Information submitted by Rosemary Mercer:
Kate Fairhall, Eketahuna – 1862-1947
Kate Fairhall was the sixth child of Susan Fairhall of Greymouth and records show her to be exceptionally independent.
She was on the electoral roll in Eketahuna when she signed the petition. That was quite a distance from Greymouth. Then she went to Dunedin to work, and later on to Oamaru where she ran a successful dressmaking business. She visited Australia, possibly also the UK but no record of that has yet been found.
She died in Auckland leaving a considerable sum of money in her will divided among various charitable institutions, including an orphanage in her mother’s home county, Gloucestershire, and also to several nieces on the West Coast and to the wife of a nephew – all the individual beneficiaries were women. (She has an unmarked grave in Hillsborough Cemetery, Auckland. Some anonymous person tends a few of the unmarked graves around hers, but hers is singled out for special attention.)
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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