Location confirmed by Papers Past
Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Honora March was born about 1837 in County Clare, Ireland.
She married Michael Whelan in Victoria, Australia in 1860 and they had two children before they came to Otago shortly after the outbreak of the Gabriel’s Gully gold rush where Michael tried his luck at gold mining.
They had a further seven children in Otago, one who died in childhood and when Honora signed the suffrage petition they were living in Wetherstones near Lawrence in Central Otago.
Michael died at their home in 1906 and after this Honora moved to nearby Waitahuna where she lived near her youngest son Frank and her daughter Bridget.
She died on 9 December 1918 and her obituary said she was 'a woman of a strong personality. Strong in her convictions and fearless as an exponent of the things she believed to be right, she was also kind and sympathetic, and would gladly have sacrificed herself to help a neighbour when she had the bodily ability to do so.'
She is buried with Michael in the Lawrence Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Interment.net http://www.interment.net/data/nz/otago/lawrence
BDM Victoria https://online.justice.vic.gov.au
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