Annie Jane Schnackenberg


Annie Jane Schnackenberg was a New Zealand Wesleyan missionary, temperance and welfare worker, and suffragist.

Early life

Annie Jane Allen was born in Leamington Priors, Warwickshire, England in 1835, the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Dodd and Edward Allen. The family moved to New Zealand in 1861, travelling on the Black Eagle, and became pioneer farmers in the Mount Albert area of Auckland. Within days of her arrival, Annie was asked to teach in Wesleyan Mission schools on the west coast of the Waikato region. Eliza White, who had previously served at the Kawhia Mission, probably was part of her recruitment.
Allen set out for Kawhia in November 1861, a difficult journey by bullock dray, canoe and foot which took two weeks. At Kawhia, she assisted Cort Schnackenberg and his wife Amy to save and educate the Māori people. The Inspector of Native Schools praised her work. Amy died of breast cancer in late 1863, and Cort proposed to Annie within months. They were married in Auckland in May 1864. From 1865 to 1872 they had three daughters and two sons. The Waikato War of 1863–1864 disrupted the mission's work, and a subsequent ban imposed by the Māori King Movement on European travel in the area decided the church authorities to move the mission further north to Raglan.
They remained at Raglan until Cort's health failed in 1880. He died on board ship travelling to Auckland. Annie returned to live at her family's farmhouse with her children.

Activism

Schnackenberg became active in local church affairs, and became a leader of the Pitt Street Methodist Church by 1882. During this time, she would have met Elizabeth Caradus and other women later active in social reform for women. She was a foundation member of the Auckland branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1885. From 1889 to 1897, she was the branch president, and from 1891 to 1901 she was also national president. Due to her extensive experience with Māori people and fluency in the language, she became the WCTU national superintendent of Maori work in 1898. She was also on the board of their publication, The White Ribbon.
The National Council of Women was formed in 1896. Schnackenberg represented the WCTU at the inaugural meeting in Christchurch, and was appointed a vice-president.
When women's suffrage was passed, Schnackenberg chaired a large celebratory public meeting in Auckland on 28 September 1893. A year later, she chaired a second meeting to report on progress made since the first.
Schnackenberg took strong moral positions in the defence of women. She advocated that temperance become a part of the school curriculum. She was unsuccessful in this, but the Department of Education did order temperance textbooks, making the teaching of temperance in schools possible. She campaigned for the age of consent to be raised to 21 "because it ought never to be possible for a girl or woman to consent to her own ruin". She opposed the Contagious Diseases Act of 1869, which allowed prostitutes but not their clients to be detained for inspection and treatment of sexually-transmitted diseases, because it made it safer for men to sin. She also opposed smoking tobacco and tattoos.
She gave up presidency of the WCTU in 1901 as her health declined. She became more ill in 1903, and died on 2 May 1905. She was buried beside her husband in Symonds Street Cemetery.