Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Susan Ann Harris was born in 1863 in Cornwall – the daughter of Joseph Harris, a copper miner, and Susan Thomas.
She emigrated to Otago in 1875 on the Earl of Zetland with her father, step-mother and siblings and she married Joseph Sutherland, a miner, in 1886.
They had five children and when Susan signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Blue Spur near Lawrence in Central Otago.
In 1897, the year that their youngest child was born, Joseph died, aged 41 - he is buried in the Lawrence Cemetery.
In the 1900s Susan and her children moved to Dunedin where she died on 13 August 1923, she is buried in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
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
Interment.net http://www.interment.net/data/nz/otago/lawrence
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