Hannah Tilbury

Biographical information provided by Stefanie Lash, Archives New Zealand, for the He Tohu exhibition:

Hannah Tilbury was born Hannah Hill Sheppard in 1852 in Southwark, London, the daughter of a butcher. She married George Tilbury at the young age of 17 at Knox Church, Dunedin – it is not known when she migrated to New Zealand.

Hannah and George had thirteen children, all but one of whom survived infancy. George worked as an expressman on the railways, and they lived at 383 Cumberland St in Dunedin.

In 1895 and 1906 Hannah placed notices in overseas papers seeking her father George Thomlinson Sheppard, not knowing he had died in the year 1880.

Hannah died in 1909 aged 58, and was mourned by her family, who placed In Memoriam notices in the paper to mark the anniversary of her death in later years.