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Emma Ford Manuscripts (c.1890 - 1929)

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Description Emma was born Emma Dellow in Weedons, Canterbury, on 30 June 1869, the daughter of Isaac and Mary Dellow (née Gapes). Issac, Mary, and their six children sailed from London on the Regina in September 1859, arriving at Lyttelton on 6 December 1859. The family chose to settle in Canterbury and went on to have four further children – all girls, Emma being the youngest of these.

From 1879, Emma lived in St. Albans, Christchurch, and she and her family were closely identified with the Edgeware Methodist Church (then on Crescent Road, St. Albans). During her more than 40 years of service for the Church, Emma was a Sunday School teacher, Young Women’s Bible Class leader, President of the Ladies Guild, and helped to lead the Church’s charitable aid outreach activities, as well as representing the St. Albans Methodist Circuit at local synods and annual national conferences. She was often referred to as ‘the Edgeware Methodist Deaconess’.

Emma’s manuscripts, comprising 38 handwritten essays, sermons, notes, and a scrapbook, cover a variety of subjects ranging from historical figures and biblical passages to the topical issues of the day. They provide an invaluable window into her life, her faith and philosophy, and the manner in which she ministered to the many women and children with whom she worked.

On 5 December 1888 she married Charles Ford, and together the couple had three children. Emma’s family remembered her going from home to home collecting signatures for the 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition, and her signature appears on Christchurch Sheet 176.

Emma died on 26 November 1929. Her obituary in The New Zealand Methodist Times records that she 'was a friend, counsellor and a guide of rare spiritual insight and sound judgment’ and that ‘the charm of her beautiful life and witness to Christ will never be forgotten’ by those with whom she worked.

Note:
Special thanks to Wendy Conwell (née Ford), Emma’s Great Grandaughter, for facilitating the donation of Emma’s manuscripts to MCNZ Archives, along with her transcriptions of them, and also for providing the biographical information recorded here.Parent CollectionPersonal Papers

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Emma Ford Manuscripts (c.1890 - 1929)

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