Dueling administrators
Oh, the tales the court records tell…
And it doesn’t really matters whose court records or where or why… there is always a story to be told.
For some reason, The Legal Genealogist ended up poking around in records of the New Plymouth Court last night.
No, not Plymouth. As in Massachusetts or Ohio.
New Plymouth.
As in New Zealand.
And in those court records, just as in court records everywhere, there is always a story to be told.
Case in point: the story of the O’Hanlon family, where the mama wasn’t happy — and it ended in a family feud.
Rose Anna O’Hanlon, resident at Hawera in the Provincial District of Taranaki, a hotelkeeper, died at New Plymouth on the 24th of May 1884. Her widower, Charles Patrick O’Hanlon, reported the death1 and — since Rose didn’t leave a will — asked to be given letters of administration on her estate.2
Pretty straight-forward, right? Married woman dies, husband takes over.
Um… not so fast.
On the same day that Charles went in to take over his wife’s estate, in came Mary Elizabeth O’Hanlon, Rose’s oldest daughter and next of kin, who was, she said, the only one of Rose’s children who was over age 21. She made her own request to be given the right to administer her mother’s estate.3
In particular, she didn’t want Charles Patrick O’Hanlon to touch a thing. He didn’t have a right to it, she said, because, in January 1882, her mother had gone to court and obtained an order protecting her property and earnings from her husband:
previous to the twenty second day of April one thousand eight hundred and eighty one she the said Rose Anna O’Hanlon had been subject to cruelty by her said husband without adultery, and that her said husband had habitually failed to provide a maintenance for his said wife and children without such failure being covered by sickness of other unavoidable cause.4
As a result, the court had entered the relief she wanted:
It is hereby by virtue of the provisions of the Married Womans Property protection Act 1880 Adjudged and ordered that the earnings and property of the said Rose Anna O’Hanlon acquired since the twenty second day of April one thousand eight hundred and eighty one shall be protected against her husband the said Charles Patrick O’Hanlon and all Creditors and persons claiming under him.5
Mary Elizabeth said everything Rose had when she died, she’d acquired after getting the court order and living separately from Charles — so nothing, no power of administration, and not one penny, should go to Charles.6
The probate court went along with Mary Elizabeth. Letters of administration “limited to such personal property as the deceased had acquired or become possessed of since the 22nd April 1881 (being the date from which a Protection Order granted to Deceased took effect) (were) granted to Mary Elizabeth O’Hanlon, Eldest daughter & next of kin of deceased.”7
Now… that’s a pretty good story all by itself. But the story of the law itself that Rose used to protect herself is a good one too.
New Zealand was among the first areas of the British Empire to give married women some protection over their own property. The first act, passed in 1860, focused on protection of women who had been deserted by their husbands and allowed the local courts to “make and give to the wife an order protecting her earnings and property acquired since the commencement of such desertion from her husband, and all creditors and persons claiming under him.”8
Its provisions were continued in 1870 and 1880,9 but the 1880 act — the one that Rose acted under — expanded protection to women in any of the following cases:
(1) Where she is deserted by her husband without reasonable cause (2) When she is subjected by her husband to cruelty without adultery (3) Where her husband is guilty of living in open adultery (4) Where her husband is guilty of habitual drunkenness (5) Where her husband habitually fails to provide a maintenance for his wife and children without such failure being caused by sickness or other unavoidable cause.10
Then by the act of 1884, effective 1 January 1885, married women in New Zealand were given the same right to own and acquire property — real and personal — as single women were given.11
Oh, and there’s one more tidbit to the O’Hanlon story… Mary Elizabeth wasn’t Charles and Rose’s only child. She was just the only child who was of age by 1884. It sure looks like they also had at least one son… another Charles O’Hanlon… who emigrated to the United States.12
Yes indeed… the tales the court records tell…
SOURCES
- District Court of Taranaki, New Plymouth, In re Rose Anna O’Hanlon, No. 146 (1884); Affidavit of Death, Charles Patrick O’Hanlon, 2 June 1884; digital images, “New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Probate Records, 1843-1998,” FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 4 Nov 2015). ↩
- Ibid., application for letters of administration, 2 June 1884. ↩
- Ibid., Charles Patrick O’Hanlon, application of Mary Elizabeth O’Hanlon, 2 June 1884. ↩
- Ibid., application of Mary Elizabeth O’Hanlon, 2 June 1884; attachment A, Resident Magistrates Court of Upper Wanganui, New Zealand; Order, In re Married Womans Property protection Act 1880, Rose Anna O’Hanlon (12 Jan 1882). ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid., application of Mary Elizabeth O’Hanlon, 2 June 1884. ↩
- Ibid., Motion paper, 4 June 1884. ↩
- §2, “Married Women’s Property Protection Act, 1860,” Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, 30 March 1861, p.4; digital image, National Library of New Zealand, Papers Past (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/ : accessed 4 Nov 2015). ↩
- See Bettina Bradbury, “Colonial Comparisons: Rethinking Marriage, Civilization and Nation in Nineteenth-Century White Settler Societies,” in Phillip Buckner & R. Douglas Francis, eds., Rediscovering the British World (Calgary, Alberta : University of Calgary Press, 2005), 151. ↩
- §3, “Married Women’s Property Protection Act, 1880,” in William Badger, ed., Statutes of New Zealand … 1842-1892, 4 vols. (Christchurch, NZ : p.p., 1892), I:427; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com : accessed 4 Nov 2015). ↩
- Ibid., “Married Women’s Property Act, 1884,” in Badger, ed., Statutes of New Zealand, I:423. ↩
- See “U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007,” entry for Charles Patrick (Charles James) O’Hanlon, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 Nov 2015). ↩
By using Papers Past, the New Zealand digital newspaper project, it became clear why Rose O’Hanlon filed court papers to protect her property. Charles P. O’Hanlon filed for bankruptcy sometime prior to May, 1883 when his bankruptcy discharge was published in the Auckland Star. Charles, or C. P. O’Hanlon’s name appears numerous times in the New Zealand newspapers, and they are a great place to find the “rest of the story.”
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast
It’s more a matter that she could see it coming — Rose filed for the protective order in January 1882: more than a year before the bankrupcty! (The 1884 date is when her daughter attached it as an exhibit to her filing after Rose’s death.) But yes, Papers Past is a wonderful site (and is cited in the post for the text of the 1860 version of the married woman’s act).
What a fascinating story, Judy. Any idea why the laws of New Zealand were so much more advanced than those of the US in their protections of the rights of married women?
It isn’t that New Zealand was any more advanced than the US, Doris: parts of the US started passing married women’s property acts as far back as the 1830s.