Maker: Francie Benge

Panel number: 109

Petition Sheet Number: 115

Person honouring: Mary Strachan

Relationship to makers: Great-great-grandmother, from my mother’s side of the family.

Mary Strachan (nee Barton) and her widower father sailed to New Zealand in 1839 on the Oriental with The New Zealand Company. Richard Barton (Mary’s father) was an Isle of Wight farmer who later became Superintendent of Estates for the Duke of Sutherland in Trentham, Staffordshire. 

With a party of younger men from this estate, he was sponsored by the Duke to emigrate. He later married Hannah Butler and had more children.in 1853, Mary then aged 20, married John Roy. They lived in Wellington where she experienced the 1855 earthquake. She recounted her experience to family over the years. She was living in Ghuznee Street and grabbed the baby (Francie Benge’s great-grandfather Richard Barton Roy) from his cradle, rushed to the front door and found the land had completely fallen away. 

In May 1860, John Roy was appointed Provincial Engineer for Otago and the family moved south. John Roy died in 1864 leaving Mary in Taieri with three children. Mary met William Strachan from Aberdeenshire who had been an assisted emigrant farm labourer with his wife Ann. When Mary and William met, he was a widower. They married after 1867 and moved to the Koromiko, Blenheim farm where he was working. They had three children. 

After his death Mary moved back to Dunedin. She was living in Alva Street, Dunedin when she signed the Petition. Eventually she moved to Wellington with her daughter Annie Strachan and lived in Hataitai. She died on 3 September 1922 and is buried in the Karori Cemetery.

Panel materials: Silk tie bought from an op shop a couple of years ago - and used the label ‘Made in England’ as a nod to Mary’s birthplace.The details of her name, petition number etc is on a damask serviette, something passed down to me from my grandmother, Mona Georgina Roy. The embroidered flowers were on a bedspread that my mother had made but not finished years ago and I wanted some of her hand stitching on the panel. These are also the 46 hand stitches. The other fabrics were already in my collection.