Emily Lake

Signed family name

Lake

Signed given name

Emily

Given address

Sandy Mount

Sheet number

143

Town/Suburb

Otago peninsula

City/Region

Otago

Notes

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Emily Webster was born about 1848 in London, England.

She emigrated to New Zealand about 1865– she could possibly have been the Emily who arrived in Lyttelton on the British Empire in 1864.

She had a son, Herbert, in 1870 and she married Charles Skerrett, a dealer, on 4 September 1873 in Dunedin.

Charles was declared bankrupt in 1875 and later that year he died at their home in Lookout Point, Dunedin.

Emily stayed at Lookout Point for the next couple of years during which time she had an ongoing dispute with her neighbours which concluded with a few visits to the court. These offences included Emily’s fowls damaging a neighbour’s grain stacks, her neighbours trespassing on her property and Emily assaulting a neighbour – for this she was bound over to keep the peace for three months.

On 5 August 1880 Emily married William Lake, a dairy farmer on the Otago Peninsula. They lived at Seal Point near Sandymount and this is where Emily signed the suffrage petition.

Emily died in Dunedin Hospital on 1 August 1908, she is buried with Charles, her daughter in law and grandson in the Southern Cemetery.

William died at their home in 1915, he is buried in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.