The 1893 electoral roll confirms Kaikorai shopkeeper
Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Emily Collins was born in 1862 in New Zealand – the daughter of Thomas Collins, a grocer and fruiterer, and Charlotte.
She married Robert Watson, a painter, on 27 December 1883.
They had two children when, in April 1890, Robert disappeared from his place of work.
His body was found two weeks later in the Botanical Gardens, the verdict of the inquest was 'probably poisoned by his own hands'.
Emily’s third child, a daughter, was born at the end of October. This child died the following year aged nine months.
When she signed the suffrage petition Emily was living in Kaikorai Valley Road running a small shop.
She remained in the Kaikorai/Roslyn area until the 1920s when she went to live near her daughter in Wellington.
She died there on 1 June1948, she was cremated and her ashes are interred in the Karori Cemetery, Wellington.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Wellington City Council https://wellington.govt.nz/