See community contribution below. She is the mother of Norah, Fanny and Josephine Walsham, who signed below her.
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
Please note that Fanny's address above is given as Roslyn. She was living in Frederick St at this time. I think it has been confused with the signature above her. Thanks
Fanny Walsham was born Frances Carson in 1833 in Downpatrick , County Down, Ireland. In 1849 at age 17 she was sent from the Downpatrick Workhouse on the Orphan ship Derwent, to Melbourne, Australia , as part of the Earl Grey Orphan Scheme, arriving in February 1850. She travelled under the name of Fanny Sheridan. After a short term of employment of 6 months to James Murphy, Moonee Ponds, where she earned £10, she married Joseph Walsham, aged 32, in Melbourne in August 1850. Joseph was a convict who had arrived in Australia on board the Thomas Arbuthnot in 1846 and was conditionally pardoned on his arrival. Fanny and Joseph had 6 children, 5 daughters and 1 son, before departing for New Zealand on board the Hydra in 1863. Arriving in Port Chalmers and setting up home in Dunedin, Fanny gave birth to 4 more daughters.
Fanny died in Dunedin in 1896 at the age of 63.
The three signatures beneath her on the petition are her daughters, Fanny, aged 35,Josephine, aged 26, and Nora, aged 22.
I think it shows how much Fanny valued her freedom and her desire for her daughters to take an active part in deciding their futures in the young country they now called home.
Community contributions