suffrage_petition
Surname: 
Sharp
Given names: 
Maybirth
Given address: 
Sydenham
Sheet No: 184
Town/Suburb: 
Sydenham
City/Region: 
Christchurch
Notes: 

Biography and image contributed by Jan Sharp, whose husband is the great grandson of Maybirth Sharp.

Maybirth Sharp (nee Spink) was born on 4 May 1847 in Manningham, Yorkshire, England. She was the ninth child of Ann (nee Lumb) and John Spink, a clothier.

In 1868 she was working as a worsted power loom weaver when she married Tom Sharp,(the manager of a worsted manufacturing plant) of  Bradford, Yorkshire. While living in England they had five children.

As woollen manufacturing was in decline in Yorkshire, Tom and his brother-in-law sailed from England to Australia in 1879 to seek new lives and better prospects for their respective families. Soon Tom moved to Christchurch, New Zealand.

In the meantime Maybirth and her sister Emma and their children lived together until their husbands had found work and a place to live. Two and a half years later Maybirth and her five children aged three to eleven years boarded the ship Rakaia for Christchurch to meet up with Tom.

Shortly after the Rakaia left Plymouth a crew member was diagnosed as having small pox. The ship was ordered back to port where it remained for a month while it was fumigated. All passengers and crew under went treatment using carbolic soap and dried sulphur. Three months after they finally left Plymouth the Rakaia arrived in Lyttelton in September 1882. Embarkation was denied for another two days until the crew and passengers had been cleared of signs of small pox.

Tom and Maybirth had four more children. Tom worked as a draper and was deeply involved in the Methodist Church, actively supported by Maybirth. They lived the rest of their lives in Christchurch.

Maybirth died of bronchitis in 1931 and was buried in the Sydenham Cemetery, Christchurch, beside Tom who had predeceased her.

Maybirth Sharp

Sources

Methodist Church of NZ Archives, Christchurch
Ancestry.com.au./ England Census Records
Ancsetry.com.au./ England Parish Records
NZbound/rms
Family Search.org./ NZ Immigration Passenger Lists
Sharp Family Records

Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.

Community contributions

1 comment has been posted about Maybirth Sharp

What do you know?

Sarndra Lees

Posted: 01 Mar 2014

Maybirth SHARP died 31st May 1931 aged 84 and is buried with her husband Tom in Sydenham Cemetery, Christchurch
Their grave:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/porkynz/3154934294/