Biography

Margaret, the first child of Andrew Carr and Helen Mason, was born at Coldringham, Berwickshire, Scotland on 14 April 1860. The couple’s other children were: Elizabeth (1862), George (1863), Alexander (1865), Alexander (1866), Helen (1867) and Alexander (1868), all born in Scotland; and Jane (1873), Robert Alexander (1875), William Andrew (1878) and Lachlan (1882), who were born in Otago.

The first and second Alexander Carrs each survived only a few months, and the third Alexander, born in 1868, died aboard the William Davie in 1869, so it would seem that Andrew and Helen Carr reached Otago with four surviving children.

Margaret Carr married Lachlan Robert McLean Shaw in Dunedin on 15 August 1877, at the house of James Fletcher, Maori Hill. Lachlan Shaw was a cabinet-maker. They were to have four children: a son (1879) and three daughters (1880, 1882 and 1884).

Margaret only lived to the age of thirty-two years. She died at Leith Street, Dunedin on 21 March 1892, attended in her last illness by Dr Robert Martin and James Gibb, a Presbyterian minister. She is buried at the Northern Cemetery, Block 127 Plot 18, the only occupant of this plot, which has no headstone or memorial.