Margaret Grounds

Signed family name

Grounds

Signed given name

Margaret

Given address

Forth Street

Sheet number

Town/Suburb

North Dunedin

City/Region

Dunedin

Notes

Originally transcribed as Margrate Grounds

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Margaret McNeill was born about 1838 in Lanarkshire, Scotland.

She married John Grounds, a railway labourer, on 30 November 1855 in Glasgow.

They had seven children, two who died in infancy, before the family emigrated to Canterbury in 1873 on the James Nicol Fleming.

They settled in Dunedin where John died in 1876.

In 1879 Margaret was advertising for 'Two Gentlemen Boarders' and when she signed the suffrage petition she was living with her family in Forth St.

In 1893, while Margaret was visiting her daughter in Clinton, her house burned down. Her two adult children in the house managed to escape unharmed. The house was insured for £100. On 28 November 1925 Margaret, who was living at Ross Home, celebrated her 95th birthday – 'during the afternoon musical items were ably rendered...the festive gathering was fittingly brought to a close by the singing of 'For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and “Old Lang Syne".'

She died a few days later on 9 December, and is buried with John in the family grave in the Northern Cemetery.