Mrs Mason

See also Caversham research databases

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Henrietta Mouchon was born about 1820 in Weimar, Germany.

She probably married in the mid 1840s. Her husband George William Mason was a seaman and they had two children while living in Greenwich, Kent.

In 1860 Henrietta and the children sailed for Victoria, Australia on the Lincolnshire, George presumably worked his passage.

Shortly after the family moved to Otago and settled in Port Chalmers where George was a partner is a firm of stevedores supplying water to shipping.

He died in 1887 and is buried in the Port Chalmers Cemetery.

When Henrietta signed the suffrage petition she was living, either with or near, her daughter Anna in Laing St, Caversham. (See 62 Mrs Gibson)

She died on 17 January 1912 at her daughter’s home.

A lengthy obituary appeared in the paper some of the comments included – 'Mrs Mason’s father was an officer in the army of the Great Napoleon, and the old lady often told how he used to describe the horrors of the famous retreat from Moscow in 1812. In 1832, at the age of 18, she went with her mother to Paris' where she attended many balls and met dignitaries and royalty. 'While she was blind and somewhat deaf for some years past, her knowledge of languages, her remarkable memory, her clear intellect, and her amiable disposition made her, up to the very day of her death, one of the most interesting and lovable personalities in this Dominion.'

She is buried with her daughter’s family in the Southern Cemetery.

Sources

DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search

Family Search https://www.familysearch.org

GRO England https://www.gro.gov.uk

Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz

Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Public Record Office Victoria https://prov.vic.gov.au