Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Elizabeth Ann Thomas was born in 1857 in St Cleer, Cornwall – the daughter of James Thomas, a copper miner, and Jane Thomas.
The family emigrated to South Australia in the early 1860s where Elizabeth’s mother died in 1868.
Her father remarried the following year (See 122 Mrs Thomas) and they came to New Zealand in the early 1870s.
When Elizabeth signed the suffrage petition she was living with her family in Lawrence St, Mornington working as a stocking finisher.
She married Andrew Nelson, a widower and sailmaker, at her home in March 1894.
Elizabeth died at her home in South Dunedin on 13 May 1896 and Andrew died later that year, in September, at Seacliff Asylum.
They are both buried in the Southern Cemetery.