Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Janet Oliver was born about 1808 in Hownam, Roxburghshire, Scotland – the daughter of Thomas Oliver, a shepherd, and Nelly Sprott.
Janet did not marry and, in the early 1860s, she emigrated to New Zealand accompanied by three of her nephews.
One of her nephews worked on 'Mr Rees’ station, about eight miles above Kingston where she appears to have spent her first years in the country.
In the early 1870s Janet moved to Arrowtown where she lived for about six years before, due to a severe illness, she went to live with her niece (See 107 Mrs W Murdoch) in Queenstown. Janet became blind in the last years of her life, 'remarkable for her cheerfulness in the distressing absence of sight, she was...a wonder to many'.
She signed the suffrage petition along with her niece Phillis in Queenstown.
Janet died at her home on 19 December 1893 and is buried in the Frankton Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Queenstown Lakes District Council http://cemeteries.qldc.govt.nz/