Mrs Pollock

Signed family name

Pollock

Signed given name

Mrs

Given address

Mataura

Sheet number

132

Town/Suburb

Mataura

City/Region

Southland

Notes

Originally transcribed as Mrs Pollack

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Catherine Lawrie was born in Victoria, Australia in 1855 – the daughter of Edward Lawrie and Catherine McKinnon.

She came to New Zealand with her family as a young child where her father died in 1865.

She grew up in the South Otago area where, on 24 April 1873, she married 34-year-old James Pollock, a farmer, at the Bridge Hotel in Mataura.

They had 11 children, three who died in infancy. They later moved to Bothwell Park farm at Tuturau.

Catherine 'took a keen interest in horticulture, being one on the founders of the Mataura Horticultural Society. She was also a keen competitor at the Invercargill and Gore shows in the dairy produce class'.

She was 'at the opening of the suspension bridge across the Mataura river ' and she was said to be one of the 'first women to travel by rail to Invercargill from Mataura. No first class cars being available, they travelled on the tender of the engine'.

Catherine signed the suffrage petition in Mataura – a few years later the family moved to Waipounamu, Riversdale where 'she was prominent in all the church and social work of the district'.

They retired back to Mataura where James died in 1918.

Catherine remained there for a few years until failing health caused her to shift to Gore where she died on 12 December 1936 – she is buried with James in the Mataura Cemetery.