Birth

Enlistment Information

Military Service

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Death

Biographical Notes

Dora Margaret Taylor was born on 23 May 1885 in County Leitrim, Ireland, the eldest daughter of Margaret Taylor. One source suggests that her father was Samuel Taylor and her mother Margaret Doherty, who had married in 1884 at Redcastle, County Donegal, Ireland. Dora’s sister Frances gave her father’s birthplace as Scotland and Margaret was born in County Donegal. In 1901, Dora and her two younger sisters, Frances and Maria, were at home at Culmore, Londonderry, Ireland, with their widowed mother. In 1911, Dora and Frances were still at Culmore with their mother. Margaret, Dora and Frances were all seamstresses/dressmakers. By 1912, it appears, Margaret and her three daughters were in New Zealand, as early in 1912, the Southland Hospital Board received correspondence from Frances A. Taylor, asking to be put on the roll of probationers. Dora Taylor was named in the 1917 New Zealand Gazette Register of Nurses as a nurse at Napier. Was this Dora Margaret? By the 1914 and 1919 electoral rolls, Dora Margaret Taylor is in Invercargill. By 1919 she had moved to the North Island, being stationed at Waikato Hospital in Hamilton and at Cook Hospital in Gisborne. Dora Margaret Taylor, 22/571, passed the examination at the Dunedin School of Massage in September 1918. A masseuse, she was recommended on 25 October 1918 for an Officer’s appointment to a Commission in the Territorial Force, with the rank of Masseuse (equivalent to Staff Nurse). The Gazette dated 28 November 1918 recorded that Dora Margaret Taylor was to be a Masseuse, effective from 24 October 1918. By year’s end 1919, while many sisters had been demobilised, some had been retained in the service. Masseuse D. Taylor was to be found at the Military Hospital, Timaru. Dora may well have been the Miss D. M. Taylor who, with a companion, canvassed the Tamihere district on behalf of the starving children of Europe, handing in £16 1/- to the Mayor of Hamilton in August 1920. In May 1921, Miss D. M. Taylor was appointed to a new dance committee at the annual meeting of the Tauwhare Hall Committee. A memorandum dated 11 February 1921 recommended that 22/571, Miss D. M. Taylor, Masseuse, who had completed two years’ service in the New Zealand Army Nursing Service, be recommended for promotion to the rank and pay of Sister as from 24 October 1920. This appointment was approved on 14 February 1921 - Staff Nurse Dora Margaret Taylor, N.Z.A.N.S. (Territorial) Massage Branch, to be Sister N.Z.A.N.S. Massage Branch as from 24.10.1920. An extract from the New Zealand Gazette No. 94, 3rd November 1921 read – The undermentioned members of the Service and Temporary Reserve are transferred to the Reserve. Dated 20th October 1921. One of those members was Masseuse – Sister D. M. Taylor. And the New Zealand Gazette No. 64, 16th August 1934 read - Dated 23rd April 1934, the undermentioned are retired – Masseuse Sister D. M. Taylor. Dora was surely the Miss D. M. Taylor who was successful in the senior female first aid examination conducted by the Gisborne branch of the St John Ambulance in 1933-1934. Her achievement was in Cadet Nursing (Senior). She resided at Gisborne throughout the 1920s and after. In the mid-1930s she was, briefly, at her mother’s Invercargill address, then returning to the North Island. Dora Margaret Taylor married John Alexander Falconer in 1938. John who had been born in Dunedin 1871, had married in 1900 and was widowed in 1930. His surviving sons and daughters were all adults by the time he married Dora. Dora and John lived at Mokai and Pukekohe before settling at New Plymouth in the mid-1940s. John Alexander Taylor died in 1951 and was buried in Te Henui Cemetery, New Plymouth. Thereafter Dora lived in Auckland. Dora Margaret Falconer died on 3 July 1968 at St Andrews Hospital and was buried in Purewa Cemetery, Auckland. She was Baptist and aged 83 years. Dora had drawn up a Will in 1966. All her bequests were with charitable and religious intent - £10 to the British Israel Association, Auckland; the residue of her estate, after the payment of funeral and testamentary expenses, was to be divided into two equal parts – one for the British and Foreign Bible Society New Zealand, and the other for the Scripture Gift Mission (Auckland). A registered nurse in Auckland provided an affidavit of her death. Dora’s sister, Frances Ann Taylor, served with the New Zealand Army Nursing Service in World War One. Her youngest sister, Maria (Marie) Elizabeth pursued a career as a teacher, initially at Riverside School, Dipton, and afterwards in the North Island. Margaret Taylor, the mother of these three girls, lived at first in Invercargill (1914) and by 1919 was at Riverside School, Dipton, with her youngest daughter. When Maria took up positions in the North Island Margaret returned to Invercargill, living there for at least ten years. She spent her last few years at New Plymouth with Maria. Margaret Taylor died at New Plymouth on 9 March 1948 at the age of 87 She was buried in Te Henui Cemetery, New Plymouth, her headstone recording her daughters. By her Will, Margaret Taylor bequeathed all her estate in equal shares to her three daughters – Marie Elizabeth Taylor, Dora Margaret Falconer and Frances Anne Logie. Marie Elizabeth Taylor, a teacher of dressmaking, testified to her death.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [26 March 2023]; NZ Defence Force Personnel Records (Archives NZ Collections Record Number 425466) [26 & 28 March 2023]; 1901 & 1911 Ireland census returns (ancestry.com.au) [26 March 2023]; Kai Tiaki – the journal of the nurses of NZ, 1 January 1920, Waikato Times, 25 August 1920, 13 May 1921, Gisborne Times, 18 April 1934 (Papers Past) [26 & 28 March 2023]; NZ Gazette extract – Register of Nurses [26 March 2023]; NZ Electoral Rolls (ancestry.com.au) [26 March 2023]; Purewa Cemetery burial record (South Canterbury Branch NZSG records) [26 March 2023]; Purewa Cemetery record (purewa.co.nz/loved & Find A Grave) [28 March 2023]; Te Henui Cemetery, New Plymouth headstone transcription (South Canterbury Branch NZSG records) [27 March 2023]; Te Henui Cemetery burial record (New Plymouth District Council) [27 March 2023]; Probate records (Archives NZ Collections) [27 & 28 March 2023]

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