Mrs Margt. Leggett

Signed family name

Leggett

Signed given name

Mrs Margt.

Given address

Duncan St S. Dunedin

Sheet number

140

Town/Suburb

Central Dunedin

City/Region

Dunedin

Notes

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Margaret/Maggie Snow Hunter was born on 18 January 1859 in Bonhill, Dunbartonshire, Scotland – the daughter of James Hunter, a machine engraver, and Mary Murphy.

She married William Leggett, a clerk, in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire in 1879 and they had a daughter the following year.

The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1884 on the Bombay.

They settled in Dunedin where William worked as a fireman and they had a further five children.

When Margaret signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Duncan St, South Dunedin and Margaret was a storekeeper.

William died in 1894, aged 39.

From the late 1910s Margaret ran 'Nurse Leggett’s' maternity home from her residence until 1926 when she was 'charged on two informations with having used her premises as a private hospital” “without the authority of a licence.'

At the time it was an offence to have two or more patients at a time without being registered. 'Defendant was a maternity nurse of the old school, and when the Act came into force she was informed by a doctor that it was not necessary for her to register.'

Margaret entered a guilty plea and was fined - the judge commented that she had 'conducted the house in a very satisfactory manner.'

Margaret died at her home on 6 November 1929, she is buried with William in the family grave in the Southern Cemetery.