‘Having helped many to live, she passed to her rest on the 18th August, 1928 in her 98th year’.
She was the daughter of cousins Wilbraham and Caroline Liardet, whose ancestor had emigrated from Switzerland to London in the 1780s. Her father was also a descendant of the writer John Evelyn who was the author of ‘Sylva’ and her mother spent the early part of her life at court in France. Wilbraham inherited a fortune of £30,000 and had spent it by the time the family emigrated to Australia in the 1840s. Josephine was present at the coronation of Queen Victoria as a child.
In 1854, aged 23, Josephine married Captain John Vernon Venables in Melbourne. Their first two children were born in England before the couple returned to Melbourne. John died in January 1864 at Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum and Josephine was left a widow with four children. The eldest was born in Auckland three months before John’s death.
In September of 1864, Josephine was having success running a Registry Office (labour exchange) in Auckland, so much so that she has ‘been induced to take more Business Premises in Wyndham Street’.
She continued advertising heavily for positions wanted.
In August 1866 Josephine is now advertising her Registry Office on Willis Street, Wellington: ‘Wanting engagements, several highly respectable female servants’. Only a few weeks later she married John Parker MacDonald . He was born in 1822 in Tasmania and also used the name John Poniatowski MacDonald. A month following the wedding, the advertisements for the Registry Office stopped and the family moved to Hokitika.
In October 1867, John MacDonald was charged ‘on the information of Ellen Bellringer with having neglected to support his illegitimate child’. He was ordered to pay £3 5s for thirteen weeks’ arrears. A few weeks later, Josephine was charged by Ellen for assaulting Ellen’s daughter, Sophia Catherine MacDonald, by striking her on the back with a piece of wood. It was said in court that considerable ill feeling existed between the two women. The case was proved and Josephine was fined £2 plus costs.
John and Josephine had three sons all born on the west coast: Alfred, Evelyn and Sylva.
In 1879, Josephine set up business again, this time in Pirie Street, Wellington, manufacturing ‘surgical belts, anti-rheumatic corsets, Indian quilted caps’. In 1899 she is living in Abel Smith Street, occupation: surgical belt maker. John died at Ngaruawahia in 1900 and is buried there. She involved herself in fundraising for the Blinds Soldiers and Sailors Funds and the Congregational Church well into her 80s.
She died at her home in Coromandel Street. Her son Sylva having predeceased her in 1905 following a bicycle accident. Her other son Thomas Vernon Venables is the third burial in this plot in 1940.
Josephine’s parents are buried at Bolton Street Cemetery.
Liardet Street in Vogeltown is named after a cousin.
Public 2/F/11
