suffrage_petition
Surname: 
O' Dwyer
Given names: 
Kate
Given address: 
Frasertown
Sheet No: 305
Town/Suburb: 
Frasertown
City/Region: 
Hawke's Bay
Notes: 

Originally transcribed as Kate O Dwyer

Biography contributed by Clare Cramond

Kate O’Dwyer nee O’Connell was born in the mid-1850s and came from County Kerry in Ireland. She was one of many young women who emigrated to New Zealand to address a shortage of females in colonial New Zealand. Kate arrived in Hawkes Bay aboard the Renfrewshire in 1878. Three years later she married Owen O’Dwyer, a contractor who had a team of bullocks and worked between Gisborne and Wairoa.

Kate and Owen had four children, Mary Frances born in 1882, Ellen in 1884, Denis Thomas in 1886 and Simon in 1889. Kate signed the Petition in Frasertown around 1893, and in 1895, Owen was involved in a serious accident while driving a team of bullocks delivering hay bales from Waikaremoana. Owen died in 1898. 

Kate lived on for many years and died in 1942 in her eighties. She was buried at Taruheru Cemetery in Gisborne.

Sources

New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Passenger Lists, 1839-1973," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DRB9-TWD?cc=1609792&wc=MP75-31G%3A119083001%2C119076401%2C119318001 : 8 July 2019), Hawkes Bay > 1878 > Renfrewshire > image 19 of 25; Archives New Zealand, Wellington.

Births Deaths and Marriages Online https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH18851104.2.5 Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4418, 4 November 1885, Page 2

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH18951128.2.13 Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7495, 28 November 1895, Page 2

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GISH19420117.2.2 Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20666, 17 January 1942, Page 1

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

4 comment has been posted about Kate O' Dwyer

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Kelvin O’Dwyer

Posted: 14 Feb 2021

Thanks for this article. Kate is my Great Great Grandmother.