[2] According to the England Census, Fanny and her siblings grew up in Wrockwardine Wood where her father worked as a bootmaker and served as the local Methodist preacher.

Some of the family immigrated to New Zealand in 1880; and the four sisters lived near their parents in Christchurch, marrying in quick succession as their mother grew ill and died.

[4] On 1 October 1886, their elder daughter Marguerita Lilian "Daisy" Cole was born in Richmond, on their estate called Ellengowan situated near the River Avon.

[7] Her children were four and six years old in 1892, when Fanny Cole of Richmond, Christchurch signed the suffrage petition put forward by the Political Franchise Leagues and WCTU NZ.

[9] Cole also signed the 1893 petition,[10] the largest ever presented in the New Zealand Parliament, and which led to the successful acquisition of women's right to vote at the national level.

They were still living at Ellangowan in Richmond according to the electoral rolls of 1896, but by 1894 Herbert Cole had started up a land agency business partnership with temperance activist Thomas "Tommy" E.

She was hailed for her leadership skills which included "conciliatory, tactful methods of procedure," and that meetings "were specially noticeable for the absence of anything approaching friction.

"[17] At the 1906 WCTU NZ convention conducted March 20–26 in Greymouth, hosted by the Anglican Church at Trinity Hall, Fanny B. Cole was elected national president.

The resolutions emphasized: anti war, anti-violence, remove disabilities hindering women from sitting as members of Parliament or other offices, protest against legalization of the Totalisator, creation of separate homes in rural areas with farms for men and women arrested due to a deficiency of sexual control; abolish the time limit of charges of criminal offences against girls; remove legal disabilities affecting illegitimate children; teach Scientific Temperance in schools; create economic equality of husband and wife – including restrictions on women's time and labour contained in Factory Acts; and, equal wages for equal work.

"[26] That year, too, her daughter Marguerite (aka "Daisy") Lilian Cole became business manager of the White Ribbon – and began accompanying her mother to conventions.

[27] Hera Stirling, a former Salvation Army officer and currently an Anglican missionary from Pūtiki, spoke eloquently about her work among the Māori in the Hawke's Bay, Waikato and Wanganui districts – and petitioned for the WCTU NZ to set aside funds specifically for Māori-related projects.

Cole emphasized the campaign to abolish the Totalisator allowed in the Gambling Bill and that the Union chapters had gathered together 36,000 signatures to send as a petition to Parliament.

[35] That year the Contagious Diseases Acts were finally repealed by Parliament, and Cole credited the WCTU NZ with winning a fight against the "Social Evil"[36] that had been going on since their very first national convention in 1886.

The WCTU NZ leaders had "agitated for this repeal for many years and our members may certainly claim that their strenuous efforts have been the means of keeping this matter before Parliament and the Cabinet Ministers, until justice has been done to the women of this Dominion.

"[37] 1911 started with Cole spending "some weeks in a private hospital" but announcing that she would still travel to the national convention in March at New Plymouth and stand for re-election as president.

The new organiser would focus primarily on supporting and building out Māori Unions – an endeavor that had been underway for many years and recently boosted by Hera Stirling, an Anglican missionary before her marriage to Rev.

Cole and Lily Atkinson worked with Hera Stirling Munro of Rotorua, Jean McNeish of Cambridge and Rebecca Smith of Hokianga to organise the first WCTU NZ convention dedicated solely for Maori Unions.

It was held at Pakipaki near Hastings, Hawke's Bay, April 10–14, 1911 – Cole and Atkinson planned to present at the convention together with leading Māori missionaries and temperance activists from all parts of the country.

Oldham of Napier (the business manager of The White Ribbon), Vice President Lily Atkinson, and World WCTU missionary Bessie Harrison Lee Cowie.

A report early the next year by Mrs. E.H. Henderson of Waikato, WCTU NZ superintendent and treasurer for Māori Work, showed that 44 Unions had been formed with a membership of some 600 men and women.

[43] Cole's steadying hand was seen with the WCTU NZ reaction to the large vote polled for National Prohibition – 56% for it, though not enough to win the day since a 3/5 majority was needed for it to carry.

They gave her a "great ovation" when she rose to speak about the important legacy of Nelson's women's rights advocate Mary Ann Wilson Griffiths Müller and Total Abstinence leader Alfred Saunders.

Leonard Isitt, by then a Member of Parliament, spoke about Cole's commitment to temperance and beyond that to all forms of social and economic justice for all women and children.