suffrage_petition
Surname: 
Sturgeon
Given names: 
Emma
Given address: 
George St
Sheet No: 42
Town/Suburb: 
Central Dunedin
City/Region: 
Dunedin
Notes: 

Biographical information provided by Stefanie Lash, Archives New Zealand, for the He Tohu exhibition:

Emma Alice Rosina Sturgeon (nee Green) was born in 1853 in Greenwich, Kent (now a part of London, but then its own town.)  She migrated to New Zealand alone, at the age of 21, as an assisted migrant and settled in Dunedin. In 1878 she married James Sturgeon, an expressman (someone whose job it was to ensure the safe delivery of gold and valuables on a train).

James Sturgeon died in 1888, leaving the 35-year-old Emma with five children. Emma remarried in June 1893, so she must have signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition just prior to her second marriage. Her second husband was James Couston, a master plumber. In 1904, after a depressive illness, James Couston drowned himself.

Emma died in 1929. She was buried in Anderson’s Bay cemetery in Dunedin with James Sturgeon and their children.

Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.

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