Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Alice Ann Painton was born in 1864 in Longworth, Berkshire, England, the daughter of Thomas Painton, a farm labourer, and Leah Moss.
Alice emigrated to Canterbury, New Zealand with her family in 1874 on the Ballochmyle.
She married Thomas Godfrey Davis Powell in 1881 and they had two children. In 1887 Alice was living in Dunedin when she charged Thomas with 'deserting his wife & two children'.
He did not appear and Alice gave evidence that 'the defendant left her destitute, and she had to go to her mother’s at Gore'. Thomas was sentenced to one month imprisonment, with hard labour, in the Addington Prison and ordered to pay 5s per week towards Alice’s maintenance.
Later that year Thomas was charged with disobeying the maintenance order. He had only sent £2 to Alice.
Again, in July 1888, Thomas was charged with failing to provide maintenance. He was sentenced again to one month imprisonment, with hard labour.
In 1910 they divorced. In the same year, Alice married John William Shankland, a bootmaker.
John died in 1933. Alice died on 22 September 1938. They are buried together in the Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Free BDM https://www.freebmd.org.uk
GRO England https://www.gro.gov.uk
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
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