Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Alan Jervois Bloxam was born in 1863 in Paddington, London, the youngest of the fifteen children of Alfred Bradley Bloxam, a wine merchant, and Eliza Mary Keeling.
Alan came to New Zealand in the 1880s settling first in Invercargill before moving to Dunedin.
When he signed the suffrage petition he was living in Russell St, Dunedin and working as a draper.
Alan then moved to Wellington where he married Elsie Merritt Johnson in November 1901 at St Pauls Cathedral. They had two children.
Alan ran a men’s clothing shop in Willis St until he was declared insolvent in 1911.
The family then moved to Dannevirke where Alan opened another shop. This was not a success either; in January 1912 the household furniture was sold, including an upright grand piano, and the family moved back to Wellington.
Alan then joined the firm of Kirkcaldie & Stains where he worked for over 20 years.
During the First World War he helped raise money for patriotic charities and organise the Trentham Scholarship Fund, which educated the children of soldiers.
He also was an organiser of the SPCA at the time of his death on 22 October 1938.
His wife Elsie died in 1945. They were both cremated and interred in the Karori Cemetery, Wellington.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Free BDM https://www.freebmd.org.uk
GRO England https://www.gro.gov.uk
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Wellington City Council https://wellington.govt.nz
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