Mrs Hanson

Signed family name

Hanson

Signed given name

Mrs

Given address

Vire St

Sheet number

Town/Suburb

Central Dunedin

City/Region

Dunedin

Notes

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Harriet Selina Perry was born in 1843 in Hertfordshire, England – the daughter of Thomas Perry, a shepherd, and Charlotte Williams.

She emigrated to New South Wales, Australia with her family in 1857 on the Blenheim.

Two years later they came to Otago on the Ocean Queen and settled in Port Chalmers.

Harriet married Thomas Nicol Whyte on 21 October 1861 and they had seven children, one who died in infancy.

Thomas appears to have died or left the country in the late 1870s and Harriet had two daughters with John Henry Hanson, a seaman, before marrying him on 22 May 1884.

They had a further two children and in 1890 the family moved to Dunedin. When Harriet signed the suffrage petition they were living in Vire St.

In 1897 John was 'charged with failing to provide his two children with adequate means of maintenance', he was ordered to pay 4s a week for each child.

John disappears from the records after this time.

Harriet died on 1 May 1915 and is buried with some of her children in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.