William was a baker and he and members of his family are buried at Karori Cemetery.
William was born on 20 June 1845 in Weston, Bath, Somerset, England. The son of William Isaac and Rebecca (nee Freeman). In 1858 the family emigrated to Australia, arriving in Sydney on 24 September. From there they relocated to Cooma in New South Wales where William the father worked on a cattle station and died on 13 October 1861.Later, Rebecca and several of her children sailed from Sydney to Wellington arriving on 19 February 1864, aboard the Airedale. Why she chose Wellington is not known, although family legend says she had family in Wellington.
Initially William served a baking apprenticeship with Mr John Dixon in Cuba Street before going into partnership with James Godber. In 1869 he had opened his own business in Molesworth Street which is where he married Fanny Ralph on 24 May 1869. In the early 1870’s he had moved his bakery to Mulgrave Street on the corner with Pipitea Street. However, in 1882 his business partnership with his brother-in-law William Henry Frethey was dissolved and he set up a bread market business at 21 Aro Street, and then later in the 1880’s his business was at 80 and 82 Cuba Street and his residence at 95 Cuba Street. However, in February 1890 he moved back to 21 Aro Street before relocating the business to 96 Aro Street on the corner with Devon Street. Subsequently the business was carried on there for many years by his sons.
William was a deeply religious man and was connected with the Plymouth Brethren Church and often preached there. His first wife Fanny died in 1879 and is buried in the Bolton Street Cemetery. The couple had seven children, so when Fanny died William’s mother Rebecca helped look after the children. Shortly after Rebecca died on 29 November 1885, he married Martha Elizabeth Potts in the Wellington Registry Office. Together they had four children but only one lived past infancy.
William was living at 207 Happy Valley Road in Brooklyn when he died on 27 September 1930. He is buried in Karori Plot number 349W.
He was my great great grandfather. One of his sons who carried on the bakery business, Edwin Lewis Isaac, born in 1875 was my great grandfather. Another son was Henry Charles (Harry) Isaac a well-known preacher of the gospel. The book, There We Found Brethren by Peter J Lineham tells the story about how Henry was known as Happy Harry as “ in his youth he had rebelled against his Christian upbringing and shared in drunken parties while a blacksmiths apprentice in Feilding. Then one day he picked up a paper and read about some revival meetings when a voice said to him, Harry if you were saved you would be the means of others being saved”.
Plot: *Public 2/W/349
By Alan Isaac on 9 October 2026
