Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Elizabeth Sarah Halliwell was born in 1857 in Geelong, Victoria, Australia – the daughter of Thomas Halliwell, a teacher, and Elizabeth Sarah Bowen. (See 95 E S Halliwell)
She came to Otago with her family in 1862 and she married William Thomson, a warehouseman, on 19 October 1881 in Dunedin.
They had eight children and when Elizabeth signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Belleknowes.
In 1896 the family moved to Sydney where Elizabeth died on 14 March 1898. She is buried in the Rookwood Cemetery.
William and the children returned to Otago - he died in the Balclutha Hospital in 1945 and was cremated.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/
Trove https://trove.nla.gov.au
BDM Victoria https://online.justice.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