Margaret Johnson was born in 1830 in Taddington, Derbyshire, England. She was baptised on the 19th of September. Her father was Thomas Johnson and her mother Mary Oldfield. She had nine brothers and sisters, and was the second to oldest.

Margaret's father was a farmer and corn merchant, and also owned and ran the local Taddington pub called The Miners Arms. This hotel has since changed its name to The Queens Arms in honour of the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria.

Margaret married George Gladwin in 1852. In 1854, they had a daughter called Mary Elizabeth.

Margaret's husband worked at some stage as a corn merchant in Derbyshire, and at another time he worked as a train driver on the Manchester railway. Towards the end of his life he worked as a railway policeman in Manchester. Margaret at times worked as a maid servant. Between 1854 and 1858, the Gladwin family had moved from Taddington in Derbyshire to Ardwick in Lancashire.

Sons Samuel and Thomas were born in Ardwick in 1858 and 1860. Daughters, Joyce and Ellen, were born in 1863 and 1866.

In 1871, her daughter Mary was living with her husband's widowed sister, Joyce Lingard, on her 20 acre farm in Taddington, Derbyshire. Her seven-year old daughter Joyce was adopted by Isaac and Elizabeth Roberts of Ardwick. Son Samuel had left home, and son Thomas was the only child still living with his parents. The four year-old daughter, Ellen, was living with Margaret's husband's widowed aunt, Joyce Woolley, in Salford, Lancashire.

On the 20th of January 1872, Margaret's husband died, aged 46. He is buried in Manchester, but there is a memorial to him in the cemetery in Taddington, Derby. On the 26th of January 1874, Margaret's daughter Mary died aged 20. She is buried in Taddington, Derby.

In 1879, Margaret's son, Samuel, married Sarah Ann Thompson, in Blackwell Low, Cumberland. They had three childrem - William T., Mary Elizabeth and Joyce.

Margaret was working for a while as a servant for Mr and Mrs Arthur Hattersley at 305 Stockport Road, Gorton, Lancashire.

By the early 1880s, Margaret's daughter Joyce was working as a maid or a nanny at the Lightoller household in Chorley, Lancashire. Around 1883, Joyce had a baby, called Janet, in Manchester.

Margaret died in Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, in 1884. She was 54.

The following year, her son Samuel died in Cumberland aged 27, and her daughter Joyce sailed to New Zealand.