Maker: Jacquie Arnot

Panel number: 224

Petition sheet number: 273

Person honouring: Margaret [Storrier] Reid

Relationship to maker: None 

Margaret Reid both gave birth herself and helped others give birth – she was a midwife.

Margaret Thomson was born in December 1864 in Markinch, Fife, Scotland. She married Robert Reid, a tailor, in Edinburgh in 1882; they sailed to New Zealand two years later, along with their first child, on the British King. The family settled in Sydenham, Christchurch and had seven children, four girls and three boys. 

Robert died of tuberculosis in 1911, and Margaret moved to Timaru to be near her children. During her working life Margaret was a midwife who would ride a bicycle to visit her patients.

Margaret died in 1954, aged 89 years.

Panel materials: Old sheeting, calico for printing information, felt, an old lace tablecloth, doily, and a purchased piece of quilting fabric.