Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Elizabeth Yeates was born in 1845 in Bristol, Gloucestershire – the daughter of Thomas Yeates, a drayman, and Prudence Sainsbury.
She married Charles William Smith, a cheese salesman, on 18 December 1864 in Somerset – they had two daughters (see 127 Elizabeth E Gilder), one who died in infancy, before the family sailed for Otago in September 1873 on the Surat.
On 1 January 1874 the ship hit a rock off the Otago coast and was eventually beached in a bay south of the Catlins River, now called Surat Bay, all the passengers were landed safely but their belongings were left on the ship & ruined by the water.
An emergency fund was raised by the residents of Dunedin to help the new emigrants.
Elizabeth and Charles settled in Dunedin where Charles worked as a dairyman and they had a further three children.
When Elizabeth signed the suffrage petition the family were living at Pine Hill.
In 1893 the dairy business was sold and by 1916 the family had moved to Musselburgh where Elizabeth died on 4 November.
Charles died at their daughter’s home in Gore in 1921 – they are buried together in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.
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
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/