H. Hughes

Signed family name

Hughes

Signed given name

Given address

Clardem St

Sheet number

142

Town/Suburb

Central Dunedin

City/Region

Dunedin

Notes

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley.

Harriet Ann Duke Hansford was born Dorset, England in 1855 – the eldest child of Thomas James Hansford and Mary Bassett.

The family emigrated to Victoria, Australia about 1856 then to New Zealand about 1864 and settled in Port Chalmers, near Dunedin.

Harriet married William Coleman Hughes in 1872 – they had five children and lived in Port Chalmers.

William died at their home in 1883 and Harriet moved to Dunedin in 1890.

When Harriet signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Clarendon St, Dunedin and she was working as a nurse and midwife.

She died at her home in Dunedin on 7 November 1946 and is buried with William in the Port Chalmers Cemetery.

Harriet’s obituary said “at the age of 28 she was left a widow with five young children at a time when the State provided no pensions for widows and orphans. She cast around for means of earning a living for her family, and presently took up maternity nursing.”

She “continued to take cases until she reached an advanced age, it being her proud boat that of the many hundreds of births at which she assisted not a single patient was lost”.