Information needed about a Mrs McDonald

Former Whanganui woman Catherine Bishop is writing a book about New Zealand's colonial businesswomen. PHOTO/ SUPPLIED

Sydney historian and author Catherine Bishop is desperately seeking information about Mrs McDonald - feather cleaner, poet and milliner - who lived in Whanganui in the 1800s.

Dr Bishop was brought up in Whanganui and now teaches and researches in Sydney. She was here last year, to launch her book about Sydney's colonial businesswomen.

She became intrigued by New Zealand' s colonial businesswomen as well. Her book on them has to be finished by the end of January.

She's back in Whanganui from January 16 to 22 and is seeking some final bits of information. She's especially interested in the elusive Mrs McDonald, who was in Whanganui from 1869-88.

In 1869 Mrs McDonald advertised her services in rhyme:

Mrs McDonald, Market square,
Begs to announce to the ladies fair,
A millinery business she has commenced.
To attend to it strictly, is her intent;
To give satisfaction, will be her chief care,
Of public favor to merit a share;
Shapes and bonnets to order are made,
Styles new, or old, no orders delayed;
Hats, feathers, and fancy work made of all kinds,
At prices so low that will please ladies' minds.

Mrs McDonald disappeared to Melbourne for a while, then turned up again in 1886 for about two years, saying she had been 20 years in the business and had a shop in Victoria Ave.

"But then she vanishes. What was her first name? Did she have a husband, who may or may not have been a publican, or was he dead ... or offloaded somewhere in her trans-Tasman travels," Dr Bishop asks.

She's uncovered other stories of women running businesses in Whanganui in the 1800s. There are the "indefatigable" Jessie Campbell - a greengrocer, schoolteachers Isabella Carey and Barbara Macdonald, publican Anna Howe, ex-milliner Rebecca Smith, shopkeeper Sarah Hogg, abortionist Caroline Peyman and Clara Rankin who was a draper - but perhaps also something less respectable.

Dr Bishop wants to hear more - from anyone who has letters, diaries, photos or stories of women who ran businesses in 1800s Whanganui or other New Zealand towns.

People with information can contact her on her website http://catherinebishop.wixsite.com/history, or through the Wanganui Chronicle.