Reverend Michael and Isabella Watt (née Shand)

Michael and Isabella Watt were Presbyterian Church identities in Green Island for decades. Michael Watt was appointed as the inaugural minister there in 1864. He held the post for 39 years, also teaching at Knox Theological College from its foundation and serving a term as Moderator of the New Zealand Presbyterian Church. Their position on this wall, however, is due to Mrs Watt.

Isabella Shand came to Otago as an infant in 1850, the youngest daughter of James and Barbara Shand (her mother’s, brother’s and sister’s portraits are just to her left). Isabella was born at Inverurie in the Scottish Highlands in early 1848. Her parents brought their large family of eight children to Otago on the Phoebe Dunbar at the end of the following year.

The Shands settled at ‘Abbotsford’ in the Green Island bush. Unfortunately Isabella’s father died of illness within a year of their arrival. Her mother had to take on the burden of running their small farm as well as bringing up the children. Isabella was a foundation pupil at the Green Island School when it opened in 1857. She was dux of the school in 1862 and went on the following year to a finishing school in Dunedin. This extended education was a sign of how well her mother was running the farm, which she had turned into a profitable cropping venture.

Soon after, in 1864, Isabella’s future husband arrived in Dunedin on the Resolute and was ordained at Green Island in June. Michael Watt had been a distinguished student at Aberdeen University and was licensed by the Free Church at Inverness in 1862, the same year that Isabella was dux at Green Island. He was a very scholarly character, noted for his gentle personality and humility.

In 1866 the couple were married. Isabella was 18 and Michael 30. Over the next 25 years, Isabella produced 13 children. According to the family history, she was subject to post-natal depression for which there was no effective treatment at that time. Isabella died of pneumonia at Ashburn Hall in 1906 when she was 58. Watt survived her by many years, dying in Dunedin in 1922, aged 86.