Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Eliza Dyer was born about 1851 in Linlithgowshire, Scotland – the daughter of John Dyer, a miner, and Margaret Auld.
She married widower George Cunningham, a farm labourer and miner, on 2 February 1872 in Shotts, Lanarkshire and they had four children before the family emigrated to Otago in 1875 on the Auckland.
They settled in South Otago and had a further five children.
In 1887 their three-year-old daughter Jane died from burns when her clothing caught fire when she was playing near an ashpit.
When Eliza signed the suffrage petition the family were living at Port Molyneux.
George died at their home in 1913 and Eliza died on 12 June 1940, they are buried in the family grave in the Port Molyneux Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/