L. S. White

Signed family name

White

Signed given name

L. S.

Given address

South Dunedin

Sheet number

Town/Suburb

South Dunedin

City/Region

Dunedin

Notes

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Sophia Letitia White was born in 1856 in Victoria, Australia – the daughter of John White and Jane Riddell.

In 1864 she sailed from Victoria to Otago on the Albion with her mother and four siblings.

She married Henry Papprill, a hospital warder, on 8 December 1873 in the Queenstown parish and they had two daughters before Henry died in 1877. He is buried in the Frankton Cemetery.

Sophia re-married on 21 March 1883 at her mother’s home in Port Chalmers to William Alexander White, a ship’s captain.

They had two children before William died on 1 January 1888 – he is buried in the Southern Cemetery. Their last child, a son, was born a few days later on 7 January.

Sophia petitioned the court to release William’s life insurance money that had been left in trust for the children when they came of age as she 'was wholly destitute and unable to support the said infants'. The case was dismissed.

When she signed the suffrage petition Sophia was living with her sister Alice (See 39 A E Woolland) in Wain St, South Dunedin.

She moved to Wellington in the 1900s where she died at her daughter’s home on 28 April 1935 – she was cremated in Wellington.