Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley.
Mary Margaret Elizabeth Knowles was born on June 13th 1867 in Bothwell, Tasmania, the daughter of William Knowles, a bootmaker, and Annie Louisa Anderson.
She came to Otago with her family in the 1870s, and she married Edmund George Churchill in 1891. They had seven children.
When Mary signed the suffrage petition they were living in Castle St, Dunedin.
They later moved to Port Chalmers then to Wellington where Mary died on February 1st 1925.
Edmund died in 1946. They are buried together in the Karori Cemetery.
Sources
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