Biographical information provided by Stefanie Lash, Archives New Zealand, for the He Tohu exhibition:
Emily Bowles was born in 1851 in Deal, Kent, England, and came to New Zealand with her family when she was six. They arrived on the ship Mystery in 1858, landing at Lyttelton, and moving to Timaru. In 1869 Emily married Henry Manchester, the son of a railway labourer from Lincolnshire. At the same time, her widowed mother Elizabeth married Henry’s older brother William. It is likely that Elizabeth is the Elizabeth Manchester who signed Sheet 234 of the Petition.
Henry and Emily had nine children, six sons and three daughters, but only six lived to adulthood. In 1880, Henry and Emily’s house caught fire while they were sleeping, and they and the children only narrowly escaped. Henry worked in the family store, Manchester & Goldsmith’s in Waimate, and they lived on Innes St.
Emily died in 1930, aged 78.
