This is the mother of leading suffragist Helen Lyster Nicol (1854 - 1932), whose biography appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Margaret's second daughter Lavinia also signed Sheet 115.
Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley:
Margaret Cairns Smith was born in about 1819 in Dysart, Fifeshire, Scotland. She married David Nicol, a gardener, on 1 March 1845 in Dunfermline, Fifeshire. The family moved to Edinburgh in about 1848 and had seven children by the time they emigrated to Otago on the 'Strathmore', in 1856.
They first lived in McLaggan St, Dunedin, then moved to William St where David ran a dairy. He also had land on Flagstaff Hill where he ran cattle. Nicol’s Creek near Dunedin is named after the family who owned land nearby.
David died in 1890 at their house in William St and Margaret died there also on 13 September 1904. They are buried in a family grave in the Southern Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Scotlands People https://www.scotslandspeople.gov.uk
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
Community contributions