Also signed as 168 Margaret R Grindley
Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Margaret Reid Mercer was born about 1851 in Kincardine, Perthshire, Scotland – the daughter of Charles Mercer, a farmer, and Eliza Heron. (See 53 Mrs Mercer)
She emigrated to Otago with her family in 1863 on the Arima and they settled at The Glen, Mornington, Dunedin where they ran a dairy farm.
Margaret married John Grindley, a butcher, on 24 July 1873 at St Michael’s Church, Clyde. They settled in Dunedin and had eight children, one who died in infancy.
John later worked as a stock and station agent and auctioneer and when Margaret signed the suffrage petition they were living in Mornington, Dunedin.
In 1900 Margaret, accompanied by her three youngest daughters, travelled to England. They had 'an intention of breaking the journey at Cape Town in order to visit the scenes of the fighting in South Africa. But, alas! matters in the annexed territories were not satisfactory from a tourist’s point of view and the idea was dismissed'.
John joined them in 1902 and they then sailed for Cape Town and settled in Johannesburg.
Shortly after their arrival the family were stricken with typhoid fever, leaving their daughter Nora to support the family.
Nora died in 1904, also from typhoid.
On 11 August 1909 Margaret died from 'chronic nephritis', she is buried in the Braamfontein Cemetery, Johhanesburg.
John returned to New Zealand the following year, he died in Wellington in 1918 – he is buried in the Karori 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/