Francis Raymond Batchelor (Frankie) died 1924 age 2 ½ . He was the only child of Major Francis Roy Batchelor and his wife Helena.
Frankie’s father, Frank, was a member of the Salvation Army. He was born in 1885, in Charleston (West Coast), to Thomas Francis Batchelor and his wife Jane Tierney. Thomas was a farmer at the time.
Frank worked for a while in Queensland, where he likely met his wife Helena Hutton Elliot and married her in 1920. He then took charge of the Vivian Street Men’s Hostel for returned soldiers, and was then manager of the People’s Palace in Christchurch.
After the death of their Frankie in 1924, Frank and his wife ran an orphanage on behalf of the Salvation Army, until Frank’s death in 1934.
A funeral service was conducted at the Vivien Street Citadel (it was very hard to find a photograph of the original building) “…where hymns and other appropriate music was played by the Salvation Army Band, which also played the “Dead March” as the funeral cortege passed through the city streets.” The service was conducted graveside by Commissioner Cunningham. Frank was interred with Frankie.
(Lieutenant) Helena Batchelor died in Queensland in 1943, aged 57 and is buried in Gympie Cemetery.
Sometimes this research is just triggered by an interesting name.
Ethel was the only surviving daughter of John Charles Frederick Beu and his wife Mathilda Nilson.
John was born in 1854 in the Pomerania region, Germany. Back then he was Johann Carl Frederick Beu. Mathilda Nilson was born in Sweden in 1853. It is presumed that Mathilda came to New Zealand by herself, as no record of her parents’ deaths are found here. The pair married in Wellington in 1883.
Their children were Frederick, Edward, Anna (died young), Reinhold, Albert, Otto, Gustav and Ethel.
John became a naturalised citizen in 1885, at which stage he recorded his occupation as Storeman and was living in Martin Square. He later worked as a fruit dealer living in Adelaide Road and was chairman of the South Wellington School Committee and the Rintoul Street School Committee. Peculiarly in 1902, he requested of the Lighting and Fire Brigade Committee not grant his son’s driver’s licence application. He was a member of the Excelsior Lodge of Druids.
John died after a long illness in 1907, aged 53, and was the first to be interred in the plot. Mrs Beu expressed her thanks to the many friends who had shown sympathy, including the Christian Endeavour Societies of the Berhampore Baptist Church.
Ethel died aged 17 at her home, “Stralsund Villa” Berhampore in 1910 after an illness. It wasn’t uncommon for immigrants to name their home after their city of origin and Stralsund is not far from where John was born. Memorials were placed in the newspaper by her “loving mother and brothers” and touchingly Ruby and Hilda Pettersson also inserted one “in remembrance for our dear friend Ethel”.
Of John and Mathilda’s sons, Gustav, Reinhold, Frederick and Otto all served with New Zealand forces in WWI and saw action in Europe. All were discharged unfit for service due to illnesses or injuries contracted during their time in War.
Mathilda died at Wellington Hospital on 4th January 1924, aged 71.
Also interred in this plot are John William Horace Beau, aged 3 months (died 1909), Jane Beu (died 1932) are Barbara Beu (nee Cooke) wife of Frederick (died 1944).
We recently shared the story of Yen Yep, a gardener in Haining Street.
Today is the story of Violet King who died Haining Street in 1906, aged 32.
The newspaper covering her death reads “One More Unfortunate”.
Violet was the daughter of George King, a military man who had served in Scotland and India. He married Jane Hall in 1859. George & Jane emigrated in 1861 as part of three regiments arriving on the transport ship “Henry Fernie”, arriving with 692 men and 69 women. In 1866 he was discharged as medically unfit and became a labourer.
George died in January 1894 and in February his son George junior was on trial for assaulting his mother, Jane. Violet was a witness. Jane appeared in Court with her face badly discoloured.
George asked his mother if she had been in Haining Street that night, and she replied that she had, but she “had only had one glass”. Dr Chapple had attended Mrs King and she gave him the impression of being intoxicated, although she denied it. Violet also denied that she was drunk that night but confirmed she was in the habit of smoking cigarettes. The newspaper also reported that there was a Chinaman in the house, who George also struck. His Worship said “here was a case in which the accused had taken another man’s wife into his mother’s house, and when his mother came home he had beaten her face to pulp”. The sentence was six months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
In 1900 Violet was summoned to the Magistrate’s Court herself for wilfully damaging 14 panes of glass at her brother Duncan’s house. Duncan said that she was “the worse for liquor” and when he would not admit her to his home, she “proceed with much vigour and many stones to demolish the windows”. She pleaded guilty and fumed out of the Court, vowing vengeance on her brother.
Jane died on 1 October 1906 and was buried with her husband George in the Public section at Karori Cemetery. Violet died just three months later on 19 December. Her death was put down to chronic alcoholism.
Violet had lived in the Chinese community in Haining Street for 12 years with a man named Wong Now. Following an autopsy, her funeral departed the morgue at Clyde Quay for Karori Cemetery where she was buried in the Public2 section.
Violet’s brother Duncan died in 1913 and was buried in the same plot as Violet. We hope they sorted out their dispute about the broken windows.
For such a long name, there is only a short amount that can be found out about ‘Mark’.
Mark died aged 27 at Wellington Hospital. His funeral left the Hospital at 2:30pm on the 4th October 1902 and routed via the Trades Hall at 3pm so that his friends from the Operative Bakers Union could “follow the remains of their late comrade” for the long walk to Karori Cemetery.
We don’t know when Mark arrived in New Zealand, but with such a distinctive name, it wasn’t hard to trace him in the English Census. He was born in Essex in 1875 to Thomas Hooper, a farmer, and Harriet Elizabeth Buckland Long, the daughter of a Baker. His parents had married in London in 1867 and he was their only child. Both of his parents were from Somerset and he was raised in that county on various farms, including the rather fancy looking OldHouse Farm (now a Grade II Listed Building https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/item/IOE01/08332/30 )
Thomas died in 1900 and Harriet then became a lodging house keeper and lived until 1912 when she was buried with Thomas in the Burnham-on-Sea cemetery, with a remarkably similar headstone to that of her son’s (which we can see thanks to www.findagrave.com and their amazing volunteers).
We can only presume it was Harriet who organised the inscription for her son at Karori:
“Beaman Buckland Mark
only son of
Thomas Hooper
of Burnham, Somerset, England
Born Dec 28th 1875
Died Oct 1st 1902
He Sleepeth”
And today we remember him.
Beaman Buckland Mark Hooper plotMark’s parents grave (courtesy of Find a Grave)
An interesting name is always an invitation to research. Harriet wasn’t born Hair, or Uridge, or Clark (her three married names), but Harriet Elizabeth Wond. Her parents were John and Caroline Wond (or Wand) and she was born in Bermondsey, Surrey in 1844. John Wond was a Lighterman (an operator of a flat bottomed barge).
In 1864, Harriet married William George Clark who was a Lighterman like her father, at St Mary Magdalene in Bermondsey. William is a bit of a mystery, as by 1871 Harriet was instead living with Thomas Uridge as his wife and they had a daughter, Caroline Uridge.
Harriet married Thomas Uridge at St James the Great Church, Bethnal Green in March 1874 just before their departure for Brisbane with their two children. Their youngest two were born in Wellington.
Thomas worked as a house decorator where the tools of his trade were prized. In 1879 he advertised for a lost paperhanger’s paste brush, near the Cricket Ground and a reward was offered for anyone who could return it to him in Sussex Square. And then in 1883 he was selling thoroughbred Spanish Fowls and Roosters. In 1885 he was selling a portable bath, cased in grained oak wood.
Thomas died in 1897 and Harriet proceeded to sell by auction the “whole of her valuable household furniture and effects” of their house at South-road Newtown.
She married David Hair (1840-1916) in 1908 at the Registrar’s Office in Wellington and moved to Gisborne where David was a gardener. David had emigrated from Scotland 20 years prior and was a widower with adult children. David was father of “Messrs Hair Bros., of Lavenham, Patutahi”.
Harriet died at Hunterville in 1929 and his buried with Thomas Uridge at Karori Cemetery.
Margaret McNeash McKenzie married Thomas Brickley in Glasgow in 1863. They emigrated with their three young children to Lyttelton on the “Himalaya” in 1875. Thomas died at Oxford, Canterbury in December 1880, leaving Margaret a widow with 6 surviving children. Her youngest was aged only 1.
William Brickley, Thomas’s brother married Isabella Craig in 1869 in Glasgow. The left Scotland as assisted emigrants with their two children Peter aged 2, and baby Isabella on the “Dunedin” in 1874. Both Isabella and her baby daughter died at sea, and so William arrived in New Zealand a widower with his only surviving child, Peter.
By 1880, both Margaret and William were on their own, both living in Oxford and with young children to care for. There is no record that William and Margaret actually married. Margaret gave birth to a son called William in 1882. His father is not recorded. Two further children followed where William is recorded as the father. The “Deceased Husband’s Brother Marriage Act” did not come into law until 1900. Although many family historians will tell you that these marriages occurred anyway. Margaret was already Mrs Brickley, so perhaps they did not feel the need to marry? In total, Margaret had given birth to 11 Brickley children.
The combined Brickley family moved to Wellington and settled in Brooklyn. William worked as a fireman.
Margaret died in May 1908, aged 63 and the children from her first marriage placed numerous and frequent memorials to her in the newspapers but only with reference to her being the relict of Thomas Brickley.
In September the same year, Robert Brickley sued his father William for possession of a sideboard. Robert claimed that the sideboard was to be given to him when he was married. As he had become married, he wanted the sideboard. William said he would give the sideboard to him, but not his wife to whom he objected. He would rather go to jail. His Worship said that the plaintiff had not established his ownership and entered a non-suit without costs.
Despite the quarrel, William lived the last two years of his life at Robert’s home in Petone where he died in 1917 and was noted as an “old and respected resident”.
We recently assisted a local interested in finding the grave of Woolf Phillips. This task was made easy with the WCC search website Ever After. WCC have GPS located a good percentage of the graves at Karori and the task is continuing. Did you know it even provides Google directions to the plot? We encourage you to try it and get out and explore the Cemetery. https://wellington.discovereverafter.com/
We thought we would like to find out a little more about Woolf. He is buried in the Jewish section plot C/107 with his wife Hetty.
Woolf was born in 1868 in “Klock, Poland, Russia” and married Hetty Borofski in Christchuch in 1896, not long after he arrived in New Zealand. Hetty was the daughter of Simon Brown (officially Simon Borofski), a native of “Warsaw, Poland, Russia” and had been in New Zealand for 21 years. Woolf and Hetty’s daughters Rose Victoria and Esther Pearl were born in 1897 and 1900 respectively.
Since New Zealand was from 1840 a British Colony, British citizenship applied. Those who were not British were aliens and to become British Citizens they needed to go through a process called naturalisation. Woolf’s naturalisation papers from 1907 help us to learn a little more about him:
“I beg to report that the applicant is a married man in business as a Merchant Tailor in Adelaide Road and has been for the past five years. Mr Fielder, Merchant of Manners St who has known the applicant for about eight years say that he is a very respectable sober honest man and a good citizen and well worthy of having the Letters granted to him”. And Woolf duly signed his Oath of Allegiance.
In 1907, Woolf was advertising for a tailoress: “First class Trouser Hand, constant work guaranteed”.
In 1919 he bought a civil case against Mrs Ben Abel for the alleged balance due for making a costume. Nellie Abel counterclaimed as she believed the coat did not fit and had been cut badly. Mrs Abel put the coat on in the courtroom, and in the opinion of an independent tailor, it was “a perfect fit and finished in a workmanlike manner”. Woolf won the case.
In 1931 he gave £1 pound to the Mayor’s Napier earthquake relief fund.
In 1937 he advertised a reward for his missing green and yellow canary.
Woolf and Hetty lived in various locations around Newtown for all of their married life, first presumably over their shop at 120 Adelaide Road and then to the leafy surroundings near Wellington Zoo.
Longevity runs in the family. Hetty’s father Simon died in 1934 aged 93. Woolf died in 1957 aged 89. Hetty died in 1961 aged 89. Rose died in 1968 aged 71. Esther died in 1997 aged 97. All are buried in the Jewish section at Karori with the exception of Esther who is at Makara.
Rose married George Stevens in 1938 and Esther married Abraham Freeman in 1954.
120-122 Adelaide RoadCourtesy of National Archives of New Zealand
In the earliest Anglican area, there is a large solid column with an urn on top, all of which is wooden. Standing 8ft/2.44 metres tall it is an exact replica of a design more usually made in stone, and from a distance there is nothing to suggest it is wooden.
The monument is carved from one piece of wood, and is remarkably intact. The wood is totara, of which there was a plentiful supply in the Wellington area in the 19th century, and which is particularly hardy and long-lasting. The square base of the column has bevelled edges onto the column itself. The base is 86 cms high, and the column stands 97.5 cms. The column tapers from 95 cms diameter at the base to 73 cms at the top. The urn on the top has no special decorative features. A frame comprising three graded lengths of the same wood, each 45cm high has been added to the base of the column on a concrete slab. The whole structure is beautifully proportioned and finely executed throughout.
When transcriptions were taken of all the headstones throughout Karori in the 1990’s the transcribers were able to make out some of the inscription, and recorded:
“Headstone is wood and very hard to read. Also Jessie LEPPER b Nov 30? 1862 d 6 Mar 1895 Also George Lepper b 30? D 26 Aug 1893 also Albert Lepper…..”
These inscription fragments have now disappeared.
Research of cemetery and other publicly available records has revealed that Jessie and George Lepper were twin son and daughter of William Rigden LEPPER, and his wife Caroline Sarah (nee JACKSON), who had eight children in the years following their marriage in 1881:
Edith Mary (1884), Lilian Annie (1885), William Henry (1888), Edward Rigden (1889), George & Jessie (1892), Violet (1894), and Albert Francis (1896).
The family lived first in King Street, Newtown, then Drummond Street before finally settling in 126 Daniel Street, both also in Newtown, which was one of the poorer parts of Wellington and had notoriously bad drainage and sanitation. George and Jessie were born on 30 November 1892, but failed to thrive, or were perhaps, as infants, susceptible to the many air and waterborne diseases of the day. Jessie died, aged only three months, on 5 March 1893, and was buried in Plot 167 CH ENG two days later. Her twin George survived a little longer but on 24 July 1893, aged eight months, he too died, and was interred two days later with his sister.
In 1897 another son, Albert Francis, also died in in infancy. He was born on 8 July 1896, but died aged only 6 months on 18 January 1897 and was buried at Karori Cemetery with his brother and sister two days later.
According to NZ Electoral Roll records, William was a carpenter, though in 1896 he recorded his occupation as undertaker. Presumably as a carpenter he made coffins as stock-in-trade items, so providing undertaking services may have been a logical extension of his carpentry.
The plot at Karori was not used again for some years, and was not paid for at the time of the initial burials. William had been adjudged bankrupt in 1894, so family finances may have been stretched at the time, and the cost of enclosing the plot and erecting a suitable headstone may not have been a priority. However, on 30 November 1908 William’s younger brother, Henry Joseph, a blacksmith, died after taking ill at a Druid’s Lodge meeting the previous evening. He went to work the day after the meeting, but was still unwell, and he died later that day, leaving a widow and four young children. He was only 30 years old when he died.
Henry was buried at Karori in a plot not far from that occupied by his brother William’s children. Presumably he was buried in a new plot in the expectation that his wife would one day be interred with him. Henry’s death and burial may have spurred William into action, because less than two months after Henry’s death he paid for the plot where his infant children had been buried more than a decade earlier. Delay in paying for a plot was not unusual at Karori Cemetery, and many plots have never been paid for.
William had obviously prospered by 1908/1909 and had enough money to pay a stonemason to enclose his children’s plot in the usual concrete wall, a standard feature of graves throughout Karori Cemetery. At the head of the plot the wall integrated a concrete slab 93cm long by 123 cm wide, this forming the base upon which the wooden column/headstone was then erected. The dimensions of the concrete platform are unusual at Karori and obviously designed specifically to support the column. It is assumed William had the skills and wherewithal to be able to manufacture the monument, perhaps in his workshop, and to arrange for it to be securely fastened through the concrete plinth.
18 months later, on 27 August 1910, William also paid for the plot in which his brother had been buried. He presumably also commissioned a stonemason to enclose the plot by a concrete wall, and build a substantial concrete plinth, freestanding on three sides. A monument almost identical to the one on William’s family plot was then erected on the plinth. There are several design features of this monument which differ from those on the earlier plot – it is slightly shorter overall, and has an acorn on the top, rather than an urn.
The other distinctive feature of this monument is a wooden outer casing/boxing around the lower, square third of the column. It has been painted at some stage as there are remnants of white paint visible. The front face of the box has disappeared but the other three faces remain in situ (though one has fallen off and is lying alongside). The boxing is of the same high standard of craftsmanship as the monuments themselves and its presence suggests it was an integral design feature, and that there may have been the same feature on the first of the two plots. It is entirely likely that a plaque with inscriptions was attached to the box. There is though no record of there being any inscription on the monument over Henry’s grave, though this may have fallen off or disappeared before the transcribing team reached it in the 1990’s.
Henry is the only occupant of his plot. His wife remarried in 1913 and had three more children, and she is presumably buried somewhere with her second husband. However, William and his wife are both buried with their infant children, Caroline in April 1922, and William in July 1945. The cemetery records note his occupation at the time as “Retired Company Manager”.
These two monuments are outstanding pieces of skilled wood working craftsmanship. They are unique in Karori Cemetery.
Euphemia Cunningham, known as Effie, was born in Edinburgh in 1892 and was working in a printing factory when war began. Two of her brothers were regular soldiers and were sent straight to France and another two brothers enlisted in early 1915. By October 1915 three of Effie’s brothers had been killed. Distraught by these deaths, Effie signed up to work in a munitions factory under construction near the border of Scotland and England. Codenamed Moorside[1], it was the largest munitions plant in the UK, built in response to a severe shell shortage on the Western Front. The project was secret so when Effie left Edinburgh in mid-1916 to become a munitionette she was unable to say what work she was going to do. One well-wisher hoped she would enjoy her work in the laundry.
The ‘laundry’ was in fact the nitro-glycerine section of the factory. Nitric and sulphuric acid were mixed with glycerine and stirred into large vats of nitro-cotton to produce cordite, the propellent for firing the shells. The writer Conan Doyle described this cocktail as ‘the devil’s porridge’. By the end of 1916 Effie had been promoted to forewoman in the nitro-glycerine section.
Nitro-glycerine was such an unstable product that explosions could and often did happen despite extraordinary precautions. In March 1917, when Effie was on her shift, a problem occurred and, fearing an explosion, the factory was evacuated. When the rollcall revealed a number of women missing, Effie immediately re-entered the factory, located the group and got them out before ‘several tons of n/g suddenly disappeared in a lightning sheet of flames’.[2] One worker was killed and another nine injured.
A few months later a new order of chivalry, the Order of the British Empire, was created by King George V to recognise civilian bravery. It was the first order ever to include women and the first woman honoured was the Queen. In fact, an order of chivalry was only considered for those in the higher classes of British society, much as military honours were reserved for officers. The exception to this was the Victoria Cross, awarded for military bravery, regardless of rank. There was pressure now to recognise civilian bravery regardless of class so a medal was created, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire.[3] One newspaper called it ‘a sort of war worker’s VC’.[4] Effie heard later in 1917 that she was to receive the Medal of the O.B.E. and, because she was to be the first recipient of the new award from Edinburgh, it was presented to her in Edinburgh in April 1918 by the Lord Provost (Mayor) of the city.
Effie continued working as a munitionette until the factory was closed in mid-1919. By then she had met Thomas Baxter from the nearby village of Annan. They married in Edinburgh 1921 and in 1924 sailed for NZ to begin a new life in Auckland and then, from 1930, in Wellington. Tom and Effie Baxter lived the rest of their lives in Wellington and now both lie in Karori cemetery. (Public section, plot 628M)
Margaret Pointer
(Granddaughter of Effie Baxter)
April 2021
[1] Commonly called the Gretna factory because of its close proximity to the village of Gretna.
[2] Marwick, A. Women at War 1914-1918, Fontana 1977p69
[3] The medal of the OBE was awarded only until 1922. Post war it was given for service rather than bravery and was replaced by the British Empire Medal BEM. Effie was one of approximately 2000 recipients of the original medal.
Te Papa holds a wonderful collection of 3000 glass negatives that were found in a cupboard by the tenants of a property in Cuba St, Wellington. The property was a former premise of Berry & Co, a Wellington photographer who operated from 1897.
A few photos in the collection feature Karori Cemetery. As a contrast we have attempted to find what location looks like today.
Our first photo is in the Catholic section and features the grave of Mollie Whitworth. In the black and white image Mollie’s headstone can be seen in the far left of the photo.
Mollie (whose actual name was Mary) Whitworth lived on Boulcott St at the time of her death in November 1900.
She had married John William Whitworth, a butcher, earlier that year in February 1900. She was only 23 years old when she died. Mollie’s mother Julia Burke passed away in May 1915 aged 73. Prior to her death Julia had been resident at the Porirua Mental Asylum.
Credit: Cemetery, circa 1920, Wellington, by Berry & Co. Purchased 1998 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (B.044990)
