Marie Thom

Signed family name

Thom

Signed given name

Marie

Given address

Gore

Sheet number

133

Town/Suburb

Gore

City/Region

Southland

Notes

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Marie Begby Thomson was born in 1860 in Dunedin – the daughter of Thomas Craig Thomson, a farmer, and Margaret Reid.

She married John Thom on 27 December 1881 at Knox Church in Dunedin. They had a son the following year before they moved to Melbourne where their daughter was born in 1887.

John worked on the Melbourne tramways – he suffered an injury at work and was transferred to the signal branch, but he died in 1892. John is buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery. Marie returned to New Zealand with the children and opened a boarding house in Gore where she signed the suffrage petition.

She re-married in 1896 to Duncan Campbell, a dredgehand and they had a daughter later that year.

They lived in Fortrose and Outram before returning to Gore.

Marie was a member of the Otago and Gore Early Settlers’ Association & the Gore Highland Society 'at whose gatherings her cheerfulness and joviality made her a very popular member'. She died on March 5th 1926 in Gore and is buried with her daughter in the Gore Cemetery.

Her obituary said she had 'endeared herself to a wide circle of friends by her cheery disposition and kindly ways...her hospitality was unbounded, and her passing will leave a gap among her relatives and friends which memory alone can fill'.

Duncan re-married in 1940 – he died in 1953 and is buried in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.