Mrs Bellett

Mrs Bridget Bellett (nee Kilmartin) is my Great Great Grandmother, I was quite a surprise to see her signature on Women's Suffrage petition. I followed up on this and also discovered that her daughter Jane Francis also signed it as well. You are quite correct Katherine, that James had presumably sailed earlier. From my home base in Melbourne, I went to the Land Records Office in Williamstown, and discovered that James had sold his Wooden Shanty in 60 Pitt St. Carton, Melbourne for 80 pounds sterling (old currency) on 15 Sept 1862. A couple of days later he boarded a ship leaving Melbourne called the "Result", and local newspaper records state that it had arrived in Port Charmers, Dunedin around 25th Sept. 1862. Soon thereafter, on 17 November 1862, Melbourne General Post Office puts out an public "Unclaimed Letters" notice stating that Bridget was to collect 2 letters No.70 & # No.71 from her husband James. Clearly correspondence was vital back then, since he was separated from his family for 18 months! The daughter they had from England was called Mary Ann, and she went on to marry Joseph Braithwaite (Mayor of Dunedin), they had about approx. 20 children, and her husband was also a bookseller of the largest Book Shop in Dunedin. See: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT18900121.2.44.17 . Her brother Patrick (my Great Grandfather) also had a bookshop, stationery store and did ink manufacturing, but he severed these family ties with each other as time went on.