Mr & Mrs John Buchanan (née Margaret McCulloch)

John Buchanan was a 46-year-old weaver from Kirkintilloch near Glasgow when he emigrated to Otago with his wife Margaret (nee McCulloch) and daughters Isabella and Jeannie in 1847.  A son Gilbert was born in Dunedin. About 18 months after landing at Port Chalmers, Buchanan completed a 12-foot square wattle and daub cottage for his family in the bush above Maclaggan Street.  The Buchanan house is the model for the replica cottage displayed in the next gallery.  The voices in the soundscape are also based on the Buchanans and their neighbours in what was then called ‘Squatters Gully’.

John was one of a number of hand-loom weavers from Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, who sought a new life in Dunedin after mechanisation made their skills redundant in Scotland. In Dunedin he undertook various tasks, including the important job of keeping town time as ‘beadle’ or minister’s man at First Church.  Margaret Buchanan is known to have suffered from depression for a period in her early years in Otago; an important reminder of the mental challenges pioneer women faced in building a new society far from home and family.  Margaret is also remembered as being a fine singer. She and a friend would on occasion travel out to the Taieri to visit friends and relations and would ‘sing for their supper’ to repay hospitality received. 

Maclaggan Street is now a central city street but in 1849 John described it as ‘¼ of a mile from Dunedin in the bush’.  The Buchanans lived in their cottage there for 14 years before relocating to a house in Great King Street.  During the gold rush of the early 1860s many a miner left his excess baggage at the Buchanan’s house in Dunedin, repaying them later with a gold nugget.  John Buchanan passed away in Dunedin in 1880.  Margaret died 20 years later in Duntroon.