suffrage_petition
Surname: 
Patrick
Given names: 
Emma Grey
Given address: 
Takapuna
Sheet No: 407
Town/Suburb: 
Takapuna
City/Region: 
Auckland
Notes: 

Biography contributed by Colyn Storer (née Morley), great niece of Emma Grey Morley.

Emma Gray Morley was born on 7 December 1855 at Norwell Woodhouse Nottinghamshire, youngest child of William Morley (1814-1883) and Mary (née Mason, 1815-1882). Although her second name, Gray, was given as a family name, she signed herself as Emma Grey in all surviving records.

Her father was a farmer and leader of the local Wesleyan Methodist church in England. William and Mary and their three youngest children, Frank, Mary and Emma emigrated to New Zealand on the Royal Stuart in November 1863, arriving at Auckland on 26 January 1864. They settled at Parnell and were closely involved with Wesleyan church there. She became a Sunday School teacher and later taught in day schools with great success.

She married a widower Hugh Patrick on 3 October 1883 in Auckland. He had one daughter, Phoebe, who also signed the petition. They had two children, Marion in 1885 and Hugh Alister in 1888, before Hugh Patrick died in 1889, aged only 40. Emma continued to run his business, including the local post office at Takapuna. The family worshipped at the Wesleyan church at Takapuna where Emma also played the organ.

On 9 April 1894 she married Andrew P Todd at Takapuna Wesleyan Church. They had one daughter, Emma Gray Morley Todd, in 1895. They continued their membership of and association with the Wesleyan church there and later at Birkenhead, where her obituary records, 'both left a lasting impression for outstanding service to the Church which they both loved so much.'

Andrew died in 1932. Emma died on 25 July 1944 at Birkenhead, and her funeral was at Zion Wesleyan Church and burial at Birkenhead Cemetery. Her life was remembered in an Obituary in the New Zealand Methodist Times on 19 Aug 1944. Her three children survived her.

Emma and family

From left to right: Mary Elizabeth, Frank Marriott (husband of Unica Ann) and Emma Grey Morley.

Sources

Ancestry.co.uk (England and Wales birth index)
Papers Past ('Shipping Intelligence', New Zealand Herald, 27 January 1864)
BDM online NZ
Ancestry.com.au  (New Zealand electoral rolls 1853-1981)
Birkenhead-Glenfield Cemetery records
Church Papers Online (The New Zealand Methodist Times, 7 November 1959 and 19 August 1944)
Family information

Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.

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