Alexandrina Baird

Biographical information provided by Jenny Robertson for the He Tohu exhibition:

Alexandrina Calder was born in 1864 in Thornbury, Southland, the eldest child of Alexander, who had come to New Zealand from Scotland with his brothers to mine gold at Gabriel’s Gully. He earned enough money to return to Aberdeen, where he married Ann Steel. Alexandrina had nine siblings.

At the age of 20, she married Thomas Birch Baird and between 1884 and 1909 they had eleven children, who all survived infancy. Their second son was David Lindsay Baird, an All Black. At least three of their sons served in the First World War, with one, Thomas Birch Baird, being killed in action on Christmas Day 1917 in Belgium.

The Baird family lived first on Ritchie Street and then on Jackson Street in Invercargill. Alexandrina has signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition with another Mrs Baird, whose signature is directly beneath hers; perhaps her mother-in-law.