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Marianne Smith

New Zealand businesswoman, community worker, philanthropist (1851-1938)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 29, 2025
Entity authorityQ16023312
Source-derived summary

Marianne Smith (born Mary Anne Caughey; 10 March 1851 – 1 September 1938), and known as Marianne Caughey Preston since 1932, was a notable New Zealand businesswoman, community worker and philanthropist.

Mary Anne Caughey was born in Portaferry, County Down, Ireland, in 1851.

Marianne Smith established Smith & Caughey's in 1880. Her husband joined her when there was sufficient business to support the two of them. In the 1935 King's Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for philanthropic services.

She died at her home in Auckland on 1 September 1938, and was buried at Purewa Cemetery in the Auckland suburb of Meadowbank.

In 2009, Smith was posthumously inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Marianne Smith” as new Zealand businesswoman, community worker, philanthropist (1851-1938). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1851, 1938, 1932, 1880—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1851-03-10. The account is most persuasive where Marianne, Smith and Zealand can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as new Zealand businesswoman, community worker, philanthropist (1851-1938). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16023312. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1851, 1938, 1932 and 1880.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Marianne Smith” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.