Lilian Edger

Lilian's sister Kate M. Evans (nee Edger) – the first woman in New Zealand to gain a university degree – also signed the petition.

Margaret Lilian Edger was the youngest daughter of Louisa Harwood and Rev. Samuel Edger. Along with her sister Kate she was one of the first British women to earn a university degree. Spent some years in Benares, India, where she taught and gave lectures on theosophy. She wrote several books on theosophical subjects. In New Zealand, she founded Ponsonby College, a secondary school for girls, in 1888. In the 1890s she was giving public lectures in Auckland on subjects such as ‘practical theosophy’ and ‘karma and re-incarnation’.  Lilian died in 1941, aged 79.