Dinah NATHAN, b. 2 February 1835 in Dover, Kent, England, youngest of 14 children of Jewish shopkeepers Barnett NATHAN and Julia SOLOMONS. In 1856 Dinah married at Canterbury, Kent, another shopkeeper, Nathaniel HART. They went to live in Reading, Berks., where their first child was born. Two years later they were in Plymouth, Devon, with four more children born.
In January 1865 the Harts and three children arrived in Lyttelton, Canterbury, New Zealand on the Zealandia. They set up shop in High Street, Christchurch, but soon Nathaniel left his family to “seek better prospects” firstly in Greymouth and then Melbourne. He never returned.
Dinah and her three children moved to Greymouth. After seven years wait, Dinah married Charles HANSEN, a Danish sailmaker in Greymouth in 1875. He apprenticed Dinah’s son Benjamin Hart, who later took over the business.
Dinah and her children became active Methodists. She was active in prohibition, belonging to the Loyal Temperance Legion and WCTU, serving as the first secretary at the Greymouth branch in 1892, later also as president. She was the second woman to sign the first Greymouth sheet in the petition for suffrage in 1893.
Dinah made history in 1902 as the first woman to attend a Methodist Synod in New Zealand. She attended the 21st National WCTU Convention in Greymouth in 1906 as District Secretary and was photographed with Kate Sheppard and others. She later attended WCTU national conventions as delegate in Christchurch and Dunedin. In 1906 she was the driving force behind the creation of the Sailors Rest in the former Town Hall in Gresson Street and on-going fundraising to help with its up keep.
Dinah Hansen neé Nathan, formerly Hart died of breast cancer aged 86 on 12 February 1921 at the home of her daughter Sarah Lawn and is buried at Karoro Cemetery, Greymouth.
Her life and that of her connected family is recorded in the book To Live a Long and Prosperous Life (2016) ISBN 978-0-473-34255-5 by descendant C. McCaughan, further updates at https://inkandstoneblog.wordpress.com
Cynthia L.I. McCaughan, 2018
Sources
- Grey River Argus, 20 May 1892
- https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/documents/suffrage-pdfs/246.pdf (The first was WCTU president Mrs E. Brooke, Dinah’s daughter-in-law Ida Hart also signed further down the sheet).
- Grey River Argus, 24 November 1902
- Auckland Weekly News; Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries AWNS-19060412-10-7
Image
Dinah Hansen wearing her Temperance white ribbon c. 1892 (courtesy Phillipa Caignou)
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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