MULLER, MARY (1820-1902) was born in England, educated and married there. Having lost her husband (Griffiths), she came to New Zealand with her family in the Pekin. Arriving in Nelson in Jan 1850, she was teaching until on 5 Dec 1851 she married S.L. Muller (q.v.). Before leaving England Mrs Muller held strong opinions on the inequality of the law as regards women. In Nelson she became acquainted with Stafford, Domett, Fox, Alfred Saunders and David Monro, and frequently discussed with them the rights women should enjoy in a new country. Her husband holding an official position and rather conservative views in opposition to her own, she refrained from public utterances. She had, however, a valuable ally in Charles Elliott (q.v.), the owner of the Nelson Examiner, and was able from time to time to publish anonymously in that paper her ideas on the social order and to maintain correspondence with others interested. In 1869, she published, under the nom de plume 'Femina,' a pamphlet addressed to the men of New Zealand, which led to correspondence with John Stuart Mill and with the secretary of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in London. Unable to work openly in the women's cause, Mrs Muller nevertheless exercised much influence. She had the satisfaction of seeing the married women's property act passed. Writing to Mrs K. W. Sheppard on 6 Jun 1900 she said that a notice in the White Ribbon (Christchurch) in Dec 1898 was the first disclosure of her activity in the cause of women's rights. She died at Old Amersfoort, Blenheim, in Jul 1902.

Information from Dr F. A. Bett and Miss M. B. Lovell Smith; W. S. Smith (p); Muller, op. cit.; Nelson Examiner, pass.; The White Ribbon, Dec 1898, Aug 1900.

Reference: Volume 2, page 57

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