Also signed as 48 Mary Gibb
Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Mary Hamilton was born about 1837 in Ireland, she married Archibald Watson, an engine keeper, on 28 November 1855 in Glasgow, Scotland.
They had two daughters, one who died in infancy before they boarded the Robert Henderson in 1861 bound for Otago.
They had two sons in the 1870s and the family lived at Upper Junction near Dunedin where they ran the Upper Junction Hotel until the hotel licence was transferred in 1880.
Archibald died in a timber felling accident in 1881.
Mary married Thomas Crompton Gibbs, a newsvendor, on 28 February 1884 and when Mary signed the suffrage petition they were living in St Andrew St, Dunedin.
Mary died on 29 March 1911, she is buried with her first husband and children in the Northern Cemetery.
Thomas died in 1922, he is buried with their adopted daughter 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
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Presbyterian Research Centre https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/
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