A "rowdy woman"

Rowdy women was the title police used to give to sex workers and those women who lived on the edge of society - the euphemism was often used in newspapers, but everyone knew what it meant.
They drank and swore too much and were left with few options to support themselves.
Of those often mentioned was Mary Ann Greaves, whose exploits made Christchurch papers regularly. Her police record said she was five foot four inches tall, of medium build with a fresh complexion, sandy hair and grey eyes.
Greaves, who may have started life as Alice Purnell, seems to have been born in 1834 in Leicestershire, England. A great deal of her early life is not known but convict lists showed she also used the last name Grear and was convicted of a crime in London (although it's not clear what the crime was) and deported to Australia on the Duchess of Northumberland in April 1853. Her sentence was 10 years.
There she had a daughter Catherine before coming to New Zealand in 1859, landing in Canterbury. Her criminal career here started in 1862.
She was listed as one of 14 known prostitutes at a Kaiapoi brothel in 1864.
By 1866, her criminality was considered "infamous".
She came to know the courts well, appearing in a number of cases of prostitution, robberies, public drunkenness, using obscene language and vagrancy, among other crimes.
Greaves ended up with two years jail for assault and robbery of a Thomas Davies in 1866 along with two others.
By 1869, she got another two years for going through the pockets of another client and then hit him when he confronted her.
She was released in 1871 on May 12 about 4pm but within a few hours she was back inside after being arrested for drunk and disorderly behaviour and solicitation.
As part of that sentence, she agreed to leave Christchurch but was arrested again outside the Mitre Hotel in March 1872.
Since nothing appeared to deter her, authorities charged her next under the Contagious Diseases Act which required sex workers to under go medical examinations. When she failed to attend one, she was charged and sent to the Contagious Diseases Reformatory.
In 1877 she was the Crown’s witness in the robbery of a boarding house in Oamaru - turned out she committed perjury - but it was likely she did so because she claimed she was owed wages by the couple who owned the house. She got 18 months in jail - but the man of the house was still committed for trial on her perjurious evidence.
But in 1887 she was fined 30 shillings for being drunk and fighting with another woman.
She was still listed as a sex worker in 1893 but by then did not appear to be causing trouble and last lived in Sydenham with a notorious thief.
She died there on February 18, 1897 aged 60 and is buried in Linwood Cemetery.
Picture by Sergio Alves Santos.