Buried in the plot are members of the Maclean and Morton family.
Elizabeth Frances Maclean was working as a young typist for Levin & Co when she purchased the plot on 8th November 1926, for the amount of five pounds. She bought the plot because her brother – Alexander – had sadly committed suicide the week prior, in Picton, leaving a wife and two young daughters. At the time most of the newspapers in the country reported the death, in graphic detail sadly.
Alexander died on 1st November and after a Court of Enquiry and transportation of his body to Wellington he was buried on the 8th November 1926.
The second to be interred was Alexander’s mother Emilie Birchfield Maclean, aged 80 years. She died on 30th November 1928 and was buried on 3 December 1928.
The third to be interred was Emilie’s spinster sister Hester Priscilla Morton aged 84 years. She died on 25 June 1930 and was buried on the 27th June 1930.
The fourth to be buried was Annie Beatrice Morton, another unmarried sister of Emilie’s. She died on 30 December 1940 and her cremated remains were buried on the 5th March 1941.
The fifth to be buried was Ella Morton. Another unmarried sister of Emilie’s. She died on Christmas Day 25 December 1941 and her cremated remains were buried on the 29th December 1941.
The three spinster Morton sisters lived most of their lives together, involved in domestic work and church activities and they also ran a 27 room boarding house known as Rawhiti on Golder’s Hill (now Eccelston Hill) opposite Parliament.
The sixth and final burial is Elizabeth Frances Maclean, who purchased the Plot. She was Emilie’s unmarried daughter and Alexander’s sister. She died on 7th January 1966 and her cremated remains were buried on the 12th January 1966. At the time two pounds was paid. Hers is the only burial that does not have a plaque and I plan to rectify that in the near future.
The paperwork for the purchase of the plot and the stone masonry was found amongst other family belongings – photograph albums, books and war medals – in the attic of Elizabeth’s cottage in Eastbourne, by the family who purchased it after Elizabeth had died in 1966. The young teenage daughter of that family (now in her eighties) kept all the ephemera that was found and it was only by pure chance that I managed to locate her (now living in Oamaru) and obtained most of it in 2024. The letters dating back to the late 1800s between Emilie as a young bride living in Dunedin and her mother and father – William and Ester Morton in Melbourne – and other relatives in County Cork Ireland, were handed over to the Hocken Library.
In 2024 my family held a working bee to clean up the plot, weed and lay white pebbles. Alexander’s marble cross, which was missing, was found buried under the weeds and dirt and has since been cleaned and re-erected. I found a lot of old pickle jars and glass bottles that must have been used as vases, which I cleaned and replaced on the plot. Sadly they have been stolen.
Plot: *Ch Eng 2/H/399
By Jennifer Jarden
