Biography contributed by Jacqui Beets
Mary Mathews was born on 19 November 1833, at East Stonehouse, Devon, England, the daughter of James Thomas Mathews and Margaret Nicholson Cornish. Her father was an engineer with the East India Company’s Calcutta New Mint. He passed away in Calcutta in 1839, when Mary was six years old.
On 5 April 1858 at Hamptee, India, Mary married Edward John Rawnsley (1829–1904), then a Lieutenant in the 3rd Madras Europeans, later a Captain in the 108th Madras Infantry. They had five children: Richard Edward Dutton (1859–1941), Henry Thomas (1860–1929), Mary Madeline Margaret (1862–1932), Ernest George (1864–1935) and Hester Frances Charlotte (1870–1942). The three eldest were born in India, the two youngest in England.
In 1866 Edward Rawnsley retired from the army and by 1871 the family was living in Plymouth, Devon. Around 1884 Mary Rawnsley and her three youngest children emigrated to New Zealand, where her sons Richard and Henry were employed as officers in the Union Steam Ship Company. Her husband remained in England.
In 1893 Mary Rawnsley was living at at 69 Majoribanks Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington with her daughter Hester, a stenographer. They both signed the Petition, as did Mary’s daughter-in-law Eleanor Rawnsley of Andersons Bay, Dunedin.
Mary Rawnsley passed away on 1 March 1895 at her home in Majoribanks Street, aged 61. She is buried at Wellington’s Karori Cemetery.
Sources
1871 England Census; The National Archives; Kew, London, England.
Ancestry.com https://www.ancestry.com.au
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/
Newspapers.com https://www.newspapers.com/search/
New Zealand Births, Deaths and Marriages online www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.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.
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