Biography of Alice Maud Fitchett, the great aunt of my husband Christopher. By Judith Fitchett.
Alice Maud Fitchett was born on 18 October 1868 in Dunedin. She was the second daughter of Alfred and Theresa (nee Williamson) Fitchett and known to family and friends as Maud. She was 27 years old when she signed the 1893 petition for Women’s Suffrage and living at home with her parents at All Saints Vicarage, Dunedin. She had recently been presented with a gold watch for her services as the organist and was about to depart for the Conservatorium of Music in Dresden. She and her sister Daisy aged 17 years, who was to study painting, left New Zealand together.
In March 1895 Maud completed her ‘Reife Zeugniss’ or Final Diploma and they continued on to study in Paris. Unfortunately her hand suffered greatly from overuseand they returned on the Gothic in 1896 to Dunedin where Maud advertised for music students and Daisy advertised for art students.
On board the Gothic Maud had met John Kingdon Mayo and she returned to marry him in England at Marylebone Parish Church in London on 10 Sep 1898. She travelled on the Ruahine at the same time as Katherine Mansfield’s mother who described her playing as ‘extraordinary’.
In 1903 Maud travelled to New Zealand to visit her parents with her first born son John. She returned the following year and has three daughters in England – Margaret in 1905, Madeleine in 1907 and Veronica in 1910. Her grand daughter remembers her playing the piano but the promise of a career never eventuated. Maud’s husband John was a schoolmaster at Manchester Grammar, then a tutor in London. By 1939 they are retired with their extended family to Sussex. Her son John graduated fromCambridgeand her daughters are artists in various mediums. Her sister now Daisy Elmore joined them when she was widowed. Maud died aged 80 years old on 12 November 1948 in Sussex, England.
Sources
Ancestry 1911 Census
Ancestry 1939 Register
Ancestry Shipping Records UK Outwards
Book - Victorian Voyage. The shipboard diary of Katherine Mansfield’s mother
Family Information - Grandaughter Antoinette, March to May 1898
Mother’s (Theresa) letter to Brother Charles (Family Collection)
Papers Past. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz:
Otago Daily Times, 17 January 1893, Page 3
Otago Daily Times, 18 May 1895
Otago Daily Times, 23 May 1896
Otago Daily Times, 13 September 1898, Page 2
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
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