This unusual plot design caught our eye in the upper area of Church of England 2 section. It is clad with marble and has a concave tablet surface and a concrete plinth with a bell curved edge. We thought learning a little more about those buried here may explain the design, but we could find very little about them.
Ellen Maria King was the first interment in 1929. She died aged 60 at her home in Derby Street, Mt Victoria. She was the wife of William Henry King who died in 1943, aged 80 and who was a watchmaker and jeweller. We cannot establish their origins or where they married. They first appear on New Zealand electoral rolls in Taranaki in 1914.
Their son Jack Ian King who is also memorialised on this plot was born in 1901 in South Africa. Jack studied at Wellington Technical College and later at University College London. He was apprenticed to the architect Joseph Dawson from 1917-1922. He then entered into partnership with him in 1929 to form the practice Dawson & King. The practice had to endure the hard years of the Depression.
Jack became president of the New Zealand Institute of Architects 1953-1955. He received a CBE in 1966 for services to architecture and the Standards Institute. He died in 1972.
We like to imagine that it was Jack who designed this plot, based on his profession.
Plot: *Ch Eng 2/J/468
