Mary Bell

Signed family name

Bell

Signed given name

Mary

Given address

Greymouth

Sheet number

246

Town/Suburb

Greymouth

City/Region

West Coast

Notes

Originally transcribed as Mary Kell

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Eliza Mary Elizabeth Cox, known as Mary, was born in Victoria, Australia in 1868 – the youngest child of Daniel Cox, a miner, and Eliza Fletcher. (See 246 Eliza Cox) She came to New Zealand with her family about 1870 and they settled in Greymouth.

Eliza married Robert Francis Bell, a photographer, in New South Wales in 1888. They returned to New Zealand where they had three children and when Mary signed the suffrage petition they were living in Greymouth.

Robert was declared bankrupt in 1899 and after this Robert became secretary of the Westland Trades and Labour Council.

He travelled frequently and was often away from home.

In 1912 Mary and Robert divorced. They remarried in 1919 – at this time Robert was on a visit to New Zealand from New York where he was the US representative of the National Sailors and Firemen’s Union of Great Britain and Ireland.

Eliza died at her home in New York on 11 February 1922 – she is presumably buried in New York.

Robert died in 1943 in Dorset, England – he was cremated and his ashes sent to New Zealand.