Signed family name
Churchill
Signed given name
M. F.
Given address
Maori Hill
Notes
Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley.
Martha was born about 1853.
She emigrated to Otago in 1879 on the Forfarshire with her husband Samuel William Churchill. When she signed the suffrage petition she was living in Drivers Road, Maori Hill, Dunedin.
In 1911 while Samuel was an inmate of the Incurable Home for Invalids at Caversham, Martha became unwell.
She went to stay with friends at Burnside, and a nurse was engaged to look after her.
On October 7th she took a dose of iodine and died soon afterwards.
The Coroner’s verdict was that the dose was taken while “she was in a temporary state of insanity”.
Samuel died at Seacliff in January 1912. They are buried together in the Green Island Cemetery.