Annie Jane Schnackenberg was a social and political activist who drew on her Methodist values to support the lives of women and children in Aotearoa. Among Methodist women whose Christian concern has led them to social and political action, Annie was outstanding.

Born in Warwickshire, England in 1835, Annie Allen was the eldest of six children. She arrived in New Zealand in 1861 with her family, settling into a farming life at Mount Albert, Auckland. She became a Wesleyan missionary, temperance and welfare worker, teacher and suffragist.

In November that year ex-missionary, Eliza White of Mangungu, asked her to teach at the Wesleyan mission school in Kāwhia, a boarding school for 25 Māori girls. It took two weeks to travel there. In 1864 Annie married the local widowed Wesleyan minister, Cort Henry Schnackenberg. He had arrived from Hanover, Germany in the 1840s and oversaw several Native schools and congregations.

This Mission was self-sufficient so as a housewife and mother to five children she assisted with Mission duties: preaching, writing official letters to Government, some to Governor Grey, keeping the Mission accounts, growing fruit and vegetables, and teaching sewing skills.

The family had very good relationships with the Māori families and during the Waikato Land Wars shifted to Raglan. It appears that theirs was the first Pākehāhome to welcome King Tawhaio when the fighting ended in 1864.

Cort died in 1880 and Annie and the children moved back to Mount Albert to her parents’ house where she worked for the church and Sunday schools. She joined several Christian women’s organisations and in 1882 was a leader at the Pitt Street Wesleyan Church.

She was a founder member of the NZ Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) established in 1885, becoming the National President 1891-1901 then Vice President until 1911. She advocated for temperance instruction in schools.

The WCTU was at the forefront of the agitation for women’s suffrage in NZ and women gained the vote when she was the President. In her opinion, “the vote was a sacred trust to be used for the advancement of every righteous cause”. At that time she did not believe that women wanted to become members of parliament. Other WCTU reforms supported by her included raising the age of consent for girls to 21, and the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act 1869, which made legal the examination of prostitutes.

The WCTU was at the inaugural meeting of the NCWNZ in Christchurch in 1896 and she was appointed the first Vice President to the President, Kate Sheppard. She spoke strongly supporting the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act. She was appointed as the Superintendent of Māori women because of her fluency in te reo. The Union was disturbed by the alcohol abuse among Māori. Annie travelled throughout the central North Island to advocate temperance and the observation of the Sabbath.

She was a member of the YWCA founded in Auckland in 1885 and worked on the board 1890-1901. Ill health curtailed her community involvement and she was an invalid till her death in 1905.

She is remembered for her warm-hearted sincerity, her unfailing good nature and remarkable gift of common sense. She was a tireless campaigner serving with the Auckland Jubilee Kindergarten, the Tailoresses’ Union, the Women’s Political League, the Society for the Protection of Women and Children, and the publication board of the WCTU bulletin The White Ribbon which is still being printed today.

Her Wesleyan beliefs shaped her life. With her good nature, Māori knowledge and Christian values, she accepted as a sacred trust the public responsibility of striving for the advancement of New Zealand women and for a better society.

Footnote: In 1993, Marion Kitchingman was commissioned by the Community of Women and Men in Church and Society (a Committee of the Methodist Church of New Zealand) to write and present a solo theatre portrayal of the life of Annie Schnackenberg. This was to mark the centenary of Women’s Suffrage. Marion performed ‘A Life in Earnest’ at the Annual Conference that year and later at a number of other venues.

References: Google and Out of the Silence and In the Steps of Susanna, both written by Ruth Fry for NZMWF members in 1987.