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.
Mary Colquhoun Eglin, nee McGregor [Mary C. Eglin, Roslyn] (No. 6)
Land description: Allotment 9, Block 1, Township of Roslyn. Address: 27 Bruce Street.
Mary McGregor, born at Elderslie, Renfrew, in 1840, was the daughter of Margaret and Gregor McGregor. She may have travelled to Dunedin with her brother John and family in 1862. Living in Dunedin, in 1864 she married Glasgow-born leather merchant and manufacturer, David Eglin, who emigrated on the Robert Henderson in 1861. Mary had eight children between 1864 and 1882. Their first son was born in Waikouaiti, and died aged five, five weeks later. David briefly owned land in Lawson Street in the mid-1860s, then he and Mary returned to Scotland, where three sons were born. They returned to New Zealand in 1874 on board the Mairi Bhan, with two surviving sons. David purchased their Bruce Street section in 1878. Four girls were born there, and educated at Kaikorai School. Mary’s brother, John McGregor, lived close by in Lawson Street. His wife Margaret also signed Sheet 156. David Eglin died in 1896, and the following year Mary and her daughters moved to Wellington to live with her surviving son, Walter. By 1911 they were back in Bruce Street, renting No. 15, though the house at No. 27 remained in the family until 1929. Mary died at 15 Bruce Street in 1917, aged 74, and is buried in Dunedin’s Southern Cemetery with her husband.