Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Mary Ann Chambers was born about 1842 in Scotland.
She married James Rayne and they had a son in Scotland before they moved to Durham, England where they had a further five children, one who appears to have died in infancy.
In 1876 the family emigrated to Otago on the Timaru – they settled in Ngapara in North Otago where James worked as a market gardener and they had three more children.
In 1886 James died when his horse and cart fell on him, he is buried in the Old Oamaru Cemetery.
In 1891 Mary’s home was destroyed by fire, she remained in Ngapara and signed the suffrage petition there.
In 1895 Mary and some of her family moved to Kurow where they had obtained land by ballot.
Sometime after this Mary moved to Dunedin and, when her son Harry left to fight in the Boer War, she was living at District Road, Belleknowes.
Her son Harry remained in South Africa after the war and her daughter married there in 1906.
Mary does not appear to have died in New Zealand, she possibly went to join her children in South Africa.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
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
Waitaki District Council https://www.waitaki.govt.nz/Services/Cemeteries
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