 Sarah Fogo feared her husband’s drinking and violent temper would lead him to murder her so after more than 30 years of marriage she did the only thing she felt she could – she killed him.
Outwardly, Thomas Telfer Fogo was a respected member of Dunedin’s society, a member of the Caledonian Club, a sought-after painter and a good family man. But behind closed doors, Fogo was a man with an alcohol problem and a violent temper, which was usually directed at Sarah and their adult daughter Georgina. Thomas was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1835 to Robert Fogo and Mary Telfer. He arrived in New Zealand in 1861 and after trying his hand at gold mining on the West Coast, settled in Dunedin where he went into the boot-making trade alongside his brother John. He married Sarah Muir in 1868. For 32 years the couple lived an outwardly happy life, raising two children. But Fogo’s drinking was slowly destroying their marriage and fraying Sarah’s nerves. When, on September 29, 1900, Thomas awoke from a night of drinking gin and demanded Sarah get him another drink, she had reached the end of her patience. She refused. Her response infuriated him. He picked up a knife and threatened to cut her throat. He then moved to lock the bedroom door and as he did so, she hit him over the back of the head with a walking stick. Sarah then walked downstairs to the kitchen, selected a long-bladed, cook’s knife and returned to their bedroom. She locked the door and then stabbed him through the chest killing him almost instantly. When the doctor arrived, Sarah said: “I have done it. I did it in self-defence. Had I not done it, I would have been a corpse myself.” She was charged with her husband’s murder. Fogo was buried in Dunedin’s Northern Cemetery on October 1, 1900. At the inquest, held on October 3, Sarah’s lawyer JR Thornton persuaded the coroner to close the hearing to the public and the media. The move left some newspaper editors furious and members of the public to wait for Sarah’s trial for murder to find out what had happened. It was not a long wait. The trial began on November 30 and Thornton took great pains to illustrate that Fogo was quarrelsome when in drink, occasionally violent, irritable when recovering from a drinking bout and a morose and selfish man. Evidence showed Fogo had recently assaulted Sarah and thrown both her and Georgina out of the house. Despite the efforts of Mr Thornton to outline the awful situation Sarah was in, the jury, on December 1, 1900, found her guilty of Fogo’s murder. The Government later commuted the inevitable death sentence to life in prison. Sarah served six years of her life sentence and was released from prison on November 24, 1906. She died on April 28, 1911 at the age of 74, and, unusually, is buried in the same plot as the husband she murdered. Picture: Otago Witness October 3, 1900, pg 45.
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 Ettie Rout was so far ahead of her time, she routinely got into trouble for it and was even shunned.
Cyclist, vegetarian and free thinker, Ettie was tall, fit and blessed with that superabundance of energy that sometimes makes the rest of us tired just thinking about it. But it’s because of women like Ettie that New Zealand has made huge strides in areas of sexual health. Ettie was born February 24, 1877, in Tasmania to William John Rout and his wife Catherine Frances Mckay (along with her twin sister Nellie). The family came to New Zealand in 1884, initially settling in Wellington. In 1896 they moved to Christchurch, where Ettie completed her education, and became a government-appointed shorthand writer, working in the Supreme Court, on official inquiries and writing for the Lyttelton Times newspaper. For that era she was considered odd. She did not wear a corset and was often seen wearing short skirts, men's boots, and sometimes trousers. A committed socialist, she helped establish the Maoriland Worker, a left-wing newspaper. In July 1915, Ettie set up the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood, inviting women aged between 30-50 to go to Egypt to care for New Zealand soldiers. The first group went in October that year despite Government opposition. Ettie herself arrived in Egypt early the next year and was immediately struck by the staggering high numbers of cases of venereal disease in the soldiers. Being the progressive she was, Ettie saw this as a medical problem, not a moral one. She wanted prophylactic kits issued to soldiers and to go even further, to set up established brothels that could be inspected. The New Zealand Medical Corps wanted no part of it. So Ettie, never one to be put off, started the Tel El Kebir Soldiers’ Club and then a canteen to provide rest and recreation facilities. It got her mentioned in dispatches. A year later, with venereal disease still rampant, she tackled it head on going to London to push the Medical Corps. Using several researchers she produced her own kit, containing calomel ointment, condoms and Condy’s crystals and sold them herself near the New Zealand Convalescent Hospital. By the end of 1917 the kits were adopted by the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and given free to soldiers going on leave. Ettie however received no credit. In fact the Cabinet banned any mention of her in New Zealand newspapers under the War Regulations, breaching it earning them a fine of £100. When the New Zealand Times published a letter from her suggesting the use of the kits, it led to a decision by Defence Minister James Allen to approve the kits. Meanwhile, groups, often women’s groups, accused her of trying to make vice safe. In 1918 she moved to Paris where she would meet the trains, handing out kits and cards telling them the way to a safe brothel she had helped set up with French venerealogist Dr Jean Tissot called her the guardian angel of the ANZACs. The French attitude to her was very different - the French decorated her with the Reconnaissance Française Medal, their highest civilian honour. Ettie moved to London in 1920 where she married her longtime companion Frederick Hornibrook, a physiotherapist There she wrote books on safe sex as well as a vegetarian cookbook. After a return visit to New Zealand, Ettie died of an overdose of quinine in Rarotonga in 1936. She is buried in the London Missionary Society church yard in Avarua. While she received little recognition during her life, she has since been seen as the campaigner she was. Christchurch's AIDs clinic is named after her. It probably can’t be said better than in her own words - in a letter to her good friend, famous writer H G Wells, she said “It's a mixed blessing to be born too soon.”  The Waimangu geyser tragedy.
In the years up to 1904, every five to six hours a spectacular geyser erupted in the Waimangu Valley near Rotorua. For a time the Waimangu geyser was considered the most powerful in the world, sending up a massive stream of black water, mud and rocks up to 460 metres into the air. Tourists came from around New Zealand to see it and it gained worldwide attention. Believed to have been created after the eruption of Mount Tarawera, it got its name from local Maori - Waimangu - meaning black waters. For a while, trips were made to see it erupt. But a tragedy in 1903, which killed four people, put a stop to the excitement. Joseph Astbury Warbrick was born January 1, 1862, in Rotorua to Abraham Warbrick, from England, and mother, Nga Karauna Paera, the daughter of a Ngāti Rangitihi chief. Joe went to boarding school where he learnt to play rugby union. His rugby career, in various clubs around New Zealand, led to him representing the country on the 1884 tour of Australia and later captaining the 1888-89 New Zealand Native Football team which went on a 107-match-tour that included Australia and the British Isles. After retiring from sport he worked as a tourist guide and in 1902 married Harriet Burt with whom he had one daughter. On August 30, 1903, Joe was guiding a group at the geyser. He had already warned people not to get too close but followed one young lady who wanted to get closer to get a photograph. A moment later the geyser erupted sending superheated water up and killing Joe, David McNaughton, and sisters Ruby and Catherine Nicholls. Their bodies were carried in a rush of water into Lake Rotomahana. An inquest called it an accident and said the deaths may not have happened if the warnings had been heeded. In 1904 the geyser became dormant and there were smaller eruptions until it stopped altogether, becoming extinct in 1908. Joe is buried at the Awakaponga Cemetery in Matata. The two Nicholls sisters are buried in St Paul's Anglican Church Cemetery in Papanui, Christchurch, while David McNaughton is in Purewa Cemetery in Auckland.  When William Rigney found a lone unmarked grave in the small settlement of Horseshoe Bend in Otago he had a sudden feeling that he would end up just the same - in a lonely grave with no headstone.
So he did something about it. He put up a wooden headstone that read Somebody’s Darling Lies Buried Here. Not a lot is confirmed about Rigney. He is believed to have been born in Loughrea, Galway, Ireland in about 1833. He may have attended a theological college - which would not have been unusual - but after supposedly being expelled, instead ended up emigrating to Australia before coming to New Zealand. He was at Gabriels Gully by 1861. The gully was where the first gold rush started. It was then William learned of the ‘lonely grave’ and decided to do something. He and another man, John Ord, built a fence around it and William got a board of black pine, shaped it like a headstone and carved the words into it. Later they appear to have been burnt in. By 1902 the board was badly decayed and the nearby community raised funds for a proper headstone of marble with the same words on it. When asked about it, William said “I have always felt a special interest in that grave, as I have a foreboding that in the end my lot will be the same – viz., a lonely grave on a bleak hillside.” As it happened when William died in 1912, he had expressed an interest in being buried by the grave that had affected him so much. So on his death, aged about 79, on June 5, 1912, he was. His headstone erroneously reads: “Here lies the man who buried Somebody’s Darling.” Despite local legends that Rigney himself had found the body, that has proved to be untrue. So who was Somebody's Darling? No one knows for sure, but a body was found on a beach in the Clyde River in February 1865 and believed to be that of Charles Alms (or maybe Elms) a butcher from the Nevis Valley who drowned in the river in January while herding cattle. An inquest at the time the body was found attributed the body as one Charles Alms. Now the area is called the Lonely Graves Historic Reserve and is considered a symbol for all those who died lonely deaths and are buried in long forgotten graves. Both Rigney and Somebody’s Darling are buried in what is known as the Horseshoe Bend cemetery six miles from Millers Flat. Oddly, in 2000 the original wooden headboard of Somebody’s Darling went missing from the grave and was eventually found outside a Wellington police station. It was returned to Horseshoe Bend.  It would be tempting to think that the Luke of whom Luke’s Lane in Wellington was named after was either Sir John Luke or Sir Charles Luke, brothers who were both mayors of Wellington.
Sir John was also known for expanding the tram system. But Lukes Lane is, in fact, named after their father. Samuel Luke was looking for an opportunity. Born in Phillack, Cornwall on January 23, 1831, to William and Elizabeth Luke, he was a mining engineer when the tin mines of Cornwall began to fail. Instead, he loaded up his whole family; wife Ann and children and headed for New Zealand. He was heading for Feilding where he was told a foundry could be built. But on arrival in 1874 he quickly discovered Feilding was at that time just a paper town - there was no industry or infrastructure. Instead, in 1879 he bought the engineering business of Gilchrist and Waters and founded S Luke and Son, a foundry which was on the site where the Wellington Opera House is now. The business was successful with the foundry making iron and brass founders, boiler makers, ships’ cooking ranges (for which they held a patent) gold dredges and was the builder of the lighthouses at Palliser Bay and Castlepoint. The company erected a number of hydraulic cranes on the Wellington wharfs. The company and built the steamships Matai and Weka. At its height the company employed up to 150 people. Both Sir John and Sir Charles worked with the business, Sir John doing his apprenticeship before joining his father then going into politics while Sir Charles was a director of the company. Samuel died on March 3, 1900 aged 69. Long retired, he had been living with a daughter in Christchurch but at the time of his death was visiting a son in Wellington. He had been walking home from a picnic in Kilbirnie and fallen. It was believed he had a heart attack. Samuel and most of his family are buried in the Bolton Street Cemetery.  What do you give a country in mourning for a beloved politician?
Well, if it was former Prime Minister Richard Seddon, who had just died, then apparently you get a lion. Wellington was gifted the young lion in 1906, shortly after Seddon’s death and the animal - called King Dick after the nickname often used for Seddon - became the basis for Wellington Zoo. The gift had coincided with a petition by Wellington residents for a zoo to be opened. The zoo was opened under the control of the Wellington City Council (it became a charity in 2003). King Dick wasn’t by himself for long - by 1912 there were over 500 animals - including llamas, emus and kangaroos and has since housed everything from elephants to hedgehogs. Quite a number of animals were gifted to the new zoo - The Duke of Bedford gave two axis deer and six tahrs and the Post Office gave it four storks (presumably retired from delivering new-borns). King Dick himself came from Captain Frank Turner of the travelling Bostock and Wombwell circus. With the zoo open in Newtown, crowds came to see him but as he grew so did some disquiet. He was getting very big and the cage he was kept in seemed far too small. While King Dick was quite tame, concerns were raised in letters to the newspapers wondering if he was lonely. Indeed one letter suggested a female companion should be found for him, they should be “married” and have the run of Newtown Park. So they did (well, not the run of the park thing!) - a female lion was leased from a circus but she turned out not to be a good match and was exchanged for another, called Queen Mary, and she and King Dick did have offspring. She wasn’t, however, supposed to be a permanent fixture and when there was worry that she would be sent back to the circus an appeal went up for money to ‘save’ her. And it was found. King Dick was incredibly popular and remained so all his life. It was in 1921 that he became ill in old age. Eventually losing the use of his hindlegs, the zoo made the sad decision to put him down. Normally we tell you where our subject is buried, but in this case he is still above ground. King Dick was taxidermied and is on display at the Wellington Museum on Queen’s Wharf. However, he is not alone - in 2013 he was joined by another lion gifted by the zoo - Rusty.  A wintery wind whipped through the grey-white hair and beard of Dr Arthur Herbert Orpen as he stood on the deck of the SS Australia when she sailed into San Francisco harbour.
Despite the chill, he smiled, thinking he had escaped a conviction for murder in far away New Zealand. The little Irish doctor’s voyage had started 8000 kilometres and 26 days earlier in Auckland on Christmas night 1897 when he boarded the Alameda as a steerage passenger under the name of Arthur Herbert. Dr Orpen’s hurried flight came on the same day that his patient 30-year-old Susan McCallum died, but not before she made a statement saying the 64-year-old doctor had performed an abortion on her – an illegal operation back then. It was a spectacular fall from grace for Dr Orpen who, up till that point, had enjoyed considerable standing in Auckland’s high society, but it was not the first bad decision he made – nor would it be his last. Orpen was born in Kilgarvan, County Kerry, Ireland in 1833 into a life of country lodges and hunting with horse and hounds. His father, Richard Hungerford Orpen was one of a long line of Irish gentry and landowners and his mother, Frances Diana Herbert, came from a long line of church ministers. Arthur Orpen graduated with a degree in medicine from Queens University in Belfast in 1856. He joined the military as an assistant surgeon, a career which led him to India, where he married Jane Sophia Spencer. The couple returned to Ireland and had eight children. Dr Orpen went into private practice moving around England ending up in Oxford, and always moving in the highest of social circles. Then, in 1882, Dr Orpen’s reputation suffered a severe blow when he was declared bankrupt owing 29 creditors around £1000 – a huge sum in those days. He continued to practice, but eventually decided to head for greener pastures in New Zealand leaving his wife and children behind. Dr Orpen arrived in Auckland on October 31, 1888 and two days later was advertising his services, working a gentlemanly two hours a day. He also became church warden at St Pauls. But all did not go as planned. In 1891 he was heavily criticised for his lax procedures when one of his patients died a few hours after being treated for a chest infection. Orpen had performed an autopsy and signed the death certificate despite not opening the man’s stomach. The incident was widely reported, damaging his reputation, but police did not investigate further. Orpen also moved offices frequently and in 1897 opened a surgery in Coombes Arcade on High Street. Coombes Arcade also housed the real estate agency of fellow Irishman James Henry Muldoon, the grandfather of former Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. Then in December 1897, Dr Orpen made the fateful mistake of agreeing to perform the abortion on Miss McCallum. The operation happened on December 9, however, she did not recover as expected. On December 24 she made her statement and died the following day. Dr Orpen’s flight was widely reported, however, being aboard ship he could not have known that New Zealand authorities had arranged for an arrest warrant in the US and that San Francisco Police would be waiting for him at the port. He was eventually returned to New Zealand, where he was tried for the murder of Ms McCallum. The first jury failed to agree and after a second trial he was acquitted. Dr Orpen was free to continue practising medicine, but it would not be for long. Despite his narrow escape from prison, Dr Orpen was again arrested for performing abortions – this time in 1905 and this time on two different women. Both women survived and gave evidence against him, which must have been a blow to him knowing he had risked his career and freedom for them. This time Orpen was found guilty and was sentenced to three years in Mt Eden Gaol – with hard labour. He was 72 years old and frail and did not last to see freedom again, dying on June 20, 1906. But this was not the end of Dr Orpen’s story. The doctor had made two wills, one in 1902, leaving everything to his eldest daughter Mary Orpen and one in 1905 leaving the bulk of his estate to James Henry Muldoon, with a portion also going to his daughter. What ensued was a lengthy legal battle between the lawyers for Miss Orpen and Mr Muldoon. Then, inexplicably, Mr Muldoon withdrew his claim – but provided no explanation, leaving newspapers and Auckland society to question why Dr Orpen would leave a larger part of his estate to this man than to his family. Was it that Muldoon had some hold over him, or was it just another bad decision on the doctor's part? I guess we will never know. See what we else we do: http://genealogyinvestigations.co.nz/index.html  Buried in debt, famous Dutch-born artist Petrus van der Velden ended up before a magistrate in a Wellington court. Unable to pay board and lodgings, he said he only cared about art. And he did what he usually did. He drew the courtroom scene before him.
Yet, today, he would be counted as one of New Zealand's premier artists with his works shown in galleries and private collections up and down the country. Indeed, Vincent van Gogh considered him a solid and genuine painter. Te Papa Tongarewa, in fact, had to re-catalogue 36 drawings supposed to have come from van der Velden after it was discovered they were by notorious forger Karl Sim - aka Goldie. Van der Velden was born on May 5, 1837 in Rotterdam to Jacoba van Essel and Joannes van der Velden. His artistic career started when he was around 13 with drawing lessons and he was apprenticed to a lithographer. He founded his own lithographic printing company in 1858. His earliest works date from around 1864 and he began studying at the academies of Rotterdam and Berlin and later stayed at The Hague until 1888. He had a tendency to work on series, like fisher-folk, down-trodden women and musicians. In 1890, supported by the founder of Sumner School for the Deaf, Gerrit van Asch, he, aged 53, and his wife, Sophia, a daughter and two sons moved to New Zealand. He settled in Christchurch and began teaching. Then he discovered Otira Gorge on the West Coast and started producing what would be his most famous set of works. A student recalled that when a storm brewed, van der Velden would go to the gorge and when it was sunny he would lie in the grass and sleep. In Art Society shows, his work was greeted with critical acclaim and one of his most famous paintings, Waterfall in the Otira, sold for £300 - which would be a great deal back then. In 1898 he and his family moved to Sydney, Australia but a year later his wife died and he ended up ill himself in a convalescent home. It was in Sydney he met the woman who was to become his second wife, Australia Wahlberg, and they moved to Wellington in 1904 where they married. It was in Wellington he got into serious financial trouble owing £73 for board to the landlord of the Bellevue Hotel in Lower Hutt. His answers to whether he could pay the debt were so confusing the perplexed magistrate appeared to think he might be a bit unhinged and would not make an order against him. On a visit to Auckland in 1913 he caught bronchitis, had a heart attack and died. He is buried in an unmarked grave in Waikaraka Cemetery.  Most New Zealanders have seen Richard Gross’s work, although they probably wouldn't know his name.
In fact, I walk past one nearly every day. So, with protesters at Parliament occupying the land around the Wellington Cenotaph, which is designed to memorialise the brave men and women who fought for us, I wondered about the man who created its striking sculptures. Turns out his works are all around New Zealand. Richard Oliver Gross was born on January 10, 1882 in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, England to engine-driver father George and his wife Emma. He went to the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts where he studied under sculptor Albert Tofts. Living in South Africa in his 20s, he worked as an architectural carver. He married Ethel Jane Bailey on July 25, 1912. In 1914 they moved to New Zealand and turned to farming near Helensville. Gross became a director of the Kaipara Co-op Dairy Company. But, a sculptor at heart, he moved to Auckland where he set up a studio in Newmarket. He designed the statue of a soldier for the Clive war memorial in Hawke’s Bay - a soldier standing with his gun in front of him. He did not however sculpt that one. His first public sculpture was for a memorial in Cambridge in 1923 - a shirtless digger with sandbags at his feet. Other commissions quickly followed in association with two Auckland architects William Gummer and Malcolm Draffin. His work includes a male figure for the top of the Auckland Grammar School memorial, the lion at the base of the Dunedin Cenotaph, the fountain at the National War Memorial Carillon in Wellington, the delicate bronze frieze around the Havelock North memorial, the stone frieze around the Auckland war memorial museum. In Wellington he created the equestrian figure for the top of the cenotaph - called the Will to Peace and two panels of a call to arms relief. It was used officially on Anzac Day in 1931 and dedicated on April 17, 1932. It was after the Second World War he added the bronze lions on either side. Gross was known for his beautiful anatomical form of men - often reaching up and his fondness for lions. He was the first sculptor to build his own bronze foundry. There is a marble memorial to Labour leader Harry Holland by Gross in the Bolton Street cemetery. He also created a bronze Maori chief for the One Tree Hill memorial. Gross received a number of honours for his work including a CMG, commander of the order of St Michael and St George. Not content with being New Zealand’s premier sculpture he also painted watercolours and wrote poetry. He and Ethel had three sons. Billie who died at aged 13, and Richard - called Dick -who died in active service in North Africa in 1942, which of course added a poignancy to his father’s memorials. Richard and Ethel are buried at Matamata cemetery - with fittingly, a slab of polished granite with a bronze plaque with their sons names on it. Picture from the Te Papa collection by Leslie Adkin in 1932.  The weeds in Alan Stuart James’ Motueka orchard worried him. He tried to keep on top of them, but they just kept coming back, and it played on his mind – constantly.
By his own admission, by 1944 James had become the living incarnation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s fictional murderer Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Publicly, he was an accomplished musician, cross-country-skier, and tennis player. His orchard was sited on a lavish 16-acre property with a large house, tennis court and pretty gardens on the coastal road at Moutere Inlet. He taught Bible classes at his local church and was happily married with four young children. Privately, James was always worrying. As well as fretting over those ever-growing weeds, he was also having several affairs, constantly worried about his elderly widowed mother, worried about a Japanese invasion, and, worst of all, harboured thoughts of disposing of his family – which worried him also. James was born in Feilding in 1906 to Edwin Tako James, an architect, and Mary Georgina Farmer. Edwin purchased the orchard in about 1918 and after his death in 1936, James took over running it. It was the same year that James married 21-year-old Marjory Eleanor Nottage, the daughter of a neighbouring orchardist. Over the next nine years the couple had four children: Eleanor in 1937, Corran in 1940, Berwyn in 1941 and Alan jr in 1944. All seemed happy with the family – except that Marjory suffered from a throat complaint – something that added to James’ worries. Then Marjory fell pregnant again – which James later said was an “unfortunate accident” as they did not want more children. On November 13, 1944, the couple went to their doctor to see if "something could be done", but the doctor refused. Upset at the news, they returned home. Later that night James put the children to bed and sat down to play the piano. He later told police that while he had not decided what he was going to do. “I thought how lovely it would be to be free from all these worries." While he sat playing, he fretted over the effect the pregnancy would have on Marjory and, of course, all the work that he had to do in the orchard. Leaving the piano, he picked up a wooden club and attacked his wife inflicting massive head injuries and breaking her arm. His oldest daughter Eleanor heard the fracas and got out of bed, giving Marjory time to flee to the neighbour’s house. James, realising that the club would not do the job he wanted, loaded his shotgun and killed all four of the children. He was arrested and during his interview with police claimed he was perfectly sane. “I want you to understand that I am not mad like you think … I knew all that I was doing.” He later said: “I often thought I should have told someone of the Jekyll and Hyde life I was living but I could not do so. Me taking Bible Class and knowing I was not what I should be.” James was charged with murder and was remanded to an asylum. On February 15, 1945, he pleaded guilty to four charges of murder. It was the first time in New Zealand history that anyone had done so as, prior to a law change in 1941, which abolished the death penalty the first time, the law did not allow for anyone to consent to being executed. (The death penalty was reintroduced in 1949). He was sentenced to life imprisonment. By 1963, James was out of prison, working as a storeman and living in Auckland with a new wife, Mollie. He died in 1978 and was buried at Purewa Cemetery. Marjory gave birth to a son in 1945. She divorced James in 1951 and remarried. She died in 1996 aged 85 and is buried alongside her four children in Wakapuaka Cemetery in Nelson. Pic: NZ Police Gazette See our work:http://genealogyinvestigations.co.nz/index.html |
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