suffrage_petition
Surname: 
Sinclair
Given names: 
Sarah
Given address: 
Bluff Harbour
Sheet No: 341
Town/Suburb: 
Bluff
City/Region: 
Southland
Notes: 

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Sarah was born about 1840 on Stewart Island, probably the daughter of Edward Edwards and Hinekino/Mary or Mere.

In 1864 her husband William Parker, a boatman employed at the Pilot Station, drowned while travelling in an open boat from Bluff to Stewart Island. The boat was overturned by a squall and two of the men drowned.

Sarah re-married on 13 September 1867 at Bluff to Arthur Sinclair who worked on the pilot boat.

They had a daughter in 1878 and when Sarah signed the suffrage petition they were living in Bluff and Arthur was the railway foreman on the Bluff Wharf.

Their daughter had a son in 1894 who they adopted.

Sarah died at her home in Bluff on 7 September 1918, her obituary said 'reference was made to her strong faith, which gave her a saintly character, and made it a privilege to know her.' Arthur died in 1933, they are buried together in the Bluff Cemetery.

Sources

BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/

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

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

Invercargill City Council https://icc.govt.nz

Family Search https://www.familysearch.org

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

1 comment has been posted about Sarah Sinclair

What do you know?

Raewyn Dalziel

Posted: 11 Jul 2022

The statement that the daughter of Arthur and Sarah Sinclair had a son in 1894 whom they adopted is untrue. Ernest Duncan Sinclair, adopted by Sarah SInclair, was the son of Christina Duncan and John McNaughton. See Keith Sinclair, Halfway Round the Harbour, Auckland, 1993, p. 161.