This page brings together the names of women whose entries in the official New Zealand History database are associated with Timaru. These women signed the 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition, the petition that helped secure New Zealand women the right to vote later that year.
The list is arranged alphabetically by surname. Each entry records the woman’s name as it appears in the official transcription, her recorded address where one was provided, the petition sheet number, and links to both the official database record and the digitised petition sheet.
Research note and disclaimer
This is a research list based on the current online transcription and location information published by NZHistory and Manatū Taonga, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
Names, initials and addresses have been retained as they appear in the official records. They have not been expanded, modernised or silently corrected. Historical handwriting can be difficult to read, and some names or addresses may have been misspelled, abbreviated, misheard, mistranscribed or recorded differently from the spelling a woman normally used.
The original petition did not always provide a complete address. The standardised Town/Suburb and City/Region information in the NZHistory database was added later to help identify locations and may sometimes represent a best interpretation rather than a confirmed residential address.
For consistency, this page includes women currently classified by the official database under the Town/Suburb field “Timaru”. It does not automatically include every woman appearing on a petition sheet containing Timaru signatures, because some women on those sheets were recorded as living in places such as Washdyke, Ruapuna or Christchurch.
Particular care is required with petition sheet 274. The surviving digitised sheet appears to contain signatures without addresses written beside them, although the present database assigns Bank Street, Timaru, to the individual entries. Those addresses should therefore be treated as database classifications rather than clearly visible information taken directly from the surviving sheet.
One entry, Christian Ritchie, is classified under Timaru in the official database, but her written address appears as “Upper Otau”. The database notes that its location is a best guess based on the position of the signature on the petition sheet.
The links provided allow readers and family researchers to check each transcription against the original petition image. Corrections, additional evidence and verified biographical information are welcome, particularly where descendants or primary records can confirm a woman’s full name, address or identity.