S. Featherstone

Biographical information provided by Stefanie Lash for the He Tohu exhibition:

This is likely the signature of Sarah Featherstone, born Sarah Palgrave in 1832. She lived with her family in Deptford, Kent, now a part of London, and at that time the location of a large Royal Navy dockyard. Sarah’s father died when she was 12, and before her marriage at the age of 21 she worked as a dressmaker.

Sarah married Stephen Eversfield Featherstone, a blacksmith, and they eventually had ten children. Only three of their children lived past the age of 18. In the early 1880s the family migrated to New Zealand, eventually settling in Invercargill. Sarah outlived Stephen by five years, dying in late 1910.