DEATH AT 104

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27039, 25 March 1949, Page 4

DEATH AT 104

MRS MARY COULSTON DUNEDIN’S OLDEST INHABITANT SIXTY YEARS IN CITY Dunedin’s oldest inhabitant, Mrs Mary Boyd Coulston, died yesterday. She was aged 104. An inmate of the Central Mission Home at Company Bay since May, 1944, Mrs Coulston, although in failing health, had been comparatively active to the time of her death. Yesterday morning she suffered slight concussion in a fall, and this precipitated her death. Mrs Coulston was born at Linlithgow, near Edinburgh, on February 21,

1845. As a child she used to wander in the grounds of the palace in which Mary Queen of Scots was born. In 1882, when the ship Dunedin arrived at Port Chalmers, Mrs Coulston, who was then Mrs Andrew Morrison, wife of an Edinburgh cabinetmaker, was the first woman to step ashore. Until she entered the Central Mission Home, Mrs Coulston lived in Dunedin. Even when she was 99 she did her own shopping and rarely spent a whole day at her home in Moray place. Of a sprightly step, she was unusually active for her age. During the past two years her health had not been good, but she always took a walk each morning. Her faculties were little impaired, although her hearing was beginning to fail. She was well-liked in the. home and was willing to make conversation at every opportunity. She did not have many visitors. Mrs Coulston is survived by one daughter, Mrs John Harris, of Marton. There are nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.