Biography

Annie Gartly 1848 – 21 December 1875

Annie Gartly came to Dunedin in 1873 when she was 25. Possibly she came to get a husband. There was a shortage of men in Britain but New Zealand was teeming with bachelors. She may have come out on a government-assisted programme, because she became a servant when she arrived. These programmes aimed to encourage young women out to the colony to be servants for wealthy families. Domestic work was, however, back-breaking, with no chance to meet a potential husband, let alone marry one. Servants worked a long day from 6:30am until 11:00pm with one night off a week.

The demand for servants gave them bargaining power which they did not have in Britain. So colonial servants had a self-confident air often scathingly referred to as “servantgalism”. They were thought brazen and their bright clothes shocked their employers. One habit that was annoying for some employers was when upstart maids asked the employers for references. “I’ll tell you why I left my last place, if you tell me why you dismissed your last cook”. The Otago Daily Times sided with the servants and wrote in 1875, “Those whose temper… will not allow them to conform to the new order of things will – we shudder at the thought – actually have to do their own work themselves.”

New Zealand, however, was not to be a new beginning for Annie. She died two years after arriving. On her gravestone is carved a broken lily, symbolic of a life cut in its prime. Why is a servant’s gravestone so grand? Perhaps she had found a wealthy sweetheart after all.