Margaret McCracken

Biographical information provided by Joan McCracken, Alexander Turnbull Library, for the He Tohu exhibition:

Margaret McCracken (nee Phair) was born in Ireland in 1849, the fourth of Robert Phair and Dora McDowall’s seven children. Maggie arrived in Dunedin with her four sisters on 25 August 1867 aboard the Silistria. They were assisted immigrants and at the time of her arrival Maggie owed £6.

On 9 March 1868, a mere seven months after her arrival, Margaret married Robert McCracken, from County Monaghan, Ireland. Robert had emigrated to New Zealand in 1861. Maggie’s father had to give permission for her marriage as she was just 18 (Bob was 31).

The couple lived for a time in Green Island, Dunedin, where Bob worked as a bootmaker. It was here that their first four children were born.

In 1877 the family decided to try farming at Inch Clutha, but they lost everything the following year when a disastrous flood swept through the area. The family moved to Stirling, where they lived for for several years. Bob returning to his bootmaking trade and Maggie taught sewing part-time at the local primary school. The fifth of their nine children was born in Stirling. 

The family later returned to Dunedin, living first in Regent St (where Maggie and her oldest daughter Jane signed the same Sheet of the Petition), and later in Cosy Dell, where Bob died in 1905.

Maggie was described by a family member as 'having an acute mind, very good looking, tall, slim and witty.' Music and reading were important in the family, and they were active members of the Presbyterian Church. They strongly supported the temperance movement.

Maggie died in 1936 in Norton’s Bush, Waimate, at the home of her daughter. She is buried in Northern Cemetery, Dunedin with her husband and youngest son.

The Women’s Suffrage Petition was also signed by Margaret McCracken’s sister, Frances Phair, and sister-in-law Elizabeth Bannerman Phair (the wife of Margaret's brother Robert).