Biographical information provided for the He Tohu exhibition:
Alice Rose Bruce was born in Clerkenwell in October 1863, one of six children of John Bruce and Mary Seley Palmer. After her father’s death, she and her siblings and mother lived with her grandparents in Margaretting, a village near Chelmsford. By 1881 she had moved to London and was living in Kentish Town and working as a servant for a family called Stephens. Alice married George Adolphus Schoch in Islington in 1883 and the next year they emigrated to New Zealand, arriving on the Aorangi. George was employed by the Government to introduce silk worms as a potential industry.
The couple settled in Wellington and had five children; the last, born after George’s death, died at eight days old. The family belonged to the Baptist Church, and Alice was the Secretary of the Wellington branch of the Women’s Social and Political League. The president of the League at this time was Mrs Louisa Seddon. Alice also became an official visitor for the Porirua Mental Asylum.
One of her sons, John Bruce Schoch, enlisted for First World War service and died in France in 1916. He was posthumously awarded the Military Medal for acts of gallantry in the field. Alice died in 1920.
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
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