Ann Boyce (20 November 1827 – 28 February 1914) was a New Zealand founding mother and herbalist. She was born Ann Cave in Sydney, Australia, on 20 November 1827. In 1837 she came to

Port Underwood Te Whanganui / Port Underwood is a sheltered harbour which forms the north-east extension of Te Koko-o-Kupe / Cloudy Bay at the northeast of New Zealand's South Island, on the east coast of the Marlborough Sounds.Wises New Zealand Guide, 7th Edi ...

in Marlborough, New Zealand, with her family. She married William Boyce when she was 16 or less, and they lived in the Nelson area, and later

Motueka Motueka is a town in the South Island of New Zealand, close to the mouth of the Motueka River on the western shore of Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere. It is the second largest in the Tasman Region, with a population of as of The surrounding dis ...

. She had 13 children. Boyce had close contact with

Māori people The Māori (, ) are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand (). Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several ce ...

from the time she came to New Zealand. In Motueka, she was known as a herbalist especially knowledgeable about the medicinal use of plants, and provided medical assistance to Māori. She died at Motueka on 28 February 1914 aged 87, having outlived her husband by nearly 19 years. She was written about in a two-page story by her granddaughter

Flora Park Cave Spurdle Flora Park Cave Spurdle (1883–1973) was a notable New Zealand journalist, museum worker and local historian. She was born in Whanganui, New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean ...

called "Tales my grandmother told me". Boyce's parents were Samuel Cave and Susannah Noon, both sent to New South Wales from England as convicts. Noon was only a young girl when she was transported in 1811. An account of her life and those of the other women on the convict ship ''Friends'', ''The Girl Who Stole Stockings'', was published in October 2015.

References

1827 births 1914 deaths Australian emigrants to New Zealand Herbalists 19th-century New Zealand women {{herbalist-stub