Jane Russell

Kelly Ogle Posted: 24 Aug 2025

422 Jane Russell
Jane RUSSELL (25 Nov 1840 - 09 Jul 1920)

Jane RUSSELL was born Jane RIDDICK on 25th November 1840 in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England. She emigrated to New Zealand on the ship ‘Mariner’ (Sailed 4th April 1850 - Arrived 6th August 1850 - Port Chalmers, Wellington, New Plymouth), with two of her three brothers and her mother at the age of nine. One month into their voyage to New Zealand, Sarah RIDDICK, Jane’s mother, passed away from ‘exhaustion’. Jane and her siblings became orphans, as their father had passed away two years earlier.

Jane and her family had planned on voyaging to New Plymouth; however, with the death of her mother, it was decided that the young children would be taken to Wellington instead. Upon their arrival in Wellington, Jane and her brother, William, were taken in by a woman who ran a school, possibly Mary Jane Buxton's school. It is assumed Jane received some education while assisting with the children and housework.

In 1865, at the age of 25, she married John Russell, a widower from Lower Hutt. John, who was 50, had six children from his first marriage. Together, they had seven more children. Before her marriage to John, Jane had a son, Robert Hugh RIDDICK, in 1859.

Jane Russell's most notable contribution to history came in 1893 when she signed the Women's Suffrage Petition in NaiNai, Lower Hutt. Her signature is on Sheet 422 of the petition.

John Russell died in 1892. Jane lived to be 80, dying in 1920. They are buried in St. James’s Church Cemetery, Lower Hutt.

Jane’s life exemplifies the quiet strength of early New Zealand settlers and their role in the fight for women's voting rights.

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