Catherine Duncan

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.

Catherine Duncan, nee Don [Catherine Duncan, Roslyn] (No. 14)

Land description: Allotment 11, Block 2, Township of Roslyn.  Address: 22 (now 28) Michie Street.  Age in 1893: 53 years.

Catherine Don was born in 1840 to Euphemia Ritchie and James Don. She married William Duncan, a stone mason, in their native town of Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire, in January 1860 and two weeks later they boarded the Storm Cloud, bound for Port Chalmers. Early in 1863 they moved into their stone cottage in Michie Street, Roslyn, which, with its late twentieth-century additions, still stands at 28 Michie Street. The family, with perhaps twelve children, lived there until the death of their son James in 1953. James (Jimmy) played rugby for New Zealand from 1897 to 1903, and captained the All Blacks in 1901 and 1903. After signing the petition, Catherine probably handed her pen to visiting neighbour Bathia Moir, who handed it on to Catherine’s daughter, Elsie. Catherine was widowed in 1890 and died on November 14, 1899, aged 61. She is buried in the Southern Cemetery with other family members.