Annie Huggan

Lily Annie Huggan (10 March 1890 – 4 May 1983) was an English-born New Zealand politician.

Biography Early life and career Huggan was born at Halifax in 1890 to cabinet maker John Henry Brown and his wife Rebecca Grundy Morton. She received her education in Brighouse and later Huddersfield. She spent 20 years working in local textile mills after leaving school. Eventually becoming a percher, a textile worker who inspects cloth, heading the mill's finishing department. The son of her boss asked her to marry him, however the proposal came too late as she had already planned to emigrate overseas, having been persuaded to do so by her father's uncle who lived in Auckland.

In December 1922 Huggan emigrated to New Zealand along with her parents and an older brother, settling in Wellington. Soon after arriving she met Joseph Mitchell Huggan and on 14 July 1923 the two married at St Hilda's Church, Upper Hutt. No children came from the marriage.

Political career Her husband died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage on 6 September 1957 at Hutt Hospital. Before her husband had even been buried, the Petone Labour Party branch asked Annie to stand for the mayoralty. She was given five days to decide. She spoke to the Town Clerk, her minister, a bank manager, several friends and wrote to her sister-in-law in Hawke's Bay about it. She wondered if the offer was serious or if it had been made out of sympathy. After initially being likely to decline the offer she received a telegram from her sister-in-law which said "It is what Joe would have liked" which led Huggan to change her mind and accepted the offer. She was the Petone Borough Council's representative on the State Advances Corporation's Hutt Valley housing allocation committee and the Hutt Park committee. Same as her husband, she was fiercely opposed to the suggestion of amalgamation of Petone with the neighbouring city of Lower Hutt.

Later life and death Huggan returned to her invisible-mending business after losing the mayoralty, however she continued an active public life including being the chair of the Hutt Valley Patriotic Welfare Committee.

Huggan died aged 93 on 4 May 1983 at the Bloomfield Hospice, Lower Hutt.