandparents at Craigieburn. 

Annie died in 1905, at Craigieburn, at the age of 67, and was buried in Port Chalmers. Her four grandchildren were all born before she died and lived nearby in Port Chalmers. There is one treasured photo of Annie, her mother, her daughter Christine and my grandmother (Dorothy Maude Dodds).

Panel materials: Stylised pink corset, based on a note from Annie asking for her pink corset. The fabrics, beads and threads were mostly stash. The lace came from a box (some dyed using food dye) of lace which date back to Annie. The main lace is handmade needle lace, apparently a fine example, and I suspect made by Annie, who was an extraordinary needlewoman. The 64 beads represent the women who signed the sheet, and also the exquisite beading work of Annie’s that are still held in the family.