Rose was born in 1901 in Notting Hill, London, one of six children of ostler Edwin Smith and his wife Martha. Her father died in 1908 and Rose and her siblings spent the next two years in workhouse residential schools. The family was reunited when her mother remarried, but following the birth of her last child Martha was hospitalised and later passed away, leaving Rose and her sisters to raise their baby half-brother.
From age sixteen Rose worked for a court dressmaker in Albemarle Street, Mayfair, as an embroiderer, showroom assistant, and model of garments for ladies-in-waiting at St James’s Palace. In 1923 she married ship’s cook Alf Unwin and left fashionable Mayfair for London’s East End. Here their son Alfred George was born in 1924. Around this time Alf was offered a partnership in a pastry chef’s business in Boston, USA, but turned it down as Rose did not want to move so far away.
In 1925 Alf was engaged on the SS Arawa and in port at Wellington when British seamen worldwide walked off the job in protest at reduced wages. The Arawa’s sailors were imprisoned in the Terrace Gaol. On learning of this, Rose prepared to emigrate; there was no question of distance now.
Rose and baby Alf sailed on the SS Hororata in 1926, two of 613 passengers the captain described as “the finest lot of immigrants” he had ever brought to New Zealand. She carried a reference from her former employer stating that she was “most tidy, honest, clean and obliging,” and another from the Hon. Margaret Bigge, daughter of the King’s Private Secretary, recommending her as “entirely reliable, and in every way suited to become a resident in New Zealand.” The accompanying letter read: “What an excellent idea to go to New Zealand—I envy you and believe it is a wonderful country to get on in.”
The Unwins lived in Wanganui and Napier before settling in Wellington, where their daughter Zeala was born in 1927. With Alf at sea Rose managed the house and finances, at times taking in lodgers to make ends meet.
In the late 1960s Alf and Rose moved to Lower Hutt. Alf passed away here in 1974. Rose lived to the age of 80, her memories of England vivid to the end. Her ashes lie together with Alf’s in Karori Cemetery’s Services Columbarium Wall.
Plot: Soldier Niche 34 DIV M1
By Jacqui Beets (granddaughter)
Sources:
Ancestry.com
Higginbotham, Peter. “Banstead Cottage Homes” and “Marlesford Lodge, Hammersmith.” The Workhouse: The Story of an Institution. Kensington & Chelsea District School, Banstead, Surrey – a residential school for London workhouse children.
“Hororata’s Immigrants: A Fine Party of Colonists.” Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 117, 18 May 1926, Page 10.
Merchant Navy Continuous Certificate of Discharge No. 1000528.
Papers Past.
Unwin, Rosina Alice. Letters and references from Miss Hilliard of Mayfair and the Hon. Margaret Bigge.
