Biography submitted by Fiona Simpson, (great, great granddaughter). And Sherree Simpson, (great, great, great granddaughter)
Harriet Dunn was born in Helston Sithney Cornwall, on 6 August 1848.
Harriet was from a tin mining family and had heard there were better opportunities available in New Zealand, so she decided that she would like to marry a man with the same idea.
She met Wearne Dunstan and after a short courtship they were married on 9 July 1868 and came out to New Zealand on 7 August 1868 on the ship, “Shaw Savill Timaru” They arrived on 15 November 1868 in Port Chalmers Dunedin.
Harriet’s husbands first job in Dunedin was laying cobblestone footpaths. She was a prominent member of the Mornington Methodist Church.
They then had a general store in Dunedin for several years before buying land at Charlton, four miles out of Gore, where Harriet, (46 years old) along with her daughter Mary Jane (Minnie) Anderson signed the suffrage petition. (see 127 Mary J Anderson)
Harriet died on 3 January 1933 in Gore.
Images
Harriet and her husband Wearne
Information sourced from family records and recorded memories of Ila Vivian - Harriet Dunstan’s granddaughter. about 1997.
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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