Mrs Robert Macgeorge

Surname:

Macgeorge

Given names:

Mrs Robert

Given address:

Woodside Cargill St

Sheet No: 54

Town/Suburb:

Central Dunedin

City/Region:

Dunedin

Notes:

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley

Emily Nichols was born about 1829 in, London.

She married Robert Macgeorge, a timber merchant in Hackney in 1854.

Shortly after their marriage Emily & Robert sailed for South Australia where their first two daughters were born.

Their next three daughters were born in Victoria in 1859, 1861 and 1862, one of these died in infancy.

In July 1862 the family travelled to New Zealand on the Australia disembarking in Invercargill where Robert started a business as a 'General Merchant & Commission Agent'.

In 1863 one of their daughters died in Invercargill then, in 1865 and in 1866, two more daughters were born.

The family returned to Australia in 1866 settling in Tasmania where their last three children were born, which included their only son.

They returned to New Zealand in 1874 settling in Dunedin this time, where Robert was declared bankrupt in 1878.

When Emily signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Cargill St.

Robert died in 1917 and Emily died on 9 October 1922, in her 94th year. They are buried with two of their children in the Northern Cemetery.

Emily’s obituary read 'she was a staunch member of the Baptist communion, and was the first person in New Zealand who worked to raise funds for the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society, of which one of her daughters, since deceased, was the first missionary. Mrs Macgeorge turned the first sod for the present Baptist Church in Hanover St.'