Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Catherine Wakelin Coutts was born in 1857 in St Andrews, Midlothian, Scotland – the daughter of James Coutts, a hotel keeper, and Margaret Kelly.
Her father appears to have died in the 1860’s and her mother re-married to another hotel keeper Henry Ashby.
Catherine married, clerk, Henry Farquharson Hamilton Murray in 1878 and they had a son before they emigrated to New Zealand about 1880.
They lived in Tapanui and Port Chalmers and had a further seven children, one who died in infancy.
When Catherine signed the suffrage petition they had moved to North East Valley, Dunedin. The 1893 electoral roll confirms Catherine housemaid Moray Place.
In 1905 they shifted to Wellington – Catherine died on 6 January 1914 at her daughter’s home in New Plymouth, she is buried in the Te Henui Cemetery.
Henry re-married the following year – he died in 1935 and is buried in the Mount View Cemetery in Marton.
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/
Scotlands People https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk