Dinah Dawson

Biography contributed by Dennis Dawson ([email protected]), great nephew of Dinah Dawson.

Dinah Dawson was born in Little Carlton, Lincolnshire on 16 November 1867, the daughter of Ruth Brant. Little Carlton was a small rural village 8 km south east of Louth. Dinah's legal birth name was Dinah Brant: her father's name is not recorded on her birth certificate. Dinah became known as Dinah Dawson when Ruth married John Dawson in The Louth Free Wesleyan Chapel in October 1876. John and Ruth subsequently had eight children, two born in Lincolnshire and the remainder in New Zealand.

In 1879, John and Ruth Dawson together with their children Dinah, William and Allen (my grandfather) emigrated from England to New Zealand. John, an experienced agricultural labourer, was recruited under the Vogel Immigration Scheme which offered free passage to suitable immigrants. They arrived in Napier on 7 November on the May Queen. John was employed by the Williams family to work at their Frimley Estate on the outskirts of Hastings.

Not much is known about Dinah's early life. She probably had limited schooling. Her occupation is consistently listed in electoral rolls as 'domestic duties'. She devoted much time supporting John and Ruth's growing family: their ninth child, Maud, was born in 1889. Family life changed dramatically when Ruth died of tuberculosis later that year aged 41. Dinah, then aged 21, was engaged to be married but broke that engagement to support her family.

Dinah married Alfred Colyer in Hastings in April 1896. Alf was born in Essex, England in 1870 and emigrated to Auckland in 1888. At the time of his marriage he was a shepherd at Tunanui Station about 30 km east of Hastings. Dinah and Alfred had three children: Louisa Maud born 1897, Catherine May born 1899 and Henry Alfred born 1900. Catherine died aged three in 1902. Alf remained a shepherd at Tunanui until about 1905 when he and Dinah shifted to Napier where he worked as a butcher.

In November 1918, Dinah visited her younger brother Albert and his family in Dannevirke. Spanish influenza was working its way around the country. Dinah contracted the virus and died there on 23 November aged 51. She was buried at Park Island Cemetery, Napier.

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Dinah Dawson (Family collection)

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