The first name on this headstone is Victoria Howe, who died in 1896 aged 47, after a long and painful illness.
Victoria was born (according to family record) on a ship in Wellington Harbour in August 1848. Her parents were William Rowett and Mary Barker and they were married at St Clement Danes, Westminster in February that year. William was working as a servant at the Angel Inn in Wych Street at the time.
But now in Wellington, it was William’s chance to be his own master, and he ran Livery Stables and advertised the hiring of horses and gigs from his premises at the rear of the South Sea Hotel. He was also a jockey in local horse races. Sadly he died in 1853 aged only 29.
Mary remarried John Patti(n)son the following year and their daughter Mary Ann was born in 1856.
In 1867 Victoria married John Howe, a second-generation fellmonger and son of John Howe senior who had arrived in Wellington in 1842. When John senior died in 1877, he left 86 grandchildren. John Howe senior had a dairy farm off Kent Terrace, between Elizabeth and Pirie Streets, and it was here that the John and Victoria’s children were born.
In 1873 Victoria made her Will leaving her estate to her children, once her youngest child had come of age, and the executors of her Will were to be her stepfather John Pattinson, and William Tustin.
Throughout 1874 Victoria was advertising furnished apartments for rent on Kent Terrace, with or without board. An enterprising way to add to family resources.
In 1878, Victoria was advertising for a nurse girl, and again in 1880 for a “useful young girl”. Clearly she had her hands full. In 1879, John was advertising for his lost black terrier “Fido”.
At Victoria’s death in 1896, John Pattison renounced the execution in Victoria’s will: “I have not intermeddled in the estate … and will not hereafter intermeddle therein with the intent to defraud creditors…”. And as the William Tustin had died 4 years previous, it was her eldest son John Albert Barker Howe who applied for administration of her estate. John Albert was 28 at the time and his younger siblings were Willie Ernest 23, Mary Maud 21, Leila Martha 17 and Harry Vaughan 16. John Howe took no interest in his wife’s Will.
John Albert went on to state that his three youngest siblings were living with their grandfather John Pattinson and they had no funds of their own for their maintenance and that the eldest of the three, Mary Maud, was an invalid. John Howe was not in a position to maintain his children and had not for many years past contributed to their support. He had not lived with Victoria for the last five years of her life and was not in custody of the children. Victoria’s estate consisted almost entirely of a house with a net income of about £100 a year.
An Order was then made by the court that the sum of 20 shillings per week may be allowed from the estate for the maintenance of the children.
John Howe died at Wellington Hospital in June 1898, in his 62nd year.
Mary Pattinson died in 1906, aged 80 and John Pattinson in 1910, aged 95! The newspapers noted he had lived under the reigns of George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edwards VII and George V. Both are also interred in this plot.
The plot is also the final resting place of 10 Howe and Pattinson family members.
If you want the map / directions to find this plot, please click on the following link:
