Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Miriam/Marian Wedlake was born in Roche, Cornwall in 1838 – the daughter of William Wedlake, a tin miner, and Mary Pike.
Miriam had a daughter in 1860 (See 82 Mrs Bloy) and another daughter in 1863.
In 1872 Miriam emigrated to Otago on the Christian McAusland with her youngest daughter Catherine to join her brother and his wife who were mining at Lawrence in Central Otago.
On 31 December 1872, at the Wesleyan Trinity Church, Dunedin Miriam married William Thomas, a miner, from Monroe’s Gully near Lawrence.
Miriam and William had seven children, one who died in infancy and when she signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Blue Spur a mining area near Lawrence.
Miriam died on 26 March 1899 at her daughter’s home in Lawrence and William died in 1925 in Invercargill, they are buried together in the Lawrence Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
GRO England https://www.gro.gov.uk
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/
Cornwall OPC https://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/