Margaret (Borland) Neilley (1856 - 1931)

Born 12 Mar 1856 in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland

Wife of Benjamin Glew — married 6 Jan 1873 (to about Apr 1881) in Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand

Wife of James Morris Wood — married 1881 (to 1885) in No legal marriage - false identies [uncertain]

Wife of William Robert Dryborough Neilley — married 1898 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Died 29 Aug 1931 at age 75 in Chatswood, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Maggie Borland emigrated to New Zealand from County Tyrone, Ireland. At the age of 16, she married English-born Benjamin Glew (28) in Christchurch. They had four children together by the time she was 24.

Benjamin was a publican in Akaroa, the harbour settlement on Bank's Peninsula. He was bankrupted in 1881, shortly after the birth of their daughter Alice Antonia.

Margaret was successfully took the part of a "pretty widow" in a local play, where the music was conducted by a partner in the brewery, James Morris Wood, who also worked as Akaroa's Town Clerk.

Scandalously, Maggie fled to Australia with James Morris Wood, leaving Benjamin Glew to raise their children alone. The case is well-documented in the notes of Wood's trial for desertion of his wife Caroline and his own four children.

The eloping couple adopted the names of "Mr and Mrs Alexander Wilson", and disappeared from New Zealand.

By 1883, Margaret "Wilson" and her "husband" Alexander James Wilson were well-established in Bega, New South Wales, living near the Mayor on Parker St. Alexander Wilson taught violin, helped organise concerts at the School of Music, and worked as auditor for various Bega organisations.

Margaret had no fewer than 11 children in Bega, 1 of whom died within months.

AJ Wilson abandoned her and their children in 1895, leaving the New South Wales police seeking a 'good violin-player' and accountant who was supposed to have gone to New Zealand.

Margaret married again, three years later. Her new husband William Dryborough Neilley was the son of the editor of the Bega Standard. They had one son together, William Arthur Hansen Neilley, and possibly a daughter Jessica Margaret Borland (born in Christchurch, and raised by the Borland family there).

Her two youngest sons by "Wilson" took Neilley's surname.

In her later years, Maggie traveled the world, visiting her daughter Winifred Goodmanson on Los Angeles. She lived to the age of 75, dying in Chatswood, New South Wales in 1931; and is buried in North Ryde. She was survived by all but three of her 16 children.

Sources

• Taken from FamilySearch Family Tree
• Ancestry
• Find a Grave