Maker: Laurel van Leuven

Panel number: 91

Petition Sheet Number: 95

Person honouring: Mrs J Bevin

Relationship to makers: great-great-aunt

Annie Costello was born about 1831. She married John Bevin, a veteran of the Charge of the Light Brigade and a private in the 8th Hussars, sometime after his discharge in 1854. 

They emigrated to Victoria, Australia where John worked in the Police Force as a rough riding instructor. They had three children in Victoria before Annie and the children came to Otago in 1862 on the ‘Blue Jacket’. Presumably John had travelled earlier. They had a further four children in New Zealand and John was eventually promoted to the rank of Sergeant Major.

John died in 1892 and was awarded a military funeral. When she signed the suffrage petition Annie was living in Glen Avenue, Mornington. She moved to Christchurch in the late 1890s where she died on 20 September 1906. She is buried with John in the Southern Cemetery, Dunedin.

Panel materials: Blue acrylic paint as a background, recycled lace from a skirt, some recycled fabric for her signature, some old beads and thread.