Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Emily Ellen Morris was born in 1864 in Essex, England – the only child of William Arthur Morris, a railway porter, and Emily Maria Eden.
Emily emigrated to Otago with her parents in 1874 on the Christian McAusland and she married James Mills Kingsland, a bootmaker, at her parents’ home at Chatton in Southland on 3 June 1885.
Emily and James had a daughter in 1886 before they moved to Melbourne, Australia where James started a business as a boot importer.
Their son was born there in 1888 - he died at the age of two months.
The family returned to New Zealand a short time after and their last child, a son, was born in 1891.
When Emily signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Yarrow St, Invercargill.
James died in 1936 and Emily died on 2 October 1948, they are buried in the family grave in the Invercargill Eastern Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
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
Invercargill City Council https://icc.govt.nz
BDM Victoria https://online.justice.vic.gov.au