Biography written by Justine Johansson for the He Tohu exhibtion.
Mary Ealam born 1870 Tokomairiro, Otago - died 16 December 1920.
Daughter of Peter Ealam and Ann Smith of London Street, Lyttleton (final residence in NZ).
Mary was one of 12 children, two half-sisters and a half-brother from her father’s first marriage back in 1852. Of her full siblings, Mary was born third, she had an older brother Peter and sister Annie by the time she was born in 1870. Her father Peter, was born in Crowland Lincolnshire and came to Australia as an assisted immigrant, with his first wife, they left and came to Tokomairiro in search of gold. Peter met Ann Smith (Mary’s mother) in Port Chalmers Dunedin, he married her and went on to have Mary and her siblings.
Mary would have been aged 23 years at the time she signed the suffrage petition. She would have been living at home with her widowed mother as her father had sadly passed away in 1886, when Mary was just 16 years old.
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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