Ann Alabaster

Ann O’Connor Alabaster (née Warner, 15 February 1842 – 25 February 1915) was a New Zealand teacher and businesswoman. She was the founder of the prestigious boys' secondary school Lincoln Cottage Preparatory School in Christchurch.[1]

Biography

Alabaster was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, to Sarah Lyne and her husband Robert Warner, a shoemaker.[2] She became a teacher in Oxford and in 1858 married a local vicar, Charles Alabaster (d. 1865).[1] She emigrated with him to New Zealand, arriving in Lyttelton on the Strathallan in January 1859. In 1860 she gave birth to a son, Austin Henry Alabaster.[3]

In 1862, her husband became ill and was forced to retire, and Alabaster opened a boys' school in Cranmer Square, Christchurch, to prepare boys to enter Christ's College. Alabaster managed the school herself until her retirement in 1882.[4]

After retiring, she took in lady boarders to earn an income, and then remarried in 1891.[4]

References
  1. Francis, Margaret. "Ann O'Connor Alabaster". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  2. "Alabaster, Ann O'Connor, 1842-1915". natlib.govt.nz. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  3. "Francis, Margaret: Photographs of Ann O'Connor Alabaster (1842-1915) and the Reverend Charles Alabaster (1833?-1865)". natlib.govt.nz. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  4. Bishop, Catherine (2019). Women Mean Business. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-98-853176-2.


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