Biography

MARGARET TURNER

Burial register ID: 14597
Surname: TURNER
First name: MARGARET
Middle names:
Gender: Female
Age: 78 Years
Cause of death: Unknown
Burial type:
Date of death: 26-Jan-1928
Date of burial: 27-Jan-1928

Block: 44
Plot: 3
Inscription:

In loving memory of

ALEXANDER TURNER,

Died Mar. 20th 1877.

Aged 4 years.

Also his sister

FLORA MCKENZIE,

Died Aug. 16th 1902.

Aged 24 years.

Also their father

COLL TURNER,

Died July 20th 1905.

Aged 61 years.

Also MARY HENDERSON,

Beloved grandmother, and mother-in-law

Of the above

Died Dec. 11th 1906. Aged 77 years.

Also COLL youngest son of the above

And dearly beloved husband of

EMMA CATHERINE TURNER,

Died 1st March 1911. Aged 28 years.

Also ALLAN, born 10. May 1876. Died 24. Feb. 1915.

JAMES, born 10. Aug. 1880. Died 30. Sept 1923.

EVA, born 11. May 1887. Died 14 March 1924.

Also MARGARET dearly beloved wife and mother

Of above, died 26. Jan. 1928. Aged 78 years.

Bio contributor: Pauline and Don McLeay

Margaret was born in 1849, probably at Bo’ness, West Lothian, Scotland. She was the first child of Allan and Mary Henderson, who emigrated with their four children to Tasmania in 1855. Three more children were born in Tasmania, and two more after the family arrived in Dunedin, probably in 1863. We know Margaret was illiterate at the age of twelve, because on the birth certificate of her sister Janet, born in 1861, she signs (as “informant”) with an X mark. Margaret married Coll Turner, a Scottish-born boilermaker, at her mother’s home in Castle Street, Dunedin, on 31 December 1869. The couple had six children: Alexander (1873), Flora McKenzie (1878), Allan (1876), James (1880), Coll (1883) and Eva (1886). None of Margaret’s children were long-lived; it is believed they were all victims of tuberculosis, with ages at death ranging from four years (Alexander) to 43 (James). Neither of the daughters married. Margaret herself reached the age of 78, dying at her home in Dudley Place, Maori Hill, Dunedin on 26 January 1928. By then she had outlived her husband, who died in 1905 at the age of 61, and all her children, the last of whom, James, died in 1923. Margaret was buried with her husband and several of her children, as well as her mother Mary Henderson, in the Turner family plot in the Northern Cemetery.

Others buried here: Margaret’s husband Coll and their children Alexander, Flora McKenzie, Coll and Eva, her mother Mary Henderson, and her neice Mary Elizabeth Chalmers.


Margaret Turner
Source: Pauline & Don McLeay

There are 8 Interments in this grave:

Surname First names Age Date of death Date of burial
CHALMERS MARY ELIZABETH 10 Months 03-Mar-1880 05-Mar-1880
HENDERSON MARY 78 Years 11-Dec-1906 13-Dec-1906
TURNER ALEXANDER 4 Years 20-Mar-1877 22-Mar-1877
TURNER COLL 61 Years 21-Jul-1905 23-Jul-1905
TURNER COLL 28 Years 01-Mar-1911 03-Mar-1911
TURNER EVA MAY 36 Years 14-Mar-1924 17-Mar-1924
TURNER FLORA MCKENZIE 24 Years 17-Aug-1902 19-Aug-1902
TURNER MARGARET 78 Years 26-Jan-1928 27-Jan-1928