Biographical information provided for the He Tohu exhibition:
Frances Louisa (Fanny) nee Fantham was born on 27 September 1866 in Canterbury. Around 1882 her family moved to Hawera. Fanny’s father, Arthur Albert Fantham, was active in many Hawera institutions and after his death a marble statue was erected in his honour in King Edward Park.
In March 1887 Fanny, then aged 19, became the first woman to climb the 1962 metre-high Fantham’s Peak, on Mount Taranaki (known then as Mount Egmont).
Fanny married Fred Bayly in 1888. She and her husband Fred farmed in the Manaia district where they raised six children. Later the couple moved to England and during the First World War Fanny worked in a munitions factory before nursing in an army hospital at Walton-on-Thames, where many New Zealand soldiers were hospitalised.
Returning to New Plymouth in 1928, Fanny was made an honorary member of the new Mount Egmont Alpine Club when she presented the club with a fine oil painting of herself as a lasting memento to the naming of the peak. In December 1941 she was invited to Dawson Falls where a group photograph was taken in which Fanny and Mrs Henson of Hawera (who was the first to climb to the summit) were included.
Fanny, an active woman and known as an excellent shot, died in New Plymouth in 1948 at age 82.
Related images:
Removed as seems to be wrong person. See email from Stef 27 Mar 2018.
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