Located in a small rural town this statue honors the life of Margaret Cruickshank, a local doctor who died in the influenza pandemic of 1918. At its unveiling on July 25, 1923, it was the first monument erected in New Zealand to a woman other than Queen Victoria.
Created by William Trethewey, a Christchurch sculptor, of Carrera marble, it depicts Cruickshank in academic robes, holding a Bible in her left hand. At the base are the words “The Beloved Physician/Faithful unto Death”.
Cruickshank graduated from the University of Otago Dunedin School of Medicine in 1897, the second woman in New Zealand. She was the first woman in New Zealand to go into general practice and did so in Waimate; she got her MD in 1903, becoming the first registered female doctor in New Zealand. During World War I, Cruickshank organized the work of the Waimate Red Cross Fund and served as the only doctor in Waimate, covering for her partners who had enlisted and deployed. She worked tirelessly during the 1918 flu pandemic. she fell ill and died in November 1918.
