Harriet Chynoweth

Signed family name

Chynoweth

Signed given name

Harriet

Given address

Lyttelton

Sheet number

244

Town/Suburb

Lyttelton

City/Region

Christchurch

Notes

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Harriet Ann Grose was born on 3 October 1834 in Kenwyn, Cornwall – the daughter of William Grose, a copper miner, and Mary Jeffry.

She married, miner, Thomas Honey on 1 August 1855 in Kenwyn and they had two children.

In 1859 Thomas and Harriet’s brother-in-law William Chynoweth sailed for Melbourne on the Shalimar. At the time of the 1861 census Harriet and her children were living with her sister Elizabeth Chynoweth and her niece Mary (see 113 Mrs Matthews) in Kenwyn.

Whether Harriet and her family came straight to New Zealand or travelled to Australia first is unknown, she does not appear to have reunited with Thomas Honey. Her sister Elizabeth remarried bigamously in 1867 in New Zealand and Harriet started living with her sister’s husband William.

They had six children together, three who died in infancy, and when Harriet signed the suffrage petition, they were living in Lyttelton.

William died in Lyttelton in 1893 – he is buried in the Lyttelton Anglican Cemetery.

Harriet died at her daughter’s home in Wellington on 4 June 1912 – she is buried in the Karori Cemetery.