Albert - Bert - Henry Baskerville - also spelled Baskiville - was a rugby player - and a damned good one but what he is really known for is organising the first rugby league team in the country.
Bert was born on January 15, 1883, in Masterton to Henry William and his wife Maria.
The family moved around quite a bit - nearly everyone of his brothers and sister was born in a different New Zealand town, but by the time he was 20 the family was settled in Auckland.
It was also where Bert lost his father. Henry was killed in an accident on January 30,1903, while doing some drainage works on Upper Queen Street in Auckland.
He and some other workmen were working in a deep excavation when one side of it began to collapse, men called out but his father moved the wrong way and was buried to his neck. He was quickly removed but his injuries were too serious to survive.
Bert - who was a postal clerk - moved his family to Wellington where he became the main income earner.
He played rugby for the Wellington club in 1903 then switched to the Oriental Club where he played regularly.
He published his book Modern Rugby Football: Modern New Zealand Methods; Points for the Beginner, the Player, the Spectator, in 1907 which started his national profile.
He turned his attention to his next ambition, a professional tour of Great Britain.
Along with rugby he was also a short and middle distance runner and often competed for money, along with ideas for inventions, filing a patent for a "cuff protector and blotter".
He became intrigued by the breakaway sport played by the Northern Union in England - which played what would become rugby league - asking for it to host a tour of New Zealand rugby players and when it was agreed he left his job in the Postal Department to organise it full time.
However the Wellington Rugby Union moved quickly to attempt to stop him from attending its grounds and he received a life ban from the New Zealand Rugby Union.
He still managed to put together an impressive touring party that included eight All Blacks, including four from the 1905 tour of Great Britain.
The tour was a great success although Bert only managed to play one game, so busy was he with the administration of the tour.
Then on arriving in Australia he played in the first ever trans-Tasman test which was the first match by the Australia national rugby league team, again scoring a try. That was to be the only time that Baskerville represented New Zealand in a test match.
On the trip home he contracted pneumonia on the ship and died in Brisbane on May 20, 1908.
He is buried in Karori Cemetery.​

The Church of the Good Shepherd at Lake Tekapo is one of the most photographed buildings in the world.
Built out of local stone, it was specifically designed to be a part of the landscape and not to impose upon it. Where many churches were built to exalt their magnificence - the Church of the Good Shepherd was to be built without disturbing anything in the area and the materials had to be from within five miles of the site.
It was built in 1935 as a memorial church commemorating early settlers.
Since then its raw beauty has drawn photographers from everywhere.
Walter Ernest Detheridge Davies had recently become the vicar of Fairlie in February 1933 and he realised it needed its own church.
He thought it in particular should have a view over the lake.
The land for the building was given by the owners of Braemar Station.
The church was designed by Christchurch architect Richard Strachan De Renzy Harman based on the drawings of Esther Hope.
Esther Barker was born in Woodbury, on August 8, 1885 to farmer John and mother Emily.
She went to Miss Bowen’s school in Christchurch and was always fascinated by art. She went to England where she attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London as well as studying at the Chelsea College of Arts.
Esther became known for her watercolour paintings of the Mackenzie Country.
She travelled as she painted in Europe and was in Brittany when the first World War began and she was initially unable to return to England.
Once she did, she drove trucks between London docks and the city, before travelling to Malta to become a Voluntary Aid Detachment She married Henry Norman Hope in 1919 and returned to New Zealand where she began exhibiting her art.
Esther prepared several drawings of a church in 1933 and they were given to the architect who used them to create a design. The church was opened in 1935.
The builders of the church were instructed that the site was to be left undisturbed, and that even the matagouri bushes surrounding the building were to remain. Rocks which happened to be on the wall line were not to be removed.
Esther’s watercolours were exhibited around the world and now her work is held in several New Zealand museums.
She died on July 16, 1975 and was cremated at the Salisbury Park Crematorium in Timaru.​

There are of course many New Zealanders buried overseas - from those dying of natural causes and accidents, but most poignantly, those who fought for us and ended up in foreign soil.
For Wellington, there are four buried in an English cemetery that have a special relationship with us.
They are Pilot officer Charles Agnew, Pilot officer Alfred Churchill Lockyer, Flying officer Terence McKinley and Flight sergeant John Matthew Stack.
Charles was born on January 1, 1919, the son of Robert and Margaret Agnew. They had emigrated from Fife, Scotland to New Zealand.
During the Second World War he went to Canada and trained with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in winnipeg, Manitoba. He joined the 630 Squadron in Lincolnshire which was equipped with Lancaster Mark III bombers whic carried out strategic bombings.
On November 22, 1944 he was a crew member on a mission to detect German U boat pens but the engine on the plane failed and crashed out of control. He was the only one of his 10 brothers who was killed in action. He was also the husband of Cecelia Joyce Agnew.
Alfred was born on October 2, 1921 to John Adams Lockyer and his wife Gertrude in Belfast in Ireland.
Alfred had also trained on Lancaster bombers.
On March 17, 1945 he and six others were selected for a training exercise over the North Sea but it was quickly cancelled and they were ordered to proceed to a bombing range at Alkborough to drop practise bombs. Warned of an air raid they were told to put their light outs as a Luftwaffe twin-engine place appeared behind them and attacked. Lockyer’s plane was engulfed in flames and he ordered the crew to bail.
Only the flight engineer got out before the aircraft went into a dive and
crashed into the sea.
Terence was born on April 23, 1922 to Denis Alphonsus and Mildred Agnes McKinley.
He trained with the Royal Canadian Air Force Training School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada and graduated on 7th November 1941.
He joined the night bomber squadron and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross as an outstanding captain.
He piloted Halifax Bombers and on November 14, 1943, he and three others were testing one when it suffered a double engine failure and crashed.
John was born in June 1917, in Lower Hutt to John Charles Edward Stack and Ada Ann who had come from England.
He served in the Royal Air Force as part of bomber command and was based in Cambridgeshire.
On October 18, 1944 he and six others took off in a Stirling MKIII on a night training exercise.
The weather quickly turned bad and their plane crashed in Mickle Fell in County Durham.
All four Wellingtonians are buried in the Stonefell Cemetery, (along with 19 other New Zealanders) in Harrogate (along with - Wellington’s sister city.
Pic by Ray Harrington.​

Life for women not born into any form of wealth was hard in the 1800’s.
Options were limited and with none of the modern conveniences we take for granted, it was unending toil.
Even so, the life of Margaret Doherty was tragic. Reliant on men for support, often pregnant and reduced to crime and drink, it must have been a constant struggle.
Margaret was born in 1831 to Henry and Margaret Doherty in Limerick, Ireland during the time of the Great Famine.
In 1851 she was charged with receiving stolen clothing and when she got to court it was found she had a previous conviction for stealing a cow and already been in jail.
She was sentenced to be transported and left in 1852 heading to Hobart, where she was described as 20, 155cm tall, brown hair and dark eyes. She could not read or write.
After one small issue with being absent from her service without leave she was unexpectedly charged with murder.
Prisoners had some freedom and while Margaret and another woman were at an eating house with a former convict called Peter Lomas, he went to the loo and never returned. Margaret found him dead with a small bottle of medicine in his hand that she took. A witness said Margaret had given it to her and the police then charged her with murder.
At an inquest though it was found Peter had died on natural causes and the charge against Margaret was dropped.
In 1853 Margaret and George Jenkins applied to be married and four months later Margaret had her first child Harry. They moved to the Huon Valley where they lived with a former convict John Clarke.
Jenkins deserted Margaret to go to the goldfields and Margaret turned to Clarke and had three children by him.
Margaret got her ticket to leave - then her conditional pardon in 1856 only to have tragedy strike.
She was nursing her latest baby Charlotte when a neighbour she had had an argument with threw boiling water over them. Charlotte died.
Although Margaret quickly had another child, a son, it had placed a strain on her relationship with Clarke who up and left.
Unable to support herself Margaret had her three oldest children put into care. She was by this time drinking heavily.
About 1864 Clarke returned and the two youngest went back into their care. They decided to start afresh in New Zealand.
But shortly after their arrival in Timaru, Clarke left again, leaving Margaret with the children.
Unable to cope she got into more and more trouble with the law, and ended up being charged with deserting her children. They were admitted to the Lyttleton Orphanage.
Between 1869 and 1882, Margaret was charged with numerous offences including larceny, vagrancy, drunkenness, using obscene language, behaving in a riotous and indecent manner in the street, having no lawful means of support, soliciting and prostitution, and wilful destruction of private property.
In 1878 she married again a man called Thomas Stanton.
But in 1882 she was accidentally burnt to death at her home when her skirt caught the fire.
She was 50. Margaret is buried in an unmarked grave in the Barbadoes Street Cemetery in Christchurch.
Picture by Carl Tronders.​

The Crimean war was complicated - part territory, part religious war between the Russian Tzar and Napoleon.
It was one of the first conflicts that used modern warfare - like explosive shells, and modern communication like telegraph.
It was also one of the first to be written about extensively with the information available for all to read.
It was a turning point for the Russian Empire - beginning what would be doubts about its strength and influence until many years later it slid into revolution.
We have many veterans buried around New Zealand - and there are even some from the Crimean War - fought between 1853 and 1856.
One was George Reid. He was born to John and Sarah in Dover, Kent, England.
He went to sea young, serving on a man of war ship as a powder boy in the Crimean War. Powder boys, or powder monkeys, ferried gunpowder from the powder magazine in the ship's hold to the artillery pieces, either in bulk or as cartridges, to minimise the risk of fires and explosions.
In 1869 he left service and came to New Zealand where he ended up living in Meeanee and Taradale, where he met and married his wife Brigid Doyle.
In the early days he was caretaker of the Napier Park racecourse. After this he worked in the employ of the Hawke’s Bay County Council for over 30 years.
During this period he spent much of his time on county work in the backblocks. Living away from home so much with a good deal of hardship he was nevertheless in part responsible for some of the development which took place in the back country roads.
A private man, he took a keen interest in different branches of sport, he was highly respected by the many people with whom he came in contact.
He died on May 12, 1934 at his home in Meeanee aged 92 and is buried in Taradale Cemetery.​

It was early December and a clear sky when a sudden explosion rocked Whanganui.
The people of the city in 1908 had no idea what it could possibly be but it was heard for miles. In fact people - already wary because of events in Europe - had wondered if it might be a submarine off the coast.
But residents of Castlecliff had seen something bright fall from the sky and it was quickly believed to be a meteorite.
Meteorites are actually pretty rare, and it’s even rarer to find ones that were seen to fall to earth.
So when the report came in that something was discovered on the Hawken farm in Mokoia it was immediately interesting.
William Syme of Eastown showed a piece of it to George Reginald Marriner - the curator of the Whanganui museum, saying it was a piece of the meteorite.
He, with three other men, had been working on the railway, near a creek, when thev heard a crackling noise overhead, like a volley from rifles,
The next development was the sound of something falling near the Hawkins's estate, into a pine plantation.
Another piece seemed to fall among some dense bush by a steep hank above a creek.
A third piece was heard falling shortly afterwards, like a piece of rocket. The explosion, which must have occurred at a great height, had distributed the pieces. It fell into the creek with a splashing, hissing sound, like that produced by the immersion in water of hot iron.
The other workman also saw the phenomenon, and saw a flash like a tongue of flame, and what he took to be steam.
The noise was heard distinctly by a number of people in Mokoia.
Marriner subsequently visited the spot, saw the hole, and found two large pieces of meteoric stone embedded which he extracted and put on display.
But any fame he might have had was cut tragically short.
Marriner had been born in Gravesend in Kent 1879 to James and Anna and they came to New Zealand in early 1880.
Always a keen scientific student, he left school and was appointed assistant to a professor of biology at Canterbury University.
In 1908 he was appointed curator of the public museum in Whanganui.
He was a member of the New Zealand scientific expedition to the sub-Antarctic islands and was a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society of Great Britain.
But at only age 30 he developed appendicitis and needed an operation. It did not go well and a second, then third operation was performed but he was unable to recover and died on February 25, 1910.
He is buried in Linwood Cemetery.​

Ethel Mary Lewis was a tiny force of nature, so much so that she earned a nickname that is now inscribed on her grave.
Born in 1880, and called Mary, she was the daughter of clergyman Reverend Thomas Lewis of Monmouthshire and Emma Watson of Over Whitacre, Warwickshire. Her maternal grandfather was an architect.
In 1901 Mary was away from home training to be a nurse at Bristol General Hospital.
The year her father died in 1912 , she emigrated from England to New Zealand and was employed by the Native Nursing Service. There she gained experience nursing in Otaki amongst the Maori population, where she was known as 'The Little Nurse' since she was only 4 ft 11 in tall.
In 1914, she had returned to England and when war broke out she joined the Queen Alexandra nursing service and volunteered to go overseas.
Lewis began nursing at a Belgian field hospital then went on to an Antwerp hospital which had to be evacuated when the Germans arrived.
After a short stint back in England she went to Serbia - right in the trenches on the Bulgarian frontier where she received a slight shrapnel wound to her shoulder. That did not stop her saving the life of a Serbian officer.
When the time came for the great retreat of the army in 1915, she and another nurse organised taking 400 patients through the mountain passes of Albania on foot. The patients however were in bad shape and none survived. But the hospital staff managed to make it, finally reaching safety.
She was awarded the Serbian Order of the White Eagle, Order of St Sava 3rd class, the Serbian retreat medal and the Royal Red Cross.
It was during the war she was given the nickname Little Sister.
So heroic was she during her time in the war that she also ended up with the 1914 - 1915 Star, Victory and General Service Medals, and the Croix de Guerre Belgium.
Mary was not serving with our troops and so never received a New Zealand award for looking after wounded New Zealand soldiers in England as she did not serve on the New Zealand front line.
After leaving Serbia, Lewis nursed in Woking, England, before returning to Otaki in 1916. In 1917 she joined the New Zealand Army Nursing Service.
In 1919 she retired from military service and returned to nurse as a civilian in New Zealand until 1922 when she returned to England to look after her widowed mother and then work as a district nurse for the Worcestershire County Nursing Association.
She died at Pershore Cottage Hospital in 1966.
Lewis’ name is the first in the current volume of St Leonard’s burial register and her small gravestone.
She is buried in St Leonard’s Cemetery in Newland. On the small gravestone is her nickname from the war - Little Sister.​

Walter Gabriel Rossiter’s jewellery and pawnshop was well known in Dunedin. There were definitely lots of pretty shiny things inside.
And it had caught the eye of a couple of thieves - including one who specialised in stealing jewellery.
Rossiter was in his shop on May 11, 1931, removing items from the display window to the safe just before midnight when two men came in.
Immediately one of them jumped the 73-year-old, punching him to the ground and then began to throttle him while the other man began snatching up rings.
Rossiter’s wife Jane came downstairs from their home above their George St shop and was knocked unconscious.
Across the street a watchmaker heard the noise and rushed over armed with a screwdriver and forced his way into the shop. One of the burglars rushed upstairs and jumped from a window but the other man was captured.
He turned out to be Thomas William Wilson.
In court, the judge called it a callous and brutal crime. In the six months before Wilson had stolen goods worth £4,791, of which £3,000 in jewellery had not been recovered, the proceeds of which, most likely, he hoped to enjoy when released.
Wilson was concerned in the theft of jewellery from Dawson's shop in George St, , theft of jewellery from W. J Paterson’s, and theft from R. S. Black and Son’s and the Hudson Fur Company.
Wilson in a long statement, which his counsel read to the court. In that he outlined his history from boyhood and his entry into crime, which he claimed was the result of his environment and association with “ old hands ” when he first went to gaol as a youth.
Wilson was sentenced to five years jail but he wasn’t there long - he escaped after complaining about stomach troubles, being taken to hospital and then simply walked out the front door.
It would be years later that it was found he had stowed away on a ship to America, where he couldn’t stop his criminal habits and was jailed for burglary - this time getting 15 years.
Wilson did a bargain with the American authorities - he would leave the country rather than serve out his time.
So in 1936 he arrived back in New Zealand aboard the Mariposa - called himself Mr W Henry.
The police weren’t fooled though and he was arrested, protesting that he had given up his life of crime.
A judge didn’t quite believe him and jailed him - adding a year to his sentence for his escape.
Wilson then went to the Court of Appeal claiming that the time spent after he had escaped should be counted as part of his sentence. It was a technical legal point that had to do with the fact that the warrant to detain him had run out and there was nothing in the law to say that he could be held past this point.
The Court of Appeal rather reluctantly agreed and his sentence came to an end in 1938.
Wilson then passed into history without further notice.
Rossiter however died a few years later and is buried in Andersons Bay Cemetery in Dunedin.​

The SS Rangitane left Auckland on November 24, 1940 with 14,000 tonnes of cargo worth millions of dollars and 111 passengers.
A Royal Main ship, she was heading to Britain via the Panama Canal through seas made doubly dangerous by the prospect of encountering German ships and submarines.
On board were servicemen and radar technicians - tactically important to the war effort. She also carried butter, pork, mutton and cheese, along with 45 bars of silver bullion valued at over £2 million.
The SS Holmwood had been sunk by German raiders only a couple of days before but the crew of the Rangitane knew nothing about that and as they approached the 300 mile mark three days later, the ship was confronted by the German ships Komet and Orion. With them was a support boat Kulmerland.
It was 3.30am when Captain H L Upton was called to the bridge - in his pyjamas.
The Rangitane was ordered to stop and not make radio contact with anyone. But Upton ordered QQQ to be sent - basically code for a suspicious ship to be broadcast.
The Germans reacted by jamming the signals and began firing on the Rangitane.
For several moments there was chaos and neither side knew what was going on, but when Upton realised his message had been received he ordered the surrender of the Rangitane.
He quickly ordered documents like code books and key engine parts to be destroyed, determined to limit the German’s prize.
Another code was sent on an emergency transmitter - RRR - raider attack.
In the confusion the Rangitane had its steering damaged by the shelling.
Despite his surrender, the Germans continued firing and Upton wanted to fire upon them but was unable. So he had to order everyone abandon ship.
Sixteen people, eight passengers and eight crew died. The survivors were put on to the German ships.
By this time the Rangitane was on fire and sinking, but the Komet fired again on the failing ship, sending it to the bottom. The German ships couldn’t hang around however, the cool head of Captain Upton meant his radio messages had got through and allied aircraft would be on their way.
The Rangitane was one of the largest passenger ships sunk during World War II.
The crowded conditions of the captured prisoners meant the civilians were to be offloaded, which ended up being on the tiny island of Emirau off New Guinea.
The military prisoners were taken back to prisoner of wars camps in Germany.
Upton was later released and returned to England.
Many of the prisoners felt the humane way they were treated was due to Upton’s calming civilising influence and impeccable behaviour.
Among the 111 passengers and a crew of 201 were 22 men and women who had acted as escorts for British children sent to Australia, 14 stewards and 13 stewardesses from a Polish ship, and 20 members of the crew of another British ship who were returning to Britain.
The bodies of those killed during the sinking have not been recovered and share Rangitane’s watery grave.​