 This is an unusual grave story. For a start it's not about a person - although a whole generation of kiwi kids might disagree.
It’s about beloved icons whose incredible story is so full of twists and turns it’s a little hard to believe. Every day in the afternoon a distinctive television show’s theme began to air. “Here's a house. Here's a door. Windows: one, two, three, four. Ready to knock. Turn the lock. It's Play School!” Yes, we are talking about Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima, Manu and Humpty. For nearly all of them this ‘grave story’ ends with those beloved characters safely stored at New Zealand’s national museum Te Papa. But for Little Ted it’s a far more dark sinister tale, full of plot twists. Little Ted - or at least a bit of him - is at the Otago Settlers Museum. His body in fact. It’s charred and decapitated. And there is no trace of his head. So what hideous crime allowed this to happen? On the final day of filming of the show in New Zealand, the crew were playing pranks. Among them was stuffing Little Ted’s head with explosives. Before there are too many gasps of dismay - this version of Little Ted was an old, already retired one. Several were always kept on hand so that no one version got too worn out. Predictably the head got blown off and for many years tales were told about what happened to it. But in 2009 a phone call to a reporter came from a man who claimed he had the head. He refused to give further details and it wasn’t until years later that another investigation by another reporter tracked down a man who claimed he had the head. (There is no way of knowing if it was the same man both times). And he got a result. This time a photo of a little bear head was sent to the reporter along with a newspaper of the day as “proof of life.” As it happens several searches for any of the other versions of Little Ted to preserve him have come up with nothing - or at least nothing public. So the beheaded version is apparently the only one of the original left. Where the head will end up is anyone’s guess.
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 Twelve years after he died, Alexander Doull’s body was exhumed in 1964, a drastic step for anyone to take.
Suspicion had fallen on his widow - Margaret Murray Doull - after the death of her sister Janet Belle Greenhorn, believed to have been poisoned with arsenic. Janet had been in Oakley Mental Hospital in 1964 before leaving to move in with her sister Margaret in Takanini, Auckland. Within months she was dead. Margaret was born Margaret Murray Hutchinson on May 13, 1912 in Timaru to John Edward Hutchinson and his wife Helen. She had an older brother Ian and of course, Janet. She married Alexander George Doull in 1935 and they quickly had four children. It can’t have been easy for her. She was bright, ambitious and intelligent and had once considered becoming a doctor. But instead she was a clerk at the Auckland Electric Power Board while her husband ran his farm. It was hard work and Alexander became ill and depressed, withdrawing from the world more and more. By 1951, the farm was running at a loss and it was transferred into her name. And in January 1952, Alexander died. At the time the cause of death was given as influenza. Margaret married again - William John Jackson - but unknown to her, he was already married and ended up being charged with bigamy then imprisoned for six months. She took in boarders to make money for a while but when Jackson was released from prison they headed to Australia. From journals she wrote it was clear she was sleeping with multiple men. By 1963, she was back in New Zealand (Jackson died in 1962) and took in her sister. Janet became ill and Margaret said it was flu. Janet died on August 22, 1964, and after the police were called in, Margaret was charged with murder. Pathology tests said Janet died from repeated doses of arsenic. And Margaret was shown to have bought the poison. It led to Alexander’s body being exhumed and Margaret being charged with his death. She denied both but it took the jury just over an hour to find her guilty and she was imprisoned for life for murder. Janet was cremated and her ashes scattered at Purewa Cemetery while Alexander was buried in Maunu Cemetery in Northland. Where Margaret went after her prison sentence (or if she did) is not known. But she had already said she had a lover waiting for her.  Ever looked at our Coat of Arms? The woman in a white dress look familiar?
That’s because it's modelled after legendary actress Grace Kelly, all thanks to former Prime Minister John Marshall, who was Attorney General at the time. But the man who originally designed our Coat of Arms was artist James Ingham McDonald. McDonald was born in Tokomairiro in South Otago on June 11, 1865, to Donald McDonald and his wife Margaret. He began painting early and took art classes as a young man in Dunedin. But he moved to Melbourne to further his art career and there he met Mary - called May - Brabin who he married. They were back in New Zealand in 1901 where McDonald worked as a photographer for the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts, travelling and taking pictures of scenery. It was during these trips James became interested in Māori art. So much so that when he was appointed to the Colonial Museum as an assistant and draughtsman he made the model pā that remained on display for decades. He went back to the Tourist Department to work on displays for the New Zealand International Exhibition in Christchurch and began making films, officially recording scenic attractions. In 1908 a competition was announced to redesign the Coat of Arms - which was distinctly British - to a more New Zealand design. There were 75 put forward and James’ won. It featured a pākehā woman holding a flag and a Maori warrior, with the British lion at the top. It became the Coat of Arms in 1911. In 1912, James returned to the museum as a photographer and art assistant and in 1918 he proposed an exhibition to go to the Hui Aroha to welcome home the Maori Battalion. James decided to film and made the earliest known ethnographic film in New Zealand. He repeated it in 1920 for a gathering of the tribes to greet the Prince of Wales. Over the years his films showed traditional activities like the plaiting and weaving of flax, the making the setting of eel pots and the cooking of food in a hangi. A great many of his films have been restored and can now be viewed. He also modelled decorative patterns for the Native Committee Room in Parliament buildings and was appointed to the Board of Maori Arts in 1926. James moved to Tokaanu where he was one of the founders of Te Tuwharetoa School of Maori Art and Crafts with the aim of reviving and nurturing traditional arts. With no financial support, he and his family suffered with financial loss until he died on April 13, 1935. In 1956 the design of the Coat of Arms was reconsidered - with Marshall not liking the new proposed design for the woman who was thought to look too “Soviet” so Marshall said to make it look like Grace Kelly. James McDonald is buried in Taupo Cemetery.  Harriet Russell Morison was a battler for unions, for women’s rights and even to clear her own name.
She set up the first union of female workers in 1889, the Tailoresses ‘ Union of New Zealand - beginning a legacy of unions helping to fight for the rights of women badly used in the workplace. Born in Ireland to James and Margaret in 1862, she followed in her father’s footsteps. He was a master tailor. She was about five when her family came to New Zealand and her father set up shop in Dunedin. As a tailoress herself, she became concerned about the rights of working women. In 1889, she became the first vice president of the Tailoresses' Union created after the sweating scandal - where a royal commission looked into long work hours for poor pay. She also took on the role of secretary shortly after. She was known, despite being a tiny woman, for her boundless energy and commitment, helping to raise wages and improve conditions by creating an industry standard. She also helped set up similar operations in other parts of the country. She tried to set up a similar association for domestic staff, a convalescent home for clothing workers, edited the Working Woman’s corner in the Globe newspapers and for years was an official visitor at the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. A staunch Christian, she believed that the unions, as a means to achieve equality, were consistent with her beliefs. Among those beliefs was the right to vote, in part to counteract the evils of alcohol. She was a founding member of the Women’s Franchise League in Dunedin, the first one in New Zealand. The signatures of many suffrage petitions were due to her tireless work. But in 1896, she suddenly left the union she helped found after accusations of embezzling. Two picnics she had planned were a disaster and when she planned a further event to clear debts and raise funds, she failed to keep a proper account. Morison was never charged and was probably wrongly accused. But it ended with her resignation from the union. She then became an inspector of factories in the South Island but was quickly considered an inappropriate choice - apparently because of her zeal. She was removed from the position and put in charge of a labour bureau for domestic workers. Morison resented much about her job, especially that she could not do inspections by herself but needed a male inspector with her. Repeated requests that a female inspector was needed were spurned. She was suspended for supposedly falsifying claims about the employment of servants and an inquiry was to be held but the Prime Minister William Massey stopped it. None of it stopped her fighting. She applied for a salary increase and continued to work for women’s rights. But in 1921 she resigned from public service when the Department of Labour closed the women’s branches and made her and other women redundant. Nothing they had done or said stopped her fight or her spirit. She had never married, her work was her whole life. She died at her home in Auckland on August 19, 1925. She was cremated and a plaque put on a wall of remembrance at Waikumete Cemetery. She is also part of the Kate Sheppard National Memorial statue in Christchurch along with Kate Sheppard, Helen Nicol, Ada Wells, Meri Te Tai Mangakahia and Amey Daldy, opened in 1993.  Charles Edward Douglas might have been the last man to see the incredible Haast’s eagle alive.
Mainly because he shot and ate them. Haast’s eagle was the largest eagle to ever have existed. A massive 15kg (the largest now comes in about 9kg), it was big and powerful enough to hunt moa. The Haast’s eagle lived in the South Island and was only known from its remains described by famous explorer Julius von Haast. It was believed to have been extinct since the 1400’s likely because as the moa was hunted to extinction, its prey died out. It was a formidable predator with huge talons and a wingspan of over two metres. It is now believed to be the pouakai or giant bird of Maori legend - which was said to be able to kill a person. Charles Douglas was born on July 1, 1840, to James and Martha Douglas in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father worked as an accountant to the Commercial Bank of Scotland and for a while Charles worked alongside him. But in 1862 he came to New Zealand on the Pladda and ended up going gold mining. He also ran stock to the gold fields. By 1868 he was travelling with von Haast and becoming increasingly interested in geology and the wildlife. He continued roaming and he mapped and recorded nearly all he saw and reported them to the chief surveyor. He rarely settled down and by the late 1870’s was being paid for his expeditions, exploring South Westland, the valley of Paringa, Haast, Landsborough, Turnbull, Waiatoto, Arawata and the Cascade rivers. His dogs - first Topsy then Betsey Jane - were often with him. Charlie - as he was usually called - never married and was often a heavy drinker. He was usually seen carrying his distinctive batwing tent, was considered shy and spoke slowly. He carried a field book that he wrote his thoughts and observations down in. Rheumatism slowed him down and in 1906 he suffered a stroke in Paringa then a second before retiring in Hokitika in 1908. He was awarded the 1897 Royal Geographical Society Gill Memorial prize for his explorations. Charlie often drew and wrote about what he saw, numerous watercolours are still in collections around New Zealand - along with a monograph on the birds of South Westland in which he details shooting and eating two immense raptors in the Haast River Valley. He wrote “The expanse of wing of this bird will scarcely be believed. I shot two on the Haast, one was 8 feet 4 inches (2.54 m) from tip to tip, the other was 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m), but with all their expanse of wing they have very little lifting power, as a large hawk can only lift a duck for a few feet, so no one need get up any of those legends about birds carrying babies out of cradles, as the eagle is accussed [sic] of doing.” It was considered they could have been Haast’s eagles. They might also have been Eyle’s harrier - also extinct. Mount Douglas, the Douglas pass and the Douglas river are all named after him. Charlie died on 23 May 1916 and is buried in Hokitika Municipal Cemetery and fittingly, a pickaxe - a tool of the explorer - is engraved on his headstone. Picture of Moa bones from Te Papa’s collection.  In the early hours of November 17, 1933, two shotgun blasts rang out at the Riccarton Racecourse Hotel.
Donald Fraser, the abrasive, violent and disliked manager who had been in a drunken sleep, was killed. Beside him, his wife Elizabeth was unharmed. The couple had managed the hotel for some time and often drank with patrons, even after hours at a time when it was supposed to be six o clock closing. This night was no different, the pair had been in the bar and Donald was apparently very drunk. They went up to bed about midnight. All Elizabeth could remember was at some stage the doorbell rang and that Donald got up. The next thing she knew was the shotgun blast. The police investigation was huge, with police travelling up and down the country interviewing people. The discovery of a footprint on the landing of the fire escape out the couple’s bedroom was thought to be a major clue. It was thought to be rubber soled shoes but turned out to be someone unrelated to the crime. Elizabeth was questioned but there was nothing to prove it could have been her. So police offered a £600 reward. Police did turn up that Donald has been having an affair with a Wellington woman Eileen Hardcastle. Elizabeth knew and had argued with him about it previously. She was also the beneficiary of his will, some £670. But in the end no one was charged and the inquest determined he had been murdered by someone unknown. Donald was buried at St Peter’s Anglican Churchyard in Christchurch where his headstone says "At Rest". Except that legend says he is not, with the hotel said to be haunted by Donald’s ghost who walks the halls looking for his murderer. Happy Halloween weekend everyone!  Today we fly thousands of miles in only hours but on August 25, 1920 the first plane crossing of Cook Strait was accomplished.
The crossing was considered wildly turbulent. It even interrupted the Parliamentary session due that day as people asked if the plane had landed. And it had. Captain Euan Dickson and his two passengers landed safely at an aerodrome at the Trentham Racecourse. Dickson went on to establish the first air mail service between the North and South Island. But it was hardly the most impressive flying feat in Dickson’s history, indeed, compared to his war record, it's usually considered nothing more than a footnote. Euan Dickson was born on March 31, 1892, to Thomas and Eveline Mary. In 1912 he emigrated to New Zealand and took up a job with an engineering firm in Thames. But with the advent of war he returned to England to serve in the Royal Navy Air Service and then the Air Force. Dickson flew 175 raids between May 1917 and August 1918 and won the Distinguished Flying Cross and bar for a raid on a Belgian aerodrome and railway station and for coming to another’s aid when, with all his ammunition gone, he charged 12 hostile enemy fighters to divert their attention. He is credited with shooting down 14 enemy aircraft. Captain Dickson was also awarded the French Crois de Guerre for his services during the German offensive from March to July 1918. After the war he returned to New Zealand and began work for the Canterbury Aviation Company where he hired one of the Avro 504K biplanes for the Cook Strait crossing. With him were the company’s deputy chairman C H Hewlett and mechanic J E Moore. He also took a mailbag, leaving from Sockburn at 7am. They refuelled in Kaikōura and after a cup of tea and a bit of cake they were on their way again, this time to Blenheim for lunch. As they flew over Wellington, their course took them right over the central city, and they could see people pouring out of the buildings to watch - including the suited figures from Parliament. They even flew over the plane of Auckland pilots George Bolt, Richard Russell and Vivian Walsh - who were in Wellington planning to attempt the Cook Strait crossing the very next day. The actual flight time was four hours and 57 minutes. Now it is routinely done in well under an hour. Captain Dickson died in Auckland on March 10, 1980 aged 87. He was cremated at Purewa Cemetery and his ashes scattered.  The workers digging in the Remutaka rail tunnel heard the loud roar about 11.30am on September 9, 1952.
They thought it was an earthquake. A horror situation to those working underground. The team in the tunnel were creating a new rail link between Upper Hutt and Featherston for a shorter quicker route. At nearly 9km it was the longest tunnel in New Zealand until the opening of the Kaimai tunnel. Work had started in 1948 with mostly single men living in huts at either end. Among them was Athanassios Athanassiades, a 20-year-old Greek man. Inside the tunnel, earth and rocks were falling and men were scrambling to get out of the way. When the roaring died down, 27 men were trapped behind the rock fall. A rescue party was quickly organised, to try to dig down to the men through the slip and by late afternoon a communication pipe was put through. The trapped men sat on an electric locomotive with its dim light going and waited, two of the married men sharing out their lunch all around. Twenty six of the men were fine. But one, Athanassiades, had been completely engulfed in earth and was seriously injured. The others tried hard to reach him but every time they tried, more earth fell. It took nine hours for the rescuers to reach the men who were brought out one by one. The married men were met by their anxious wives who had been waiting for them for hours. Then the rescuers began scraping away the rocks and earth to reach Athanassiades. They managed to get to him, finding he was lying beneath a truck. They had to dig a shaft down to him carefully to prevent further falls. Doctor Denys Higenbotham went into the tunnel early the next day to talk to Athanassiades who had crushed ankles and was in shock. The diggers managed to get a pipe to him, to give him soup and tea but he vomited, unable to keep it down. They told him they would be with him soon but he said he did not think they would make it. The men worked furiously, in shifts of 10-15 minutes to dig as hard as they could before another took over. When they finally reached him they found him in an almost impossible position, trapped almost on his head, with his legs held above his head. They had to begin cutting him out of the wood and timbers that covered him. Then he was taken out using the electric locomotive. He had been trapped for 10 hours and 35 minutes. Outside he was met by his younger brother Nicolaos who had only started work on the site that week. Athanassios Athanassiades was put in an ambulance and rushed to hospital but died later that night. It was in 1954 that the two ends of the tunnel finally met and it was officially opened in 1955. Athanassios Athanassiades is buried in Karori Cemetery.  An extraordinary little tale played out in Wellington’s Magistrate Court in 1915 of a hat-pin stabbing and the young woman who had done it.
It came on the back of hat-pin hysteria. Hat-pins were regarded as lethal weapons and some council’s even went so far as to have by-laws about them. The two main players were a 17-year-old girl Marjorie - usually called Madge - Cardno and a hotel porter called George Clark. She was charged with putting a hat-pin through his chest - twice. On October 7 at the Hotel Cecil, Clark saw Majorie outside the hotel about 7.30pm. Majorie said she went to the hotel to meet a young man she had been seeing. When he wasn’t there, she saw Clark who greeted her. She said she was hot, having hurried to meet her young man and Clark offered her a drink. She thought he would offer her a soft drink. He told her there was a sitting room she could wait in, but it turned out to be a bedroom. She protested but he told her to sit on the bed and bought her a drink of porter which she said she did not want and he then brought her a small bottle of beer. She asked him if she could have a needle and thread to fix a buckle on her gaiter - a covering usually worn over a shoe in bad weather. She drank a little of the beer and Clark returned with the sewing equipment but also a revolver. Marjorie told him she was scared of it and he put it away before producing a black case that had a syringe in it. The next moment Clark put his arm around her waist and attempted to kiss her, pushing her down on the bed. He pushed one of her hands above her head, near her hat. Marjorie struggled and called out, to no avail. He said he couldn’t and wouldn’t wait and began to pull at her clothes. Marjorie wasn’t having it though. She pulled the hat-pin from her hat and stabbed him. She got to the door but found it locked. Even then, bleeding profusely, Clark tried to keep her in the room but eventually gave up the key. Clark’s side of the story made her look bloodthirsty saying he took her to his bedroom and got her a drink. A few minutes later she stabbed him. He denied he had done anything. He was taken to hospital and Majorie was arrested, covered in blood. The case never even made it to a jury - Magistrate Daniel George Arthur Cooper immediately decided no jury would believe Clark’s account and discharged Marjorie who had been dubbed the hat-pin heroine by the newspapers. Despite the case making headlines, almost nothing is known about either of them from there. So for completeness, the magistrate who dismissed the case was Daniel Cooper who presided in Wellington courts for many years as well as being a top ranked footballer. He died on June 26, 1935 and was cremated at Karori Cemetery.  Was Mary Griffin running a whorehouse in the middle of wartime Wellington or was she just a modern social woman?
The trial that came to be called the Kelburn raid was a sensation, dragging in wartime regulations, women’s rights and societal shift, all centred around one woman. On April 27, 1918, police stormed 48 Upland Road in Kelburn. Inside were seven women and ten men, most of them military officers. Five of the women, including Mary “Molly” Griffin, were charged under Additional War Regulations of 1916 with keeping a house of ill repute. The women - far from being ‘loose women’ - were considered respectable. But they were also divorced or unmarried, and in a scared society changing too quickly for some, they were also feared, partly for their independence. They were Molly Adelia Griffin (nee McCarthy), Winifred Olsen, 19-year-old Marion Elliott, and her sister Alma and Eileen Pringle, a teacher at Brooklyn School The men on the premises were not charged, a fact that led to a lot of comment. The court was crowded, mainly with women, representing the society for the protection of women and children. Police had been watching the house, which Molly rented. She lived there after divorcing her cheating husband (Robert) along with her two children and Winifred. Neighbours had complained about the activities of the house and two constables began to watch the house at night. Complaints were about the loud noises and supposed drinking. Molly was aware the house was being watched. She had spotted one of the constables earlier that month. Nothing changed and on the evening of the raid, the women said they were having a musical evening. At the trial, evidence of sex taking place was based on the observations of the constables, who had seen three people, including Molly, in one bed - called acts of immorality in court. To combat that, Marion consented to be examined by doctors and declared to be in a “state of virginity.” But the police evidence was tainted by several things, including the dark nights, how much could actually be seen and in particular - whether any money had changed hands. Molly and Winifred were found guilty while the lack of evidence against Marion, Alma and Eileen saw the charges dismissed. Molly and Winifred were sentenced to 12 months' reformative treatment. For a month Molly and Winifred were jailed until their appeal was upheld in the Supreme Court by Justice John Henry Hosking who concluded there needed to be evidence of sex for hire for any convictions. The women then went their separate ways. Alma and Marian went on to marry, Eileen left New Zealand as did Winnie who married in Sydney. Mary stayed in New Zealand, not coming to anyone’s attention again before she died on January 8, 1949. She is buried in Karori Cemetery with her daughter Mary Gertrude, although her name is spelled Griffen. |
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