suffrage_petition
Surname: 
Hepburn
Given names: 
Margaret
Given address: 
Roslyn
Sheet No: 156
Town/Suburb: 
Roslyn
City/Region: 
Dunedin
Notes: 

Notes provided by Helen Edwards, who has carried out extensive research on the women who signed Sheet 156, including mapping where they lived.

Margaret Hepburn, nee Marshall; Mrs Margaret Ross [Margaret Hepburn, Roslyn] (no. 41)

Land description: DP 1359. Address: 30 Leven Street. Age in 1893: 54 years.

Margaret Marshall (also known as Margaret Dunbar Marshall) was born in Falkirk in 1839, the daughter of James Marshall, a storekeeper, and Margaret Dunbar. The family emigrated on the Cornwall in 1849. She married businessman George Ross at her father’s home, ‘Gowan Ha’, Halfway Bush, in 1856. She was 17 years old and he was 36. Ross, born in Inverkeithing in 1820, had arrived on the Philip Laing in 1848. He made his second voyage out to Otago in 1854 on board the Clutha, built at the Ross family’s Inverkeithing shipyard for the Otago trade. The Rosses were living at Bellknowes House in the area known at that time as Bellevue, where George had a dairy farm, when he died suddenly in 1860, leaving Margaret with two very young children. She married William Hepburn, a Halfway Bush farmer and auctioneer, in 1863 and had six daughters and two sons. The younger son, William Leslie Hepburn, died in 1916 after falling off scaffolding while painting a ship at the Port Chalmers dock. The Hepburns lived in the Halfway Bush/Wakari area, where Margaret had grown up, until William’s death in 1887. Margaret moved to Leven Street, living in a house built on her Park in-laws’ land, before its subdivision in 1899. She remained there with several of her children until her death from cancer in 1901.

James Kilgour. Evening Star Jubilee edition, 23 March 1898. See also Don Hutton's entry for Margaret Hepburn at: www.northerncemetery.org.nz

Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.

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2 comments have been posted about Margaret Hepburn

What do you know?

Don Hutton

Posted: 12 Jul 2016

Margaret and William Hepburn had two sons and 6 daughters, not 7. Their eldest child was George Douglas Hepburn (1865-1899). George was brought up in Dunedin. On 18 January 1875 he was re-nrolled Wakari School, Dunedin having been there for 3 years previously. He left on 17 December 1875 to go to high school (NZSG Index CD Version 4 2005). He attended Otago Boys' High School 1876 - 1881. At 21 years of age he moved to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia where he remained for the rest of his life. He died in "Ensor", Victoria Parade, Albert Ward, East Melbourne of acute pneumonia of both lungs after 5 days on 1 July 1899 "aged 34years 4months 22days" (noted in family bible of his father William Hepburn).

Donald Barrie Hutton

Posted: 11 Jul 2016

Margaret HEPBURN formerly ROSS nee MARSHALL
(b.6 Jul 1839 in Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland, d.24 Aug 1901 in Dunedin, Otago, N.Z. - Leven St., Roslyn)
Margaret was the great grandmother of the writer of these notes which may be different in some details from the original biography on this site.

Margaret's OPR birth entry reads "1839 July 28 C (child) Margaret Marshal lawl, P (parents) James Marshall, Margaret Dunbar , W (witnesses) George Fairbairn, Henry Smart, Born 6 , Current" (month). It seems likely that Henry Smart was Margaret's relation through her grandmother Margaret Smart.
According to the Record of Otago Early Settlers compiled at the 1889 Jubilee Industrial Exhibition, Margaret was born on 6 August 1840. However, as noted above, original Scottish Old Parish Records have her birth as 6 July and christening as 28 July both in 1839, so these refute the date provided by the former two sources. The writer has a copy of original OPR Birth Entry, which proves the July 1839 dates. She was recorded as "Margaret Marshall" on her official Birth and Death Entries, not "Margaret Dunbar Marshall" as seen in some documents, so the addition of her mother's surname in some contexts came later.
Margaret spent the first 9 years of her life in Falkirk, Scotland. She emigrated from Scotland to Otago with her parents James and Margaret Marshall nee Dunbar and brothers James and Lewis on the "Cornwall" in 1849, arriving in Dunedin on 23 September. The family settled at Halfway Bush and resided opposite the home of George and Rachel Hepburn on the corner of today's Taieri and Helensburgh Roads. In Rev. Thomas Burn's Visitation Book 1848-1858 there are 11 entries referring to the Marshall family and other relations:
"1. Page 16 No.2 4 Dec. 1849 (Between Port Chalmers Road and the Harbour.) Jas. Marshall (c), Margt. Dunbar (c), h.w. She was daughter of Dunbar the Baptist of Falkirk. James 12, with the Misses Taylors at Green Island Beach ), Margt, Lewis Hay Irving. 3ch.
2. Page 26/6 1849 - Green Island beach 1849. Chas. Taylor, Wm. Taylor (not brother), Jas. Stoddart (Mary Nicholson), Jas. Marshall (12)
3. Page 36/18 - Dec. 23, 1850. Halfway Bush. Jas. Marshall, Magt. Dunbar, Jas, (13), Mgt. (11) Lewis Hay Irving (4) - 3 children.
4. Page 57/12 - 1851 Halfway Bush 27 Nov. Jas. Marshall, Magt. Dunbar, Jas 14, Mgt. 12, Lewis 5.
5. Page 80/12 - 13 Dec. 1851. Jas. Marshall - Deacon - Magt. Dunbar, Jas. 15, Mgt. 13, Lewis 6.
6. Page 109/17, Nov. 9, 1854 Halfway Bush. Jas. Marshall (Deacon), Magt. Dunbar, Jas. 17, Mgt. 15, Lewis 8.
7. Page 121/5a 2 Nov. 1855. Halfway Bush Lower. Jas Marshall, Deacon, Mgt. Dunbar, Jas. 18, Mgt. Lewis 9.
8. Page 137/5a 14 Nov. 1856. Halfway Bush Lower Jas. Marshall, Deacon, Mgt. Dunbar, Jas. 19, Lewis 10.
9. Page 140/22 Nov. 19 1856. Carisbrook - Belleview Geo. Ross (c) Mgt. Marshall (not) H.W.
10. Page 150/6 Nov. 6, 1857 H.W. Bush, Waikari. Jas. Marshall deacon, Mgt. Dunbar, Jas. 20, Lewis 11.
11. Page 168/28 Nov. 10, 1857. Caversham. Geo. Ross Mgt. Ross, Geo. 1 (& servants) 10/11/58 Caversham George Ross com., Margt, not, h & w. Geo. 1 Sophia Dickson."
Margaret Marshall and George Ross were married on 18 September 1856 by Rev. Thomas Burns. The witnesses were James Smith of Wakari and John M. Williamson of Kaikorai. The writer has an official copy of the marriage entry from the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages. She was 17 and he was 36!
George Ross (1820 – 1860) originally sailed from Greenock on the Philip Laing (459 tons) on 23 November 1847 and arrived in Dunedin on 15 April 1848. One source suggests his birthplace was Kirkcaldy, but Scottish Old Parish records show that he was born and baptised in Inverkeithing. In September 1850 his employment was recorded as "merchant." It appears that he returned to Scotland for some reason about September 1851. On 12 February 1854, he arrived in Dunedin again, this time on his own ship the Clutha, carrying his sister Alison and her husband James Kilgour, their son and two daughters. Ross and Kilgour also formed a business partnership in Dunedin.
George died unexpectedly in 1860 of Rheumatic Fever.
When Margaret married for a second time to William Hepburn, a Marriage Settlement was completed by which she received a 1/4 share in her own right of a property at the corner of Rattray and George Streets, Dunedin. At one stage the annual rents received from the whole property were £2,000. Therefore, her probable share of £500 per year meant in those days that she was a wealthy woman of independent means. This income was likely to have stood her in good stead after William's business collapsed in the years before his death in 1887. The writer has an original duplicate of the Marriage Settlement document, hand written in 1863. The marriage of Margaret and William was celebrated at Margaret's house in Wakari by Reverend D.M. Stuart. Witnesses were Andrew Low, Manuherikia and Jessie Hepburn, Wakari (sister-in-law) who later married noted architect Robert Arthur Lawson. Margaret and William resided in a large house at Halfway Bush, which was named "Athelstane". The location was close by to "Wakari House", the home of William’s father George Hepburn. They had a family of eight children to add to the two from Margaret's first marriage to George Ross, so extensions were needed in the 1870s. Both “Athelstane” and “Wakari House” were situated on the property now occupied by Wakari Hospital.
Margaret signed the original petition for women’s suffrage in New Zealand and was recorded on the first N.Z. Women's Electoral Roll in 1893.
As she got older Margaret became increasingly hard of hearing. George Hepburn noted her use of a hearing trumpet in one of his letters. In 1901 Margaret died of cancer. The writer has a copy of her Death Certificate. At the time of her death she had been living at Leven Street, Roslyn. She had resided there since at least 1896 (Wise's Directory). Unmarried daughters Sophia Mabel, Margaret Marshall, Jessie Helena (the writer’s grandmother) and Violet Minnie were living with her in 1900 (Electoral Roll).
The Monumental Inscription on Margaret’s gravestone in the Northern Cemetery, Dunedin reads: "And with the morn those angel faces smile, That I have loved long since and lost a while."
Notes provided by Donald Barrie Hutton (great grandson b.1938)
Christchurch 2016