Isabella Buchanan was born in Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, and came to Otago as a four-year-old child with her parents and baby sister on the Philip Laing in 1847. Once her father had completed a wattle-and-daub cottage for them in 1849, the family moved to ‘Squatters Gully’, a clearing in the bush above Maclaggan Street. There were four cottages built there and the families who lived in them included a number of children. We know from the memoir of one of Isabella’s childhood companions that the children of Squatters Gully delighted in the bush setting of their homes, playing together on the banks of the streams that flowed down the hillside. It was a primeval setting that rang with the call of native birds and provided a perfect playground for Dunedin’s pioneer children.
Isabella’s father had the job of ringing the town bell on Bell Hill, used to regulate the working day in the township’s early years. On occasions, when he was working away from the town centre, Isabella would ring the bell for him. She was allowed out of school early for this important task and would climb her way up through the scrub and flax from the original school site just above the beach (now marked by a plaque in Dowling Street). When she was 20, Isabella lost her life while caring for two sick children. Although the children recovered, Isabella caught scarlet fever from her patients and died; her story a reminder of the high mortality rates from common illnesses in early Otago.
Miss Isabella Buchanan