Janet Armstrong

Notes provided by Helen Edwards, who has carried out extensive research on the women who signed Sheet 156. Download pdf of this research here.

Jessie Armstrong [J. Armstrong, Roslyn] (No. 20) Age in 1893: 24 and

Janet Armstrong, nee Elliot [Janet Armstrong, Roslyn] (No. 21) Age in 1893: 57

Land description: Part Allotment 1, Block 4, Township of Roslyn. Address: corner of Hart and Ross Streets; variously recorded as Hart Street, Ross Street, High Street or Highgate over an 82-year period.

Janet Elliott was born in Crailing, Roxburgh, about 1836 and married George Armstrong, a Selkirk joiner, in Jedburgh, Roxburgh, in 1866. On the advice of her sister Agnes, married to architect Nathaniel Young Armstrong Wales, the family emigrated to Dunedin. At first, Janet was deeply unhappy at being separated from her family, but decided to stay. In 1876 George purchased land on the corner of Hart and Ross Streets from future Government Printer John Mackay, and built a four-roomed stone cottage, which, with its 1970s additions, still stands at 29 Hart Street. The Wales family were near neighbours in High Street. Over a thirty-year period the Armstrongs built three dwellings on their corner section, selling the stone cottage in the 1880s and building a shop on the corner with living quarters upstairs. It was a strategic location, beside the Roslyn cable car terminus. It was in this house that Janet signed the petition, at a tumultuous time of her life—George, a clerk of works and building inspector, died on 19 April 1893, after a long illness, aged only 53. Janet ran the store until she rented, and later sold, it to the Mackay Brothers. The building was demolished in 1928, during the widening of Ross Street, and its successor, designed by Mandeno and Fraser, is still a landmark on what became known as Mackay’s Corner. Janet ended her days in 1928 at the third house, a narrow, two-storeyed wooden house at 31 Hart Street, aged 90 years, and lies in the Northern Cemetery.

Jessie McDougall Armstrong, the eldest daughter, was born in Galashiels, Selkirkshire, on 16 March 1869. She was educated at Kaikorai School, Dunedin, and left school in 1884 to join her mother at home. When she and Janet signed the petition, one of them wrote both names. She married her cousin, Patrick Young Wales, in 1896. Patrick was the son of Agnes and Nathaniel Wales, architect, Colonel, M.P. and Mayor of Dunedin. Patrick became a partner in his father’s firm, Mason and Wales, in 1892, and took charge of the business when his father died in 1903. Jessie and Patrick had five children. They lived in Newington Avenue, Maori Hill. Patrick died in 1939 at the age of 75, and Jessie in 1953, aged 84. Their bodies were cremated.