Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Mary Allen was born in 1846 in Somerset, England – the daughter of Edmund Allen, a miller, and Martha Giblett.
The family moved to Tasmania, Australia in the 1850s and Mary came to New Zealand with some of her siblings after their parents deaths.
She married Newton Watt, an engineer, on 17 April 1880 at her brother’s home in Port Chalmers, near Dunedin.
They had no children and when Mary signed the suffrage petition she was living in Melville St, Dunedin.
She died at her home on 31 January 1917 and is buried with her brother James in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.
What became of Newton after this is unclear.
Sources
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Free BDM https://www.freebmd.org.uk
GRO England https://www.gro.gov.uk
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
Community contributions