Margaret Paton born Maggie Whitecross (18 April 1841 – 16 May 1905) was a British missionary to the New Hebrides.

In 1865 they arrived back in the New Hebrides where her husband arranged for a punitive mission by the British on the people of Tanna where he had previously been based.

[1] This made a return to Tanna impossible so they set up a new base on the small island of Aniwa funded by the Presbyterian Church of Victoria.

[5] The book is made up from twenty letters that she wrote to people she knew back in Scotland starting in 1865.

[1] Their gravestone also records their twins sons and John Whitecross Paton who was born in 1880 and lived until 1962.