Annie McVicar

Annie McVicar was the first woman to be elected to the Wellington City Council when Miramar was amalgamated with Wellington in 1921. McVicar had become a borough councillor for Miramar in 1919.

McVicar was born Ann McLachlan in Scotland and came to New Zealand around 1901 with her first husband Gordon McDonald. After he died in 1906, she married Alexander McVicar, an engineer who taught mechanics at Wellington Technical College.

Throughout her life, McVicar dedicated her time to many organisations associated with social and educational work and politics in Wellington. She was particularly interested in the education and health of women and children. She was an early member and vice president of the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Women and Children and was involved in establishing the Wellington branch of the Plunket Society in 1908. She also served on the Worser Bay School committee, the ladies’ advisory committee of the Wellington Technical College, and the Wellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board (later the Wellington Hospital Board).

In 1929 McVicar was a delegate to the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship in Berlin.

Annie McVicar was made an MBE in 1938. She died on 26 February 1954 in Wellington.