Researching the role of women in the goldfields in 1880s Photo: Supplied
Frustrated by the lack of information about the many women who made a living on the New Zealand goldfields in the 1800s, Canterbury Museum researcher Julia Bradshaw went in search of them. She's uncovered some cracking stories about women who reinvented themselves, often becoming successful businesswomen cashing in on miners with money to spend.
Julia's giving a talk called "Adjustable Marriages; relationships, divorce and bigamy on the goldfields" this week at Kate Sheppard House in Christchurch.
She says the more she learned about women's involvement in the goldfields the angrier she got that they had been often misrepresented - as only wives or prostitutes.
"There's a huge variety of women on the goldfields. They were both of those [wives and prostitutes] but there was just an enormous variety of everybody in between and a lot of businesswomen which isn't very well recognised at all."
During her research it has been easy enough to find information on women who got into trouble with the law because they are mentioned in police gazettes and court records which were recorded by newspapers.
Divorce files, records of business and family histories are other solid sources, Bradshaw says.
Some women reinvented themselves when they arrived in New Zealand, changing their history or their names or their marital status, perhaps claiming to be widows to explain a child if they were unmarried.
"The goldfields were unique in that people were moving around from rush to rush so that your neighbours didn't know your backstory, they didn't know who you were. They just had to accept your story so there was a lot more opportunity for women on the goldfields."
As far as successful businesswomen are concerned, she points to Elizabeth Langford who built up a hotel and land empire around Queenstown.
She married a Londoner, Thomas Norrington, whom she despised, however, he followed her from England to New Zealand and because of the property laws at the time, she had to pay him off to avoid losing all of her assets.
"She's a really wily woman that I'm quite fond of."
Sarah Ann Plummer, who was married to a prominent gold miner, started a successful hotel at Glenorchy and also remarried, possibly bigamously, Bradshaw says.
Most of the women came from the UK sometimes via the goldfields of Australia.
It was not the done thing for women to work as miners, instead, "hotel keepers were the thing to be".
"There was so much money to be made from selling alcohol. But they [women] did all sorts of other things as well - accommodation, bakeries, all sorts of crafts and some really quite surprising occupations."
Some became "dancegirls" in the pubs to encourage men to stay on drinking for longer.
It was not possible to gain a divorce in Aotearoa until 1867 but it was made more difficult for women. A man could be granted a divorce if a wife was unfaithful whereas a woman had to prove something extra such as cruelty, sodomy, bigamy or rape.
As well, it was expensive as all the cases were heard by the Supreme Court in Wellington.
"So not many women went down that road."
The frequency of bigamy
Julia Bradshaw believes bigamy was more common than authorities at the time realised.
"Very few cases came to the attention of the authorities. It's really the work of family historians that's showing how common it was."
A photo she was given of Mary Anne Hardman started her "on the road of researching bigamy" in New Zealand.
She married her first husband in Australia and they both came to New Zealand and settled at the Shotover River and then she ran off with his business partner, married him bigamously and had 11 children.
Her first husband returned to Australia and remarried bigamously and after Mary Anne's second husband died she married again.
"But what is quite astonishing about the story is that the family members all kept in touch. So the children, some of them went between New Zealand and Australia, particularly the older ones she had with her first husband...
"I was very fortunate to find on Ancestry a photograph of Mary Anne when she's in her seventies and it's a really nice sense of closure for me."
She says she had a lot of thoughts about how families explained to their friends how their visiting relatives fitted into their family tree.
Sometimes women were under pressure to marry. In the late 1860s the Nelson Provincial Council decided single women weren't allowed to run a hotel, resulting in a sudden increase in female hotelkeepers announcing their intention to marry in places like Charleston and the Buller District.
"They were often marrying miners and relatively simple men so I think those men made a fantastic match."
Julia Bradshaw is continuing her research to produce a book so is interested in hearing from people who have information about bigamy, divorce, businesswomen or other work relating to women involved with the South Island goldfields.
If you have information you can email Julia Bradshaw at infoline@canterburymuseum.com
