Notes provided by Helen Edwards, who has carried out extensive research on the women who signed Sheet 156, including mapping where they lived. Download pdf of this research here.
Margaret (Maggie) Calder, nee Walker [M. Calder, Roslyn] (No. 18)
Land description: Allotment 7, Block 3, Roslyn. Address: 21 Michie Street. Age in 1893: 40
Maggie was born in Scotland at Torphichen, West Lothian, about 1853. She was the eldest daughter of Peter Walker and Mary Hodge. Maggie arrived at Port Chalmers on the City of Hobart from Melbourne in 1863 and was 18 when she married George Calder in 1871 at Castle Street, Dunedin. George was a Scottish stationer and accountant, born about 1838, who emigrated on the Resolute in the early 1860s. He had purchased the house in Michie Street shortly before their marriage. They had seven daughters and seven sons, half of whom remained at home until their deaths. Some of their daughters had careers, the most notable being Grace Isabella, who did her nursing training in Dunedin, and was one of the initial group of fifty in the New Zealand Army Nursing Corps to serve overseas in World War One. She was one of six Dunedin women selected. Elizabeth Mary was a teacher and Muriel’s occupation, as recorded on her burial record, was ‘Art and needlework’. Allan Douglas and James Leodamas were at Gallipoli and Allan was wounded in France. James Leodamas were at Gallipoli and Allan was wounded in France. Ernest Henry served in both World Wars, was wounded in 1916, and was awarded the Military Medal. George Calder served on the Roslyn Borough Council and was prominent in the Roslyn Institute. He died in 1912, aged 73, and Margaret in 1943, aged 90. They are buried in the Northern Cemetery. The house remained in the family until 1964.
