suffrage_petition
Surname: 
Norrie
Given names: 
Mrs Margaret
Given address: 
Bank St, Timaru
Sheet No: 274
Town/Suburb: 
Timaru
City/Region: 
South Canterbury
Notes: 

Adapted by Jared Davidson from Melanie Nolan’s ‘Kin: A collective biography of a New Zealand working-class family’ (Canterbury University Press: 2005).

Margaret Norrie (nee McCullough) was born in 1862 to William McCullough and Sarah McCullough (nee Davison), two Protestant Irish descendants of Scottish settlers planted in Ulster from 1610. By 1860 William and Sarah had migrated to Belfast and had become devout Presbyterians, before moving again to Liverpool, where Margaret was born. Her elder brother was Jack McCullough, an active trade unionist, socialist, and workers’ representative on the Arbitration Court, and they had three younger siblings: Jim, Sarah and Frank. The entire family arrived in New Zealand aboard the SS Westland in 1880, and it was during the journey that Margaret met her future-husband, William McKechnie Norrie. They married in Timaru in 1884 and had four children: William, John, Margaret and Robert (Bob).

Margaret was a member of the Trinity Church in Timaru for 71 years (1882-1953), and an active member of both the WCTU and the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, serving in the role of vice-president. Margaret and her mother Sarah were present at the earliest meetings of the Timaru WCTU, and Margaret was president of the branch from 1918 to 1933. She cut the WCTU’s jubilee birthday cake in 1939 in recognition of her work. Margaret also pioneered the Timaru Sailors’ Rest, a hostel for visiting seamen which she opened with the Governor General, Lord Jellicoe, in 1924. She won numerous international prizes for her efforts and in 1943, at the age of 81, reluctantly gave up the role of superintendent of the Work Among Seamen.

Margaret died in January 1953, aged 91. She was described at her funeral as ‘a remarkable woman… the moving spirit behind many activities for the public good.’

Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.

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