Mary Dreaver

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Mrs Mary Manson Dreaver (1887-1961) was a New Zealand politician of the Labour Party.

She won the seat of Waitemata in 1941 when a by-election was held after the death of the previous Labour Party MP, William John Lyon. She was defeated in the next (1943) general election, by the National Party candidate, Henry Thorne Morton.

She was the third woman to be elected to Parliament after Elizabeth McCombs and Catherine Stewart, was on several Auckland local bodies, and (with Mary Anderson) was one of the first women appointed to the Legislative Council in 1946; they served to 1950 when the Legislative Council was abolished. She was a journalist as Maorilander in the New Zealand Woman's Weekly and a broadcaster on 1ZB as Aunt Maisy.

She was born in Dunedin as Mary Manson Bain. She was a minister and president of the National Spiritualist Church of New Zealand.

[edit] Further reading

Gustafson, Barry (1996), From the Cradle to the Grave: a biography of Michael Joseph Savage, Auckland, [N.Z.]: Reed Methuen, p. 280, ISBN 0-474-00138-5