She was the Mrs. Sneyd who was so famously killed in 1901 in the Invercargill signal rocket incident. The incident was all over the newspapers of the time.

From the 1851 census. Strangely, Robert doesn’t appear in the 1841 census, although it’s clearly the same family.

This is the Robert (Heather Mountjoy and I believe) who came to NZ with his wife and three sons, and set up a pottery business in Makarewa, just north of Invercargill, around 1884. The Daily Telegraph reports on 27 Sept, 1884 “The Timaru Herald learns that the pottery works at Milton are to have a competitor in the production of the finer kinds of pottery. Mr Robert Sneyd, a recent arrival in the Colony and experienced in the manufacture, has erected works at Makarewa, near Invercargill, and expects soon to place wares in the market.” This met all kinds of resistance, both from the pottery business at Milton, as well as because people didn’t want to buy locally made ware. Robert died in 1892 and his business, then run by his sons Arthur and Charles Frederick, went bankrupt in 1894. Robert’s widow, Nancy Littlewood Sneyd, was killed in the famous 1901 incident with a signal rocket in Invercargill, and her son C.F. Sneyd later moved to Kaiapoi with the rest of the family.

Hence all the Kaiapoi Sneyds, who are probably unrelated to the original Kaiapoi Sneyd, Dryden Henry Sneyd, who came from the wealthy Sneyd lot.

This Robert (and family) arrived in Dunedin on the Invercargill, in 1883 (Otago Witness, 17 Feb., 1883). The family is listed as R. Sneyd, Nancy L. Sneyd, Arthur, Charles F., Elizabeth, Henry. Identification of this Robert as the son of Benjamin and Ann Bourne is given on his death certificate.

Robert’s obituary from the Southland Times is reproduced in the multimedia section.