1870-1922
Looking at this headstone you may wonder what relationship Julia has to the others in this plot, and the answer, possibly, is a friendship.
Julia Burrell came to New Zealand in 1913 after the death of her mother, Christiana Burrell (nee Hall), whom she had cared for at home in South Bury, Lancashire. Bury, in the heart of the cotton mill industries, was a place where life expectancy was short. Her father was a reporter, printer and compositor there. Like her sister Susan, Julia began employment as a felt hat trimmer at the age of 15 years. Susan had emigrated in the 1870s to Otago, New Zealand.
Soon after arriving in Petone Julia married James Scotson, a very recent widower with three young children. Julia would have known James and his first wife as they too had grown up in the same small neighbourhood of South Bury a couple of streets over. Maybe they had all attended the local Holy Trinity School together. James, and his young family had emigrated to New Zealand in 1910.
Julia and James married in December 1913 at the St Augustine Church in Petone, she was 43 years old and he, 35 years.
James was a man of many jobs and schemes. He liked a drink which led to frequent police charges. None of his ventures seemed straight-forward; the licensing and selling of grocery vans, a newspaper agency, and, in 1922 their newly built house in Lowry Bay burnt to the ground, a home that would have replaced the house on the five-acre orchard and gooseberry farm in Gracefield Rd. The children attended school in Petone.
Julia and James knew an Ada Metcalf who also lived in Petone. (A Jessie Metcalf was a witness at the Julia’s wedding and may be connected). About the same time that James’ wife died in January 1913, was when Ada’s husband John Metcalf died. John was buried in the Karori cemetery in Church of England 1, 49 G, a plot purchased by Ada. Ada later remarried a Mr Houldsworth.
Were Ada and Julia close friends, or had known each other back in Lancashire, or was Ada or John a relation of James Scotson? The answer escapes me, but, when Julia died in 1922 at the age of 52 years, she was buried with Ada’s husband John Metcalf and her name added to the headstone. Much later, in 1955, Ada was buried here too.
James remarried within two years, living in the Gracefield Road home until he and Carolyn divorced in 1929. He then married Delia, his wife until his death in 1939.
Plot Church of England 1, 49 G
Ally McBride, Great-great niece.
