This plot has always been a curious one, as I don’t believe we have another at Karori Cemetery that has a headstone at both ends. If you’ve seen one on your walks – please let us know!
Bridget Fanning was born in 1857 in Vale, Guernsey on the Channel Islands. Her parents were originally from Ireland and her father Lawrence worked as a stone cracker. Bridget emigrated in 1874, aged 17, as an assisted immigrant to Wellington on the ‘Howrah’. She appears to have travelled alone and described her occupation as ‘servant’.
Bridget wasn’t the youngest in her group or the only woman from the Channel Islands. Eliza and Clementina Thomason were 14 and 12 years old respectively travelling from the Shetland Islands; Ellen Manning was 12 years old and came from Cork; Martha J Heal was 13 years old and from Jersey and Ellen Fry was 13 and from Kent. All were described as some form of domestic servant.
These were some of Bridget’s travelling companions that made the 97-day journey from London. It was considered a long passage for the time. The ship arrived in Wellington on 30th November. There were 317 assisted immigrants out of the 380 on board. The Colonist’s Aid Society had selected 34 adults to travel on the ‘Howrah’ to be settled at Feilding. There were 10 deaths (9 infants) and 4 births on the voyage. The passengers were grateful to the ship’s surgeon for their safe arrival and several letters to that effect were published in the newspapers:
‘We have no doubt that it is through your sanitary supervision that so many of us have been able, by God’s mercy, to arrive in good health at our destination’.
Bridget married Henry Loughlin in 1876. Daughter Henrietta was born in 1879, followed by Percy William (1882), Catherine Mary (1884), Albert (1891), William Edward (1893), James Archibald (1896) and Walter Ernest (1898).
The first interment in this plot is that of Percy William Loughlin who died in March 1892, aged ten years old. He was the 57th interment at Karori Cemetery since it opened in 1891. He was followed by William Edward Loughlin, who died in February 1894, aged ten months old.
The family moved to Mitchelltown and the children went to Mitchelltown School. Henry supported the family working as a labourer.
Henry died on 18th August 1914. His funeral departed the Mortuary Chapel of E. Morris Junior for St Mary of the Angel’s Boulcott Street and then on to Karori Cemetery. Bridget died on the 7th November 1914 at Wellington Hospital after a ‘short and painful illness’. She was 58 years old.
The 5th interment in this plot was James Henry Loughlin, a 5 day old baby who died in 1920 and grandson of Henry and Bridget.
Plot: *ROM CATH/#/6
By Julia Kennedy
