Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Margaret Auld Cunningham was born on 23 February 1872 in Whitburn, Linlithgowshire, Scotland – the daughter of George Cunningham, a farm labourer and miner, and Elizabeth Dyer. (See 128 Eliza Cunningham)
She emigrated to Otago with her family in 1875 on the Auckland and they settled in South Otago.
Margaret married Graham Dawson, a sawmiller, on 29 December 1891 in Dunedin.
They had seven children and when Margaret signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Puerua in South Otago.
In 1915, when the family were living in Ratanui, their 18-month-old son Frank died of burns sustained while Margaret was doing the washing in an outhouse & had left the two youngest children in the kitchen.
Graham died in 1920 from an injury at work and Margaret died at Owaka Hospital on 25 November 1937, they are buried together in the Anderson Bay Cemetery, Dunedin.
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
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Presbyterian Research Centre https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/