A trained teacher whose scattered records reveal an independent working life and a connection between generations of education, music and creativity.
c.1862–63 - 1946
Teacher
Education
Music
Family
Creative connections
Before Eva Beatrice Cunninghame became known as the wife of Timaru photographer William Ferrier, she had a profession of her own.
Government records show that Eva sat the national teachers’ examinations in 1882, achieving partial success towards a Class E certificate. The following year, the Oamaru Mail identified her as a third-year pupil teacher at Oamaru South School. She had passed Class E and was progressing towards the more advanced Class D qualification.
A December 1883 newspaper report credited “Miss Canninghame”, almost certainly Eva, and two other women teachers with instructing South School pupils in singing.
When Eva married William Ferrier at Wesley Church in Ōamaru on 15 March 1886, the marriage record described her as a 23-year-old teacher. It also recorded that she had lived in Ōamaru for seven years.
Eva and William later lived in Timaru and had eight children:
Ethel Beatrice, Ileen Mason Lowe, Gilbert Colin Cunninghame, William Hedley, John Lowe, Herbert Gordon, Sarah Catherine and Eva Clara Ferrier.
Several of their daughters later pursued education, music or paid employment. Ethel worked as a governess, Ileen was recorded as a music saleswoman, and Sarah passed for a Class D teaching certificate.
The family also experienced profound loss. Eva and William’s son Gilbert was killed at Ypres on 11 November 1914 while serving with the Royal Fusiliers. He was 24. His memorial record names his parents as William and Eva Beatrice Ferrier of 71 Grey Road, Timaru.
Eva’s daughter Ethel later became the mother of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. Ethel travelled from Dunedin to be with Eva in Timaru for Colin’s birth in 1919.
Published family research records that Eva’s grandchildren called her Gaggie. Colin later remembered visiting his grandmother’s Timaru home, where William’s watercolours, prints and former darkroom materials remained.
There is no evidence that Eva directly shaped Colin’s artistic career. What the records do show is that her home preserved the physical traces of William Ferrier’s creative life, allowing another generation to encounter them.
Why she belongs in HerStory
Eva should not be remembered only as the wife of a prominent photographer or the grandmother of a famous painter.
She had her own professional identity.
She studied, sat formal examinations, worked in a classroom and helped educate children. Her story also demonstrates how easily a woman can become harder to trace after marriage, when records begin to describe her through her husband and children rather than through her own occupation.
We do not need to invent a role for Eva behind William’s camera.
The evidence already reveals something important: a working teacher whose family story connects women’s education, music, professional work and creative life across several generations.
Place connections
Oamaru South School
Eva trained and worked here as a pupil teacher during the early 1880s.
Wesley Church, Ōamaru
Eva and William married here on 15 March 1886.
71 Grey Road, Timaru
The Ferrier family address recorded in their son Gilbert’s war memorial entry.
Timaru
Eva raised her family here. Her daughter Ethel returned to Timaru for Colin McCahon’s birth in 1919.
Read the full WuHoo history hunt
The Woman Outside the Frame: Eva Beatrice Cunninghame Ferrier
https://www.wuhootimaru.co.nz/blog/1505-the-woman-outside-the-frame-eva-beatrice-cunninghame-ferrier
Sources
New Zealand Government teachers’ examination results, 1882:
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1882/I/1069
Oamaru Mail, 9 April 1883:
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OAM18830409.2.7
Oamaru Mail, 21 December 1883:
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OAM18831221.2.13
New Zealand Intentions to Marry Project, 1886:
https://itm.howison.co.nz/year/1886/page/15852
Peter Simpson, Colin McCahon: There Is Only One Direction, Volume I, 1919–1959:
https://aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/colin-mccahon-there-is-only-one-direction-vol-i-1919-1959/
Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Colin McCahon:
https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5m4/mccahon-colin-john
Menin Gate Memorial transcription, Gilbert Colin Cunninghame Ferrier:
https://www.interment.net/data/bel/menin-gate-memorial/records-f.htm
Research note: Eva’s recorded age in 1886 places her birth at about 1862 or 1863, but her exact birth date and birthplace have not yet been confirmed. Published research records that she died in 1946. The often-repeated date of 5 September 1946 and her reported burial at Purewa Cemetery still require confirmation from an official death record, contemporary death notice or individual cemetery record. No evidence has yet been found proving that Eva worked in William Ferrier’s photographic studio, and no securely identified portrait of her has been located. Corrections, photographs and further evidence are welcome.