Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley.
Sarah Ann Binge was born about 1828 in Cambridgeshire, England – the daughter of Francis Binge, a farmer, and Mary Liveal.
She married labourer John Mortimer on 6 April 1845 in the parish of Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire.
They had two sons, both who appear to have died in infancy before the young couple emigrated to Victoria, Australia in 1849 on the Mary Shepherd.
They had a further five children in Victoria – three of these children also died at a young age includine,their daughter Hannah, who in 1863 aged one year and 11 months, was accidentally poisoned by an arsenic bait which had been placed under a bed to kill rats.
Sarah and her two remaining children sailed for Otago in 1863 on the Aldinga, John had presumably travelled earlier.
They settled in South Otago near Milton where they had a farm.
John died in 1887 and, in 1889, Sarah’s “four-roomed house” “was burned down owing to some clothes which were hanging in the kitchen taking fire”.
Sometime after this Sarah moved to Dunedin and when she signed the suffrage petition she was living in Forth St working as a needlewoman.
She died on 3 October 1903 and she is buried with John in the Fairfax Cemetery, Milton.
Sources:
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
Trove https://trove.nla.gov.au
BDM Victoria https://online.justice.vic.gov.au
Public Record Office Victoria https://prov.vic.gov.au
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