Sarah Hagan was born in 1873 in Wellington. Her mother Elizabeth Fisher née Edwards had been married to Cornelius Fisher, and had eight children with him, and they seperated around 1870. James Hagan, a fisherman in the Porirua area, was registered as Sarah’s father at her birth.
Sarah married Joseph Russo in 1887 when she was about 14. Joseph was from Sicily, and worked as a fisherman around Wellington. They had five children between 1889 – 1895, the first, Rose, died aged 4 months.
In February 1898, two Russo families were out fishing together at Makara Beach, when Joseph’s boat was wrecked during a gale, and Joseph and his brother Onofrio were both drowned. Sarah and her children were left destitute. Jupps Band gave a concert at the Basin Reserve to raise funds for the family, and the Public Trustee auctioned the remains of Joseph’s fishing boats and nets.
Sarah married again, to James Jamieson in 1900, a sailor on The Stormbird, and their son Herbert Henry was born soon after. From 1901, there were regular newspaper reports of Sarah being charged at the Mt Cook police station with drunk and disorderly behaviour, vagrancy, violating prohibition orders, being ‘idle and disorderly’ and having ‘no visible means of support’ (i.e. working as a prostitute). She was often sent to the Salvation Army home to get sober, however this didn’t seem to prevent her periodically getting ‘on the spree’ (as described by police). Sarah’s children all ended up in industrial schools. One newspaper report describes her as ‘trembling’, likely a sign of the DTs. Both she and James ‘went about in a drunken condition, from place to place, disturbing people’. One officer said when sentencing her to imprisonment with hard labour ‘it would be a charity to send her to a place where she could not drink’. By 1910, it was noted that she had been convicted 43 times. She was described as ‘elderly’ or ‘middle-aged’ even as a ‘weather-beaten relic of humanity’ (harsh!) when only in her mid-30s, likely due to her way of life.
Sarah and James lived at 9 Tui Street, the most notorious slum in Wellington at the time. ‘Truth’ newspaper published regular scandals about ‘Terrible Tui Street’. Buildings were derelict, floors were built directly on the ground with no piles and no drainage. The area was originally a swamp, lifted up during the 1955 earthquake, and still prone to flooding in wet weather.
In 1911, Sarah was committed for a year to Pakatoa Inebriates Institute on Pakatoa Island. Soon after being discharged, police were called to Tui street and found Sarah very drunk and almost naked. She was arrested and taken to Lambton station. This would be her last arrest. She had two fits during the night and was given some very strong coffee. The next morning at 5am, Sarah Jamieson was found dead in the police cell.
An inquest was held the same day. Cause of death was degeneration of the heart and liver due to alcohol. Sarah Jamieson was buried in an unmarked ‘paupers’ grave at Karori cemetery on 4 March 1912.
References:
All details of this story are from Papers Past and NZ Births Deaths and Marriages.
Karori Cemetery Plot: *ROM CATH/#/473
By Annie Whiterod
February 2025
