Maker: Nancy Carr

Panel number: 438

Petition sheet number: 532

Person honouring: Jane Uren

Relationship to maker: Paternal great-great-grandmother

Jane was born in 1843 in Islington, England, to Jane Atha and Joseph Hartley Walker. Jane’s parents and five siblings emigrated to Australia in 1849 arriving in Geelong, Point Henry, Victoria, on the ship the Serpent. 

Jane married John Ellis Uren in 1861. They had three boys and three girls in Ballarat, Australia. Four more boys and a girl were born in New Zealand from 1873 onwards. They emigrated to New Zealand sometime in 1872/73.

Jane signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition in 1893 while living in Ensors Rd, Christchurch. Her daughter-in-law, Louisa May Uren (born Chapman) also signed (sheet 184). On the 1896 electoral roll ‘domestic duties’ is given as her occupation. 

When John died on 18 November 1986, Jane’s youngest was 14 years old. In January 1898 the newspaper reported Jane was before the courts facing charges – for looking after an infant while not having paid the fee to the government to register her house to look after children; it is reasonable to assume she was looking after her grandchild. The Salvation Army paid the one shilling fine given to her. 

In April 1899 Jane remarried, to Edmund Smart in Christchurch.

On 16 November 1918 Jane died in Sunnyside Mental Hospital of senile decay. She was buried in Linwood Cemetery with her first husband.

Panel materials: Collection of fabrics I had left over from previous projects. I bought the blue linen for Jane’s skirt and the fine lawn for her blouse as I thought they represented fabrics of the time.