An interesting name is always an invitation to research. Harriet wasn’t born Hair, or Uridge, or Clark (her three married names), but Harriet Elizabeth Wond. Her parents were John and Caroline Wond (or Wand) and she was born in Bermondsey, Surrey in 1844. John Wond was a Lighterman (an operator of a flat bottomed barge).
In 1864, Harriet married William George Clark who was a Lighterman like her father, at St Mary Magdalene in Bermondsey. William is a bit of a mystery, as by 1871 Harriet was instead living with Thomas Uridge as his wife and they had a daughter, Caroline Uridge.
Harriet married Thomas Uridge at St James the Great Church, Bethnal Green in March 1874 just before their departure for Brisbane with their two children. Their youngest two were born in Wellington.
Thomas worked as a house decorator where the tools of his trade were prized. In 1879 he advertised for a lost paperhanger’s paste brush, near the Cricket Ground and a reward was offered for anyone who could return it to him in Sussex Square. And then in 1883 he was selling thoroughbred Spanish Fowls and Roosters. In 1885 he was selling a portable bath, cased in grained oak wood.
Thomas died in 1897 and Harriet proceeded to sell by auction the “whole of her valuable household furniture and effects” of their house at South-road Newtown.
She married David Hair (1840-1916) in 1908 at the Registrar’s Office in Wellington and moved to Gisborne where David was a gardener. David had emigrated from Scotland 20 years prior and was a widower with adult children. David was father of “Messrs Hair Bros., of Lavenham, Patutahi”.
Harriet died at Hunterville in 1929 and his buried with Thomas Uridge at Karori Cemetery.
