For nearly 150 years a ghost girl has been reported near the Lyttelton Cemetery. She seems lost and vanishes when approached.
Whether that is true or not, it fits with the horrible murder of Isabella Thompson whose body was found on Oxford Terrace very close to the cemetery. Eleven-year-old Isabella had been in a good mood, she was heading to buy tickets to a school picnic when her father last saw her. John Blair Thompson had given her a few coins to buy the tickets and she had skipped out of his view about 4.45pm on January 9, 1875. Not long after a drover noticed a piece of white fabric near a hedge but thought he saw a drunk sleeping it off. He told a couple of friends, Thomas and Richard Rouse who went to have a look. Instead they found Isabella’s body under a gorse bush. Her throat had been cut. Her underwear had been removed. She had been on her way home - the tickets were found not far from her body. Police came and the hunt began - it was just after 6pm. Initially the suspect was Alfred Osborne - recently released from prison and essentially homeless. But it was soon discounted as sightings came in of a man in grey stumbling down Oxford Terrace about 5.30pm and then seen on a train heading to Christchurch with blood on his hands. It did not take long for police to track down John Robinson Mercer who was working as a cook on the ship Cleopatra. When asked about his bloody clothes he claimed he fell down. Police found bloodstained trousers and a jacket. At his trial in Christchurch a shipmate of Mercer recounted him saying he wanted a girl and that he would cut her throat. He also had marks all over him like he had been in gorse. It took the jury all of 12 minutes to find him guilty. There was some suggestion that when he had been in Buller a short while before he had been implicated in an indecency against a girl there. He was returned to Lyttelton and on May 8, 1875 he was hanged at Lyttelton Gaol. Isabella is buried in Lyttelton Cemetery - not far from where her body was found. Photo by Julian Magata.
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Two weeks after Robert Wilson took in a stray terrier from the streets of Wellington, he woke early one morning to the dog barking repeatedly.
It was about 3.30am and Wilson was the porter for the Commercial Hotel on Lambton Quay. About 60 people were asleep at the hotel at the time. Wilson rose to find out why his new dog was barking and discovered a fire - already beginning to burn the hotel. The fire alarm was raised and people evacuated. But it was already too late. The fire had begun in a wooden room of a nearby auction house on October 22, 1906. It surged along the street and tore through the buildings, getting perilously close to buildings on The Terrace and huge volumes of smoke billowed into the sky. But the real threat was a gale force northerly wind, driving the fire further and further along Lambton Quay. Several buildings were destroyed already by the time the Fire Brigade managed to get in place but another problem was a lack of water to the site. Not long before the fire started (and proving that there really are no new problems) the main water pipe had burst leaving virtually no water in the inner city. Desperate, the fire brigade ran their hoses to the sea to begin pumping water on to the fire. Hours later with the fire under control the list of buildings destroyed was the Wellington Auctioneering Mart, Trocadero, Dryer's Commercial Hotel, Job Corban's fancy goods, Shields tailor, Whitcombe and Tombs, Bank of New South Wales, the New Zealand Insurance buildings, with several offices upstairs, the Wellington Trust and Loan Office, A. T. Bate, commission agent, The Strand Cafe, and the Union Bank L. ,H. Wilson sharebroker, the Alliance Assurance and the Imperial Insurance Companies. Even then sparks kept reigniting small fires for some time. There were many questions about the lack of water problem and city engineer William Hobbard Morton began improvements to the water supply, sewers, tramways and public reserves. Of particular note was the construction of the “Morton Dam” in Wainuiomata in 1911 which supplied Wellington city with water until 1988. It also led to electrical wiring being put underground since the fire ran along the lines to new buildings. Morton had been born in Melbourne in 1866 and educated there before going into the Public Works department coming to New Zealand in 1904. Picture from Te Papa’s collection. He died on June 23, 1923 and is buried at Karori Cemetery. The rations New Zealand soldiers had overseas left a lot to be desired.
Bully beef (fatty and oversalted) and ship’s biscuits which were hard as rock were staples. In fact the food was so deficient in essential vitamins that it left them vulnerable to scurvy as well as illnesses like dysentery and typhoid. So anything that arrived from home were more valuable than gold. Families along with the Red Cross organised things like condensed milk, coffee and cocoa to be delivered to the fighting men. And around the country families also sent personal care packages. One was a gingernut biscuit. Not quite the ones that are our favourites today. But one from a recipe made by Taranaki woman, Helena Marion Barnard, who received the British Empire Medal for baking and sending a truly astonishing four and a half tonnes of biscuits. Helena Marion Brown was born in Nelson on April 3, 1865 to Alfred Joseph Brown Rosenberg and Sarah Elizabeth Brown Rosenberg. She married Henry James Barnard in 1884 and they went to live in California during a gold rush but ended up back in New Zealand and they went on to have a daughter and eight sons. By the time World War 1 broke out they were living in Eltham. Six of the boys went out to serve in the war, three of them at Gallipoli. Two died there and the other four succumbed to illness, shell shock or serious wounds. Helena said she first started making the biscuits for her sons to take tramping but during the war she began sending them overseas packed in tins. The biscuits were considered tiny - only about the size of our $1 coin now, but that made them perfect to put a handful in a pocket. She was prolific making them and also with knitting socks and balaclavas. Not long after the end of the war she and Henry moved to Wellington but he died in 1922. Marion bought a bell for her two boys that died at Gallipoli which is part of Wellington’s (currently silent) National War Memorial Carillon. Then in 1939 when World War II started, she was 80 and she began all over again. Food rationing made it harder but she managed to get a special permit for extra rations. She made nearly a million biscuits that were sent to troops. Letters from all over the world came to her, simply labelled to Mrs Barnard, The Gingernut maker. Marion lived to 100 - telling her story to Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision - before she died on August 16, 1965 and is buried in Bolton St Cemetery. For those who want to know here is the recipe: https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/.../mrs-barnards-gingernuts.../ The astonishing price paid for a single huia feather - $46k - in an auction in May came 116 years after the last confirmed sighting of the bird.
Huia, and their feathers, are considered sacred. Overseas there are many pieces of New Zealand, either in private collections or in museums. New Zealand was the last country on earth to be discovered. And it came with a new range of extraordinary creatures. The feather (and fur) trades were massive. The demand for more and new exciting feathers to adorn hats or other fashion items was so large that whole species have been killed off for it. Women, after all, were not properly dressed without a hat. Even now, Te Papa holds a number of items that would be considered extremely bad taste now, a muff made from a kiwi, another made from a Southern royal albatross. Other museums hold similar pieces, like a muff made from a king penguin in Otago. It was, of course, considered completely normal then and there were a number of businesses who offered the pretty bits for sale. One was Liardet’s in Wellington. Hector Evelyn Liardet had been born in Kent in 1827 and left England with his father and six brothers headed for Australia, landing near Melbourne at a beach that ended up being called Liardet’s beach. For a while the family lived in tents before the father Wilbraham built a hotel and a jetty and set up business. The family also went back and forth to New Zealand - and Hector came to Otago for the gold rush there. He ended up in Wellington where he set up as a naturalist and a dealer in Maori curiosities - including things like feathers with his wife Elizabeth. In 1876 he showed off the fur and feathers of New Zealand at the Philadelphia Exhibition, revealing new things to the world. The Evening Post reported: “The manufacture of muffs is now a local industry in Wellington. Unkind punsters might insinuate that the community was already amply supplied with muffs, but any lady who saw one of the seagull muffs manufactured by Mrs Liardet would immediately think otherwise. These muffs are made from seagull skins, the feathers being of dazzling whiteness. The birds are shot by Mr Liardet, jun., the skins preserved by Mr Liardet, sen., and manufactured into very beautiful appendages to a lady’s outdoor toilette by Mrs Liardet. They are much superior to any imported articles of the kind.” Hector often got skins from sailors that called into the port in Wellington. In January 1875, Liardet received “130 splendid skins of albatross and mollyhawks” from the officers of the French transport ship La Vire, which had returned from the sub-Antarctic islands, along with an order for “25 sets of muffs, tippets &c” destined for Paris. They sold their goods both locally, and internationally. After Queen Victoria and Princess Alexandra admired their work at the Indian & Colonial Exhibition in 1886, the exhibition’s New Zealand commissioner, Julius von Haast sent Queen Victoria a muff and collarette made from the skin of a pūtakitaki, and Princess Alexandra a snowy white albatross muff. The Liardet's priced their albatross muffs for between £2 and £3. Eventually the fur and feathers trade died out. Hector died on November 28, 1891 and is buried in the Bolton St Cemetery. The fear of Russia invading has terrified New Zealanders for years.
As far back as 1873 we would panic at any hint that the Reds were coming. So when the news broke in February, 1873, that a Russian warship was in Waimate harbour and that troops were on land, people were aghast. After all, any mention of Russian ships in our waters already had people panicking. But it wasn’t true. The report was published in the Daily Southern Cross, of a Russian invasion of Auckland by the ironclad cruiser Kaskowiski – ‘cask of whisky’. Despite an asterisk in the story’s headline referring to a date almost three months in the future, gullible Aucklanders were alarmed to read that marines from the Kaskowiski had seized gold and taken the mayor, Philip Philips, hostage, captured ammunition and attacked a British ship in the harbour. Quite a number of people were taken in by the article. But it did its job, the Government commissioned a report into the country’s defences. David Luckie, the editor and publisher of the newspaper, believed the threat was such that a fake report was needed to wake people up. While perhaps not the most responsible way of trying to wake up the public, it was indicative of how the public viewed the Russians. The continuing fear led to the building of a series of fortifications in coastal cities to protect from attacks from the sea, some of which included large artillery guns. Luckie was born in Scotland on October 5, 1827, the son of Thomas Luckie and his wife Mary. Initially he worked in a mercantile office and a law clerk before starting work for a newspaper. In Lancashire he married Fanny Clara Dickinson in 1861. In 1863 he and his family came to Nelson on the Electra to become editor and part owner of the Colonist newspaper. One of the first big stories was of the four men found guilty of the Maungatapu murders. He also became active in local politics - gaining a seat on the Nelson provincial council. Luckie became editor of the Daily Southern Cross after moving to Auckland in 1873, then was editor along with William Berry of the New Zealand Herald when the two papers merged. Later he moved to Wellington to become editor of the Evening Post but only remained six months before becoming government insurance commissioner. He stepped down due to ill health in 1889 but went on to write articles for Wellington newspapers for years. He retired in December 1908 and died in Wellington on May 6, 1909. He is buried in Karori Cemetery. New Zealand has been a land of giants, huge raptors, birds, insects once roamed our islands.
It’s also been a haven for flightless birds, after 60 million years of isolation and due to the lack of land based predators. And also massive penguins. The largest penguin in the world is now the Emperor penguin but before that was different types of giant penguin, some about waist high and up to 80kg and others that were up to 350kg that lived in the cold waters of the ocean surrounding us about 60 million years ago. New discoveries of fossils have meant a better understanding of it, but long ago, three little bones - now held at Te Papa were the first discoveries of giant New Zealand species. Why they went extinct (when some giants like the moa survived into a modern age) is debated, but they also disappeared about the same time seals began spreading through the area. Those three bones came from Charles Traill who had been born on November 26, 1826, in the Orkney Island in Scotland and educated in Edinburgh after which he became apprenticed as a lawyer. In 1849, he struck out for Australia where he took up sheep farming, on to California for the gold rush, a visit to Britain then in 1855 came to New Zealand. He set up a mercantile firm with a partner but it was ultimately not successful. While living in Oamaru he made a trip to Foveaux Strait and discovered oyster beds. He shifted to Stewart Island and bought Ulva Island (now part of the Rakiura National Park). Charles was postmaster and storekeeper for the area for many years. It was in 1872 that he was in Fortification, Southland when he found three bones. They have proved to be from a giant penguin. Charles became known as a passionate botanist and natural historian. He collected so many shells that were left for museums. He had married Jessie Buckholz in 1871 and died in 1871 and is buried on the island he loved. The first official casualty of World War one for New Zealand was Sapper Robert Hislop.
And he was nowhere near the front. Indeed, Robert was close to home - guarding the Parnell railway bridge in Auckland. The First World War saw more than 120,000 men enlist and about 100,000 of those - mostly young men - went overseas. One in five did not return. But back home there were any number of men who stayed, often used to guard assets, even lay mines in harbours to protect our shores. Robert Arthur Hislop was one. He was an employee of the Railways Department and a member of the North Island Railway Battalion. Like many others he was sent out to guard what were considered strategic assets. On August 13, 1914, Robert was doing just that, making sure the bridge was safe when he fell. He fell between the sleepers on to the road way below fracturing both femurs. He was found and taken to hospital but his injuries were too severe and he died. Robert was the son of Robert Hunter Hislop and Jane Hislop and until shortly before his accident had lived in Christchurch. He had only recently moved to Auckland. It took more than 100 years for him to be officially recognised as New Zealand’s first casualty of the war. Hislop received a military funeral, a cortage was assembled under Lieutenant Colonel Hartley with two companies of the North Island Railway battalion, the New Zealand engineers and members of the Expeditionary Force from Epsom Camp along with the Garrison Artillery Band. His body was conveyed from the railway station by train then to the cemetery. Robert’s gravestone featured the battalion’s badge, and his name appeared in the Railways Department roll of honour. But he had not enlisted in the NZEF and was never assigned a service number, which perhaps explains why his name was not entered on the official national roll of honour. In 2014 Hislop was one of six servicemen added to the official roll after the New Zealand Defence Force determined that he had died as a result of war service. He is buried in Waikumete Cemetery. Alfred Hanlon’s first murder trial was a sensation.
HIs client Billy Fogarty had hit Jimmy Fiddis who fell over, hit his head and died. Billy was charged with manslaughter and found guilty - but by the end, he served just one hour in custody. Because Billy was 12 and Jimmy was only just 11 and had been arguing over a toy. In his time as a lawyer Alf - as he was usually called - was the defence in 18 murder trials and 22 manslaughter trials. As a lawyer he was considered the very best in early New Zealand, making his name with some of the most high profile cases New Zealand has ever seen, like baby farmer Minnie Dean. Alfred - or Alf as he was usually called was born on August 1, 1866, to Elizabeth and William Hanlon who had come to New Zealand in 1862 from Ireland. William became a member of the Otago constabulary and Alf would have seen the law in action. Alf attended various schools, not always enthusiastically, before becoming a law clerk at age 15 then becoming a barrister and solicitor. He had to set up his own practice in his early twenties and his career spanned over 50 years, becoming a King’s Council in 1930. Alf was an impressive man, standing well over 6ft in his black robes and his turn of phrase and addresses to juries was considered legendary so much so that he actually drew crowds to trials where he appeared. He was commanding in the courtroom and an exceptional speaker. The case he is most associated with is Minnie Dean in 1895, the only woman to be hanged in New Zealand, and obviously a case he lost. He had contended that it was manslaughter rather than murder. His grasp of the dramatic often worked to his advantage. In the case against Thomas Kerry for casting away a yacht at the mouth of the Waitaki River he suspected a document was a forgery. He had a photograph made, enlarged and thrown up against a screen to compare the words added to the original. It was so successful the prosecution opted to withdraw the document as evidence and Hanlon’s client was acquitted. As well as criminal work he worked divorce cases and nautical litigation - he had a river limit captains certificate himself. Like many great lawyers, he was theatrical, Alf loved Shakespeare and he considered acting as a career at one time. He was a founding member and president of the Dunedin Competitions Society and the Dunedin Shakespeare club. He declined to get involved with politics but was president of the Otago District Law Society. Alf hated snobbery, was atheist, loved gambling and often wore a sprig of boronia in his buttonhole. In 1894 he had married Mary Ann Hudson (daughter of the founder of Hudson’s biscuits) and they had four children. He died at Dunedin on February 6, 1944, aged 77, and was buried at Andersons Bay cemetery. The gathered crowd watched in horror as three little girls stood near the roof of Auckland’s posh Grand Hotel as it burned.
Below, their father, in his pyjamas yelled for help. But it wasn’t to be. The Grand Hotel had been built in 1881 and was considered the pinnacle of fashionable hotels of the time. So much so that the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall were due to stay there as part of their Royal Tour. On May 30, 1901, there were actually fewer guests than normal, only the staff, the owner and his family and a few guests. The night porter Henry Jones had been cleaning a guest's shoes when he saw smoke. He woke the owner Alexander Johnston who quickly got his wife and baby son out but when he and Henry tried to go back in, the smoke drove them back. Neighbours by now could see the smoke and fire and the call had gone up for help. But while Auckland was a quickly growing city, a fire brigade was not the biggest priority. The bell at the firehouse on Albert St rang out and the men could see the glow of the fire in the sky. They scrambled to get there, but back then that involved getting the horse set up and the trip, and with some men pulling a handcart with more equipment. Firemen from other suburbs also set off. By the time they arrived the fire was engulfing the hotel. No one knew how many were still inside, although Alexander knew his three young daughters were. Some of the maids had managed to leap from their bedroom windows into the street. One, Dora Wallace, died trying to jump to safety. Despite what was then a desperate fight to put the fire out, the fire swept through the hotel and by the end the bodies of the three girls and a bank inspector Fred Ayres were found in the charred remains. It led to a discussion about fire escapes on buildings that improved the public buildings in Auckland in the event of fire as well an upgrades for the fire brigades. All three girls, Leonore, aged 14, Eva, 12, and Nina, 6 are buried at the Purewa Cemetery. |
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