Janet Spence

Signed family name

Spence

Signed given name

Janet

Given address

Leith Street

Sheet number

Town/Suburb

Central Dunedin

City/Region

Dunedin

Notes

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Janet Platt Dow was born on 23 March 1853 in Kirkpatrick Fleming, Dumfriesshire, Scotland – the daughter of William Dow, an agricultural labourer, and Ann Thomson.

She married Alexander Spence, a plasterer, on 7 January 1873 in Kirkpatrick Fleming, they lived in Ayrshire and had three children.

In 1879 the family emigrated to Otago on the Timaru. They settled in Dunedin where Alexander worked as a plasterer and they had a further two children.

When Janet signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Leith Street.

Alexander died in 1908 and Janet died on 16 July 1937, they are buried in the family grave in the Northern Cemetery.