Fearn & Quick – architects of the William Booth Memorial Training College, Aro Street.
Stanley Fearn was born in Mile End, London, in 1887 to Walter who was a pawnbroker and his wife Emma Tilly. The family moved out of London to Woodford where Stanley was educated at Woodford College, Burnham College and Bancrofts School. He started his architectural training in 1904. Stanley arrived in Wellington on a third-class ticket in 1911.
William Benyon Austin Quick (known as Austin) was born in New Zealand in 1886 to William Henry Quick and his wife Elizabeth Thomas. William senior was a solicitor. Austin was educated at Mrs Swainson’s school in Fitzherbert Terrace (the forerunner to Samuel Marsden College), before attending Victoria University where he was described as being ‘of a reserved disposition but sterling character’.
Stanley and Austin formed an informal partnership in 1913, and together they designed the Training College in the neo Georgian style. It was designed as a residential college for 50 students, (25 female and 25 male) and cost 13,000. The building opened in 1914. The partnership won the inaugural NZIA Gold Medal Award for their design in 1927.
When the war started, the partners wound up their business as soon as they were able to and joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
Stanley served in Egypt, France and Belgium, attaining the rank of Second Lieutenant before his return to New Zealand in 1919.
Austin left as a sergeant with the 5th Reinforcements and served in Egypt and Gallipoli before he was invalided home with enteric. He re-joined his battalion in France and was killed in action while serving in the machine gun section in 10th December 1916. He is interred at Rue-Petillon Military Cemetery, Fleurbaix, Pas de Calais, France. Austin is remembered on a brass plaque at Old St Paul’s which reads ‘A chorister in this church as a boy and man’.
Stanley lived for 50 years longer than his friend, and became a distinguished architect. He married Winifred Glasse of Essex in 1916 and they had a son and a daughter. Their son, Detmar, also became an architect. Stanley lived in Wilton Road, Northland.
To celebrate King Charles’ coronation day, did you know that at Karori Cemetery there are:
1977 named Charles
320 with surname King
5 men named Charles King
This is what we know about our five Charles King:
1903 Charles King, died aged 37, Public 2/C/8 Lived in Caroline Street, member of the Court of Sir George Bowen A.O.F. . Charles’ occupation was a violinist, conductor and music teacher. He married Annie Lucretia Ahlgren in 1893. In June 1903, a benefit social was held in his aid at Druids Hall and 180 couples attended. He publicly thanked his friends in the newspaper for their material kindness during his present illness. He died on the 30th October. Annie died in 1944 and is in the same plot.
1914 Charles Mould King, died aged 53, Ch Eng 2/C/46 Born in Melbourne. When he was four, his mother died and Charles and his father moved to Hokitika. Held rank of Quartermaster Sergeant in the D Battery of Artillery, was a prominent Oddfellow, churchwarden and spent his working life as a clerk. He and his wife Maria Miles had three sons. Maria died in 1946 and is in the same plot.
1924 Charles Edward King, died aged 33, Ch Eng 2/G/451 Charles was born in Oamaru. He worked as a hairdresser and lived in Cuba Street. His wife Minnie (nee Lewis) was a key witness in the Newlands Baby Farming scandal. Minnie and infant daughter are also interred in this plot.
1926 Charles Maynard King, died aged 35, Ch Eng 2/H/141 Charles was born in Wellington and was a Member of the Eastbourne Lodge. He lived on Marine Parade. He was a ‘pictorial artist’ and partner of the signwriting firm ‘Hanna & King Limited’. His wife Annie and son Jack are also interred in this plot.
1943 Charles Egerton Wredenhall King, died aged 76, Ch Eng/C/28 Born on the Isle of Man, his parents had married in India (where his mother was born). He was married to Minnie Worth in 1893, they had no children. He worked as a storeman and the couple lived in Webb Street. He is buried with his wife and parents.
Louise Elizabeth de Bathe Brandon was born in Wellington in 1877. She was the the fourth child born to Henry Eustace de Bathe Brandon and Anna Maria Wilson.
Louise spent many years writing short stories under a pen-name and was very interested in journalism. She was at one time an editor of the ‘New Zealand Free Lance’ and also of the ‘New Zealand Times.’
Louise completed her nursing examinations in 1909 and was the top placed student in those exams. She completed her training in Wellington Hospital in 1910.
When the First World War was declared on 4 August 1914, Matron in Chief Hester Maclean asked if nurses would be sent with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF). The response was “No nurses would be sent’. However on 7 August Hester Maclean received a request for six nurses to proceed with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
The six nurses requested on 7th August left NZ on the 15 August 1914 for an unknown destination, which turned out to be Samoa. Louise Brandon was one of these nurses and along with her colleagues she replaced the German nurses at Apia Hospital.
The New Zealand Army Nursing Service (NZANS) had yet to be established, therefore Louise and the other nurses were attached to the New Zealand Medical Corps – No 4 Field Ambulance, as members of the New Zealand Medical Corps Nursing Service Reserve.
Louise returned to New Zealand from Samoa and along with 13 other nurses left on the hospital ship Maheno on its maiden voyage from Wellington on 10 July 1915.
On the Maheno there were 7-8 doctors, 3 chaplains, 14 nurses and 60-70 orderlies. The doctors, chaplains, and nurses had officer status and enjoyed better accommodation and first class passenger menus. Although the government had said that nurses would be treated as officers, it is reported that Lieutenant-Colonel James Elliott, the senior military officer on the Maheno’s first voyage, withdrew many of the nurses privileges, greatly souring relations.
During the voyage the nurses were responsible for sorting and packing all the donated linen and knitted goods. Each staff nurse was responsible for training six orderlies. There were lectures, incident simulations, and bandaging practice.
The Maheno sailed via the Suez to Anzac Cove arriving on 26th August 1915. Records complied from the ships diary note that on arrival at Anzac Cove the Maheno found ‘a destroyer and cruiser bombarding the coast immediately opposite to us. Several bullets came on board, which added excitement to the proceedings’.
Louise and the other nurses onboard were immediately put into action and on the 28th of August the ship left with 445 patients for Mudros, a port in Lemnos, Greece. The ship returned to Anzac on the 30th August. The ship’s diary states that they were faced by epidemics of diarrhea, dysentery, and other intestinal complaints. The worst wounds were caused by bombs and shrapnel. Lice were also noted as being bothersome.
Conditions on the ship must have been frantic. One nurse wrote ‘I had theatre duty, and when we were not operating we were all dressing wounds. . .some of the wounds were ghastly, and gas gangrene was prevalent. We had 13 amputations in the short trip from Mudros to Alexandria.’
The next five weeks were spent treating wounded from Gallipoli, either at ANZAC Cove, Mudros or transporting them to Malta or Alexandria. One of the other nurses onboard wrote that the Maheno ‘looks like what she is – an errand of mercy for all you men…’
Louise returned to New Zealand on the Maheno on 1 Jan 1916 and continued serving on the ship until March 1917 when she joined another hospital ship ‘Marama’.
Her third overseas posting was on the Corinthic and she also spent time as the Matron of the New Zealand Officers’ Convalescence Hospital at Brighton. Louise finally concluded her nursing service on 1 February 1920.
Throughout WW1 Louise always worked alongside her friend Louise Alexa McNie (later Buchanan). The two women sat their nursing exams the same year, went to Samoa together and worked on the Maheno, Marama, and Corinthic together.
Both Louise Brandon and Louise McNie were awarded the Associate Royal Red Cross. Established by Queen Victoria, this decoration was conferred exclusively on women until 1976. The award is made to a fully trained nurse of an officially recognised nursing service, military or civilian, who has shown exceptional devotion and competence in the performance of nursing duties over a continuous and long period, or who has performed an exceptional act of bravery and devotion at her or his post of duty.
Following her return to New Zealand Louise Brandon became Matron of the Military Hospital at Rotorua. She also had a practice of her own at Kelvin Chambers, 16 The Terrace.
In 1933 Louise attended an International conference of Nurses in Paris and Brussels, and spent 8 months on holiday in England.
Upon her return from the war Louise lived at her home at 56 Pipitea St, Thorndon. She left this property to two of her nephews upon her death. She also left funds to support her sister Gladys and brother Gerald. Louise never married.
Louise died in Wellington Hospital on 23 September 1945 after a long illness. Her ashes are in the Soliders Niche (DIV B1/2) in the Services Section.
Note: Many members of the wider Brandon family were involved in WWI. Louise’s brother Major Percy Eustace de Bathe Brandon OBE was also a decorated soldier, brother Private Gerald served in Egypt. Louise’s brother in law Robert Thomas Heaney was killed in action in France in April 1918. We have also featured Louise’s sister Constance in another story (https://friendsofkaroricemetery.co.nz/constance-annie-de…/).
It is well timed for ANZAC Day 2023 that we are pleased to announce the two lily ponds in the services section have had their restoration completed. These ponds are of historical importance and the Friends’ championed for their restoration.
These ponds were completed in November 1926. They were commissioned by the Department of Internal Affairs. Some of the original waterlilies were donated by the Auckland Racing Club and eighteen varieties were sent from the Melbourne Botanical Gardens.
There were once goldfish in the ponds too, donated by the Women’s National Reserve. These proved an allure for children out walking with their parents and instructions were issued to keep a close eye out for offenders who would ‘be severely dealt with’. The goldfish have long since escaped, however waterlilies will return to the ponds.
During their restoration, a number of curious articles were retrieved by the contractors while digging out the bases. A fish paste jar bought back childhood memories for our committee member Philippa. A piece of an infant’s headstone was also recovered and Philippa has gone to some lengths to research its original placement. Based on the scant details on the piece and some crack sleuthing, Philippa has concluded the piece came from the headstone of Claude Victor Boyd who died aged 3 years in 1892. We hope to be able to return it to its plot.
In the meantime we hope that you visit the cemetery and admire the lily ponds which we think add greatly to the tranquillity of the space.
Services area, image courtesy of Wellington Recollect
Margaret and Andrew Hill were likely one of many married couples who used emigration rather than an expensive divorce to change course in their lives.
Margaret Steel was born in 1833 in Riccarton, Ayr, Scotland. She worked as a hatmaker. She married Andrew Hill, a brassfinisher, in Glasgow in 1859. Their children Margaret, William, George and Gilbert were all born near the Clyde over the following years.
In March 1870, whether by design or planning Andrew sailed alone on the ‘Dunfilan’ for Dunedin. His youngest son Andrew junior was born in August the same year back in Glasgow. In June 1871, Margaret arrived on the ‘Wild Deer’ to Dunedin with her children. Andrew worked there as a brassfinisher until 1875 at which point he returned to Glasgow and Margaret moved with her children to Wellington.
How does a woman survive with five children? At first Margaret returned to her hat making skills, advertising heavily throughout 1876-77 that straw hats ‘were cleaned and altered to the newest styles on the shortest notice’. She then ran a modest registry office (employment exchange). The family lived at Taranaki Street, then Stafford Street before moving in early 1880 to the sleepy village that was then Oriental Bay. She named her home ‘Kelburne House’ and it sat just along from the Hay Street corner. She was also said to have been the person to name the suburb of Roseneath and Baring Street behind her house was originally named Hill Street.
Margaret seems to have been a hospitable lady. Her sons’ friends of the Oriental Bay boating club would call for ‘a capital tea’. And they had a boat shed opposite her house (now the location of the band rotunda).
In 1884 she adopted a little girl named Ivy, and the three women of the family continued living at Kelburne House. Ivy recalled climbing over the rocks to attend Clyde Quay School.
Margaret died in 1903. In 1930, her son Gilbert demolished the house and replaced it with the three storey block of flats that remain today, known as Coburn House.
Public/O/63
Margaret Steel Hill standing in door way, with her daughter Margaret Brown Hill and Ivy seated. Unknown boy.
Oriental Bay 1890s, courtesy of Te Papa online
Detail photo, Margaret’s house likely to be the single storey building with buggy parked adjacent.
14th April 2023 marks the 111th anniversary of RMS Titanic striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. There were no known New Zealanders on Titanic but we have found a small link to a grave at Karori Cemetery …
Elizabeth Budding was born in 1857 at Rouen, France to Welsh parents. She married Edmund Williams, a tailor, in 1882 and their children were born in London into a busy family tailoring business where Elizabeth also worked. Elizabeth was widowed in 1905 and in about 1910 emigrated to Wellington to be near her daughter Amy (b. 1882) who had married William Riggin, caretaker of Wellington College.
Her fifth son, Charles (b. 1888) started working as a ballboy at Prince’s Club before turning professional as a rackets player. He became the school racket coach at Harrow School. He became world champion aged 22 when he defeated J. Jamsetji of Bombay.
Charles boarded the Titanic as a second class passenger at a cost of £13. His intended destination was Harvard College to play USA champion, Jack Soutar.
On the night of April 14th, Charles had been playing on the racket court and was in the smoking room when the iceberg struck. After the Titanic sank, he was originally reported as “missing”. The newspapers may have mixed him up with Charles Duane Williams, another passenger who did drown. He was finally announced as rescued in New Zealand newspapers on 22nd April.
According to an account in ‘The Press’, Charles who was wearing a lifebelt jumped overboard and floated for a few minutes before he was picked up from a lifeboat. He also reported to Lloyds that Captain Smith swam up to the lifeboat with a baby in his arms (there is no evidence that this happened). He stood for nine hours in a small boat with water up to his knees. Eventually they were rescued by the RMS Carpathia.
In August 1912, King George visited Harrow School, and while there congratulated Charles on his escape from the Titanic.
Charles resided in the USA from 1924, married and had six children. He died in Chicago in 1935, aged 47. He is buried in Rosehill Cemetery.
Elizabeth married George Cloake in 1916 and she died in 1932, aged 74.
Joseph was born in Nelson in 1873, the son of Joseph, a carpenter and his wife Ann Boyes. Ann was widowed in 1875 and moved with her younger children to New Plymouth where Joseph junior attended high school and was a keen amateur boxer.
He started his journalistic career first at the ‘Taranaki Herald’ and ‘Taranaki Daily News’, followed by the Christchurch ‘Press’. He joined the sub-editorial staff of the ‘Evening Post’ in 1903. He became chief sub-editor in 1907 and then succeeded Mr Lukin as editor in 1916.
‘… he held that the editorship of a metropolitan newspaper demanded his whole attention, and that an editor could best serve the public by maintaining an independent position free from the ties to which personal association with public affairs might lead’ (Evening Post, 4 April 1942)
Joseph married Vera Myrtle MacDonald in 1907. She was the niece and adopted daughter of Frances Rossiter and her husband (Hon) Thomas Kennedy MacDonald. Their children were Erik, Joan and Frances.
In 1938, Joseph travelled with his wife and daughters for a nine month stay in Europe where he witnessed the Munich crisis. ‘… this impressed with him the dangers that the Empire must be prepared to face, and the trials which could only be met with the utmost efforts of all partners in the British Commonwealth of Nations. On his return to New Zealand he never failed to stress the urgency of this effort’.
He collapsed and died suddenly on 2 April 1942, after completing his work day. He had been editor of the ‘Evening Post’ for 26 years.
Prime Minister Peter Fraser and Chief Justice Sir Michael Myers, Consul-General for Poland Count K A Wodzicki and president of the Hebrew Congregation for Wellington Mr B Van Staveren were just a few of the dignitaries that attended his funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral. The members of the literary department of the ‘Evening Post’ were the pall bearers.
Joseph’s ashes are located in the columbarium behind the Small Chapel. There is no inscription on the plaque. Vera died in 1971 and her ashes were scattered in the rose garden.
Edwin was born in 1837, the son of coachbuilder Robert and his wife Sarah. The family lived in Longacre, London.
Edwin arrived in New Zealand in the 1850s and at first he undertook hotelkeeping with his brother Albert. He was then appointed the first station master at Kaiapoi in 1872. The railway was controversial locally as the merchants had built up their trade on shipping and had put money into shares and sheds. He was then moved to Rangiora when it became the terminus.
In 1873 he married Sarah Amelia Tribe at St Luke’s church, Christchurch. Sarah was born in St Pancras, London and the daughter of Charles Tribe, then a journeyman upholsterer.
Edwin was then station master at Ashburton until 1878. On his departure he was presented with a purse containing 90 sovereigns as a mark of esteem. “The public had always received from Mr Silk the greatest courtesy”.
Mr and Mrs Silk then moved to Wellington where Edwin commenced work for Shaw, Savill & Albion. At first they lived in Majoribanks Street, then Austin Terrace before retiring to Jubilee Road, Khandallah.
Edwin had written his Will in 1875 and left the whole of his estate to his wife, but perhaps due to the fact they were about to travel and as they had no children, Edwin prepared a codicil to his Will in 1907 stating that should his wife predecease him then his property was to be divided among his Tribe in-laws and their descendants. The couple went to Europe in 1907, returning in 1908. Edwin died suddenly the same year, aged 72.
Sarah lived in Jubilee Road and died in 1933, aged 82.
[some information in this of story was supplied from the Macdonald Dictionary of Canterbury Biography project 1952-1964]
What is their connection? Can you follow it along?
Arthur J. Delaney died 1913 aged 47 years
Also
William Thomson died 1912 aged 82 years
And
Margaret A Parsonage died 1906 aged 28 years
Arthur John Delaney was born at New Plymouth in 1866, the son of John Delaney from Ireland who had served in the Crimean war. Arthur worked as a Harbour Board employee. He married Mary “Minnie” Christina Thomson in 1889. Their only child Ethel was born in 1891. He died 30th March 1913 after a long and painful illness at his home in Herald Street.
William Thomson was a “well-known Wellington identity”. He was born in Scotland and went to the goldfields at Ballarat in 1858 and the on to the goldfields at Otago. He then returned to his trade as an iron moulder working at Sparrow’s foundry Dunedin where he made the first casting there. He then came to Wellington as a foreman for E.W. Mill’s foundry and then was leading moulder at Seager’s foundry. Only old age compelled his retirement. He was a widower with two sons and a daughter. His daughter was Minnie Delaney.
Margaret Agnes Parsonage was the younger sister of Minnie and daughter of William Thomson. She was born in 1877. She married Arthur Douglas Parsonage in 1905 and died 21st March 1906 at Alicetown, Lower Hutt.
Also in the plot are Mary “Minnie” Christina Delaney died 1925 aged 55 and Jane Emma Warring died 1940, aged 76.
Minnie Delaney resided at 66 Seatoun Road with her son-in-law Basil Warring. She died aged 54 in 1925 and is interred in this plot.
Jane Emma Warring was born Jane Perry in 1865 in Auckland. She married William Henry Warring in 1883 and they had seven sons and two daughters. He was a police constable in Timaru and died there in 1906. She remarried in 1909 to George Burns but divorce was granted in 1920 based on desertion.. “He turned out to be a degenerate and his habits were such that in 1911, her son turned him out of the house”. Jane died in 1940 and was the last interment in this plot.
[Ethel Delaney had married Basil Warring in 1916. They were both cremated at Karori Cemetery]
Born about 1874 in Guernsey, Channel Islands to Nicholas (a sailmaker) and Selina his wife (nee Heaume). In 1891 Emily was working as the only servant of a stone merchant in Guernsey and his large family.
In 1900 she arrived on a third class ticket in New Zealand. On the same ship was her sister Alice Dorgan, Alice’s husband Theo Dorgan and two nieces Edith & Beatrice. Emily was described as being “short in stature, active and efficient, and with a lively disposition”.
By 1911 she was working for Alexander Turnbull as his maid, first in his parents’ former house on the corner of Bowen Street and The Terrace (later Bowen Hospital) and then in his new house at 27 Bowen Street from 1916. Alexander died in 1918 and in his Will he left Emily and his other maid Hannah Grierson £150 each. Emily and Hannah remained living in the house, responsible for it after hours and for its cleaning. In 1920 the house was opened as the Turnbull Library.
“Their domain … comprised the kitchen, bathroom, pantry and the two maid’s rooms. A carefully drafted eight clause schedule defined their duties. As well as cleaning the building, they were responsible for moving the books and answering the door. For many years the visitor’s first impression of the Library after ringing the bell was of the front door being opened by the tiny bird-like figure of Miss Brouard who was well capable of making a quick assessment of the credentials of the caller before permitting entrance”. (Turnbull Library Record, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1 August 1970, Page 92)
Emily retired her post in 1944 and was the last resident housekeeper of Turnbull House. On her retirement she was interviewed by the NZ Listener and written up under the caption “She dusted but did not read them”. Emily then moved to Yule Street, Kilbirnie and lived there until she died in 1951. Emily was cremated at Karori Cemetery.
Her sister Alice died in 1955 and their family plot is ROM CATH/S/183.
Emily Brouard, courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library
Alexander Turnbull Library, 1930s. Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library.
