Rachel Gillanders

Rachel Gillanders worked in the Department of Lands and Survey’s computing and draughting workforce. The department’s 1912 report identifies Miss Gillanders as a Computer transferred to Christchurch. Gazette staff records later describe her as a Draughtswoman and Computer, documenting a combined calculation and map-production role before electronic computing.

Rachel Gillanders and draughtswoman Madge Pirrit worked within this broader production system. Pirrit’s credited maps span town and cadastral compilation from the 1920s through aerial-photo-supported wartime topography and later work into 1949. Their names sit alongside a much larger workforce whose observations, calculations and linework accumulated in departmental records. Later digitisation inherited that work, including its strengths, omissions and uncertain boundaries.