 Joseph Sewell was hopping mad.
The 57 year-old farmer from Longford, a short way out of Murchison, had been in a decade-long dispute with his neighbour, Walter Neame, over property. In particular, in 1903, the dispute had come down to what happened to a white-faced heifer that Neame had branded and set loose with four others along a river beach near his farm. He had not seen the cow for two years. Neame saw the creature on Sewell's property but he was told it wasn’t his. Sewell responded by locking up a wire chair device that Neame used to cross the Mangles River. Police tried to calm the situation but there was little they could do. So Neame took the cow, only for Sewell to take it back. On and on it went, until Neame filed an application in court for compensation. On May 1, 1903 the public gallery at the court was packed with Murchison residents. Both Neame and Sewell opted to represent themselves. Sewell accused Neame of lying and warned “I’ll blow the devil to hell and I have enough dynamite to do just that.” He also accused Neame of murdering his wife who had died two years before. Suddenly police realised Sewell had not taken his left hand out of his pocket throughout the hearing. Quickly the magistrate suggested an adjournment for Sewell to go outside and compose himself. Two police officers followed him closely but as they went to pin his arms, Sewell turned and warned them off. He began backing outside pulling out an explosive and said he had 50 more wrapped around him. One of the police officers went to calm him down but the explosives went off. It was reported that Sewell was blown to bits, and the closest police officer, Inspector Edward Wilson received a grave head wound. But no one else died. Wilson’s trousers and beard were blown off, but he eventually recovered. So large was the explosion that the courthouse was moved several inches on its piles. At the inquest, his children said Sewell had become increasingly obsessed and despondent and had access to 150 plugs of gelignite. The finding was that Sewell had suffered a temporary insanity. It had not been the first time Sewell believed he could solve his problems with explosives. He had confronted a solicitor several years earlier over payment in another case showing him he had a package of dynamite. The solicitor had decided he did not need payment that badly. Sewell is buried in the Murchison Cemetery. It is believed to be the world’s first non-military suicide bombing.
1 Comment
 Archibald Sillars Hamilton was what he called a ‘practical’ phrenologist.
It’s a job that doesn’t exist anymore given that phrenology is now widely debunked. But back early last century phrenology was the latest craze and Hamilton toured the country giving talks and lectures. The examination of the bumps and ridges of someone’s head to predict their personality or the possibility of criminal behaviour now seems laughable, but Hamilton held public events where he did just that. Hamilton was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, the son of Edward Hamilton and Agnes Hamilton (nee Sillars) who was herself a phrenologist, Scottish reformer and champion for women’s rights to an education. In 1854 Hamilton left for Australia where he was to begin a career as a phrenologist. He often went to executions and in 1860 made death masks of two men hanged for rape and murder at the Maitland Gaol in New South Wales. It wasn’t enough for him though and he offered money if he was allowed to dig up the bodies and remove their heads. He ended up in court and defended himself “just as a geologist needs rocks, a phrenologist needs heads". He was acquitted by the jury. It was in New Zealand he began giving talks and lecturing, attracting plenty to listen to him talk about bumps on people’s heads, the shape of their jaws and whether they had protruding brow ridges. He called himself Professor Hamilton. He took private customers charging them for a description of their character with advice (3 shillings, 6 pence), a written sketch of character (5 shillings), or a detailed character reading with a phrenological chart (10 shillings). In 1866 Richard Burgess, Thomas Kelly and William Levy were hanged in Nelson. The Burgess gang as they were called had embarked on a crimewave, terrifying citizens and ultimately murdering several people. While being held in prison Hamilton spoke to the men, Burgess in particular was keen to have a death mask made of himself, even asking that it be done before he was hanged in case his face was distorted after death. Hamilton attended the executions then made the other two death masks. The masks are in the collection of the Nelson Provincial Museum. Indeed Hamilton gave numerous talks especially about Kelly who he said had a small organ of conscientiousness with his brain being of medium size, rendering him expert in all the arts of deception, totally unreliable and thoroughly obsessed by self. He also said Kelly’s organs of social sympathy were blighted. But it was another Kelly that Hamilton became famous for. In 1880 notorious Australian outlaw Ned Kelly was hanged at the Old Melbourne Gaol. While authorities denied it for many years, Kelly was dissected and Hamilton was supposedly given his head. "There is not one head in a thousand of the criminal type so small in caution as his, and there are few heads among the worst which would risk so much for the love of power," Hamilton said. A death mask was also made of him - on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. When Hamilton died in 1884 his collection of 55 human skulls was shipped to the National Museum of Victoria which still has them. Hamilton is buried in the Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney. Pic by Ray Smithers  With the Olympics now over, it's time to remember New Zealand’s very first medal winner, Harry Kerr.
Harry didn’t win a gold or even a silver medal, but on July 14, 1908 he won New Zealand’s very first medal...a bronze….for walking (now called race walking). Henry (called Harry) Edward Kerr was born on January 28, 1879, in Taranaki, the son of Edward and Sarah Kerr (nee Hutchinson), both from Northern Ireland. At 193cm tall, he was a born athlete, a keen rugby player and champion shooter, and did many track and field events. But it would be walking that earned him his medal. New Zealand was not able to field its own team so he and three others went to the Summer Olympics in London in 1908 as part of an Australasian team. He took part in the 3500 metre walk and came in third place, which gave New Zealand its first ever Olympian. Harry had nearly missed the start of the race though, busy chatting to officials under the grandstand while the race was lining up. He later qualified for the final of the 10 mile walk but did not start due to injured feet. He nearly had not gone at all. He had become a professional athlete early in his career and when he sought reinstatement as an amatuer he had to stand down for two years to qualify. He retained his fitness clearing scrub on the family farm near Stratford. Kerr then won national titles over one and three miles in 1911, won the mile again in 1912 and was again Australasian champion over both distances in 1909. Like many men of his generation he enlisted during World War One, joining the New Zealand Medical Corp and served in France. He was slightly wounded but remained with his unit, returning to New Zealand at the end of the war. He returned to walking - at the national championships in 1925 - aged 46 - and won the one and three mile titles. Later he also represented Taranaki at lawn bowls. Harry died on May 17, 1951 aged 72, and is buried in the Inglewood Cemetery with his wife Isabelle. He has a simple headstone that gives no hint of the extraordinary feats he accomplished. He was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.  A lot of the time no one ever sees what we do. We value our clients' privacy. Some of what we do changes their lives forever.
So sometimes when something we do leads to change or a happy ending, we love to tell you about it. We wrote about William Lee in an earlier story. He died from his injuries after being pinned to his bed during the Esk Valley flood. We tracked him down to an unmarked grave at Napier’s Park Island Cemetery. But it’s not going to be unmarked for long. The New Zealand Remembrance Army checked our research and confirmed it was him. Now he’s about to get a headstone. A ceremony will be in November and we will update you if you wish to come along. Hawke’s Bay Today reported on it last week - here's the story: He survived the horrors of World War I, only to die as floods and landslips hit Napier. Now the New Zealand Remembrance Army is trying to raise funds for a proper headstone befitting the returned serviceman buried in an unmarked grave in Park Island. There is little information about how William Lee, born in 1870 in Ireland, came to be buried so far from home. In 1915, aged 45, he enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, where he served in the Otago Infantry Regiment with the 12th reinforcements until 1918. He was injured in Egypt and shot in both arms, before being discharged via a medical board and sent back to New Zealand. His next of kin was listed as Henry Lee, a butcher in Whangārei. Despite living in Wellington, Lee was caught in the Hawke’s Bay floods in April 1938, when three days of heavy rain caused significant damage across the East Coast. Napier recorded 274mm of rainfall during this time, 169mm of which fell over a 24-hour period. A historical Niwa catalogue of the event states “scarcely a hill from the north of Gisborne to the south of Napier was free of slips”. “Slipping on hillsides occurred at a spectacular scale. The majority of the slips were shallow and were the culmination of sheet erosion and heavy rainfall.” This caused widespread damage to property and infrastructure, along with flooding, with two men drowning in Gisborne. A newspaper clipping from the time suggests Lee was pinned to his bed by a fallen beam in a house in Northe Rd which was hit by a huge landslip. “His plight was not discovered for some time,” the clipping reads. “The house was moved 20 feet from its foundations and two other houses on the top of the hill were left in very precarious positions.” A few months later, on August 4, Lee died as a result of injuries sustained in the landslip. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Napier’s Park Island cemetery and seemingly forgotten until his case was picked up by the New Zealand Remembrance Army this year. The group was started about three years ago by Simon Strombom, a veteran, to restore service headstones and memorials of returned servicemen and women. “It’s all about remembrance and respect.” While cleaning graves, the group soon realised there were amazing stories behind them and also began raising funds to put in headstones for those buried in unmarked graves. He said Hawke’s Bay had a rich military history, but Lee’s was a particularly “interesting story”. “He joined quite late [in his life]. Something happened while he was [in Egypt] where he was injured quite badly. He came back and was living in a pub in Wellington. He’d gone to Napier for work and been caught up in the 1938 floods and a landslide.” Strombom said Lee was buried without a headstone and forgotten, “just lost in time”. The Remembrance Army has now purchased a gravestone and has been trying to contact any remaining family for a potential unveiling ceremony to be held with the Taradale Services Association this year. “It just takes that heartache away and they can focus on celebrating their relatives,” Strombom said. I’d heard the story many times. My great great grandmother Honour Batten was born at sea.
The story went that she was born onboard ship while my ancestors were coming to New Zealand. One of her middle names was allegedly of the ship’s captain - Malcolm. Great yarn right? Except it's not exactly right. The family has my great grandmother’s (Myrtle) birth certificate and it says Honour was born at sea. So I searched, checking ships’ records but it was quickly clear the story could not be true. It was her grandfather John Treweek who came to New Zealand. He had been born in Tregony, Cornwall in 1814 and married Honour Chapman. They had five children and came to New Zealand in 1841 aboard the Timandra. The ship arrived in New Plymouth and the Treweeks (sometimes spelled Trewick - this will be important later) began to spread first to Whanganui, and then three of the boys headed to Otago, to try mining. John stayed in the Manawatu region and he and Honour had 13 children including James, born in New Plymouth who married Susanna Gould - my Honour’s parents. The Treweek family is large and well-documented. There was no chance Honour was born on a ship coming to New Zealand. So where did the story come from? I turned to a new “extended” family I had recently joined - all of them descendants of Batten’s and related families - and they came through for me. Someone had already done the research! Honour was indeed born at sea…..but on a coastal ship in 1871. James and Susannah were going from Dunedin to New Plymouth. At a guess, they had been visiting family. They were aboard the SS Māori - which travelled a regular route between the North and South islands. And regularly captained by none other than James Malcolm. Honour’s birthday was July 4 - the SS Māori had left Dunedin, July 1 heading for Lyttelton. Arriving July 3 in Timaru then heading to Lyttelton. They arrived on July 5….the day after Honour was born, somewhere between Timaru and Lyttelton. They would have transferred to the SS Taranaki. A list of passengers listed them as Mr and Mrs Trewick and child. Little Honour. So here’s a tip. Members of your extended family might hold clues - or even the solution - to questions if you are searching. Honour and her husband William are buried in the Pahiatua-Mangatainoka Cemetery - although her headstone said she was born in 1872. With special thanks to Janis Brooks who had done the hard work!  In 1901 Wellington was in the grip of a ghost scare.
A ghost was terrorising Brooklyn, scaring residents and ‘haunting’ local areas. It was also seen in areas like Johnsonville and supposedly targeting the land of one of the city’s most famous residents Mr Kirkcaldie (that turned out to be a poor woman in a white dress walking to see her lover). A ghost was said to have appeared in a boarding house window and also in a garden near the tramway's stables. The ghost would pop out at people, causing screaming and yelling but never hurt anyone. On February 27, 1901, the papers reported the ghost had been run to earth. A man and two women were out walking home in Brooklyn when it appeared on the side of Owhiro Road about 11pm. One of the women screamed and had hysterics but the young man gave chase. He ended up catching the ghost which turned out to be another young man from the Brooklyn suburb. The New Zealand Times reported that George Balcombe was charged with being an idle and disorderly person in that he had an article of disguise - which turned out to be a tablecloth. Balcombe was brought before a court magistrate, and the young man who caught him, Joseph Sutherland said he had been heading through Brooklyn after a night at the theatre when he saw the white form. One of his female companions fainted but Sutherland - made of sterner stuff - caught Balcombe with what appeared to be a sheet on his head. Lawyer Thomas Hislop (who became a mayor of Wellington) claimed the 15-year-old Balcombe had done it in a moment of regrettable foolishness and that not all the so called sightings were of his client. The magistrate dismissed the charge but gave Balcombe a telling off. The outcome wasn’t popular with at least one newspaper saying he should have got half a dozen whacks with a cane. George Henry Balcombe was born on May 30, 1886, to Florence and Charles Balcombe. The family later moved, living in Hawke’s Bay and then in the Auckland area. Balcombe married Marguerite Louisa Loader in 1911 and they had a daughter who they called Florence. Balcombe died aged 69, on July 19, 1955 and cremated at Waikumete. Picture by Stefano Pollio.  In 1909 two gold miners - Arthur Sharpe and John Scott made the discovery of a lifetime.
They were working the Ross gold field on the West Coast when they found a gold nugget on September 10. But not just any gold nugget. Described by the Evening Post as as big as a turnip, the Ross nugget weighed 7 pounds and two ounces - over three kilograms today. It was found on the eastern boundary of the goldfield called Bullock Point - often avoided after the death of another gold miner 20 years before, Jack McCarthy who had fallen and broken his neck. Sharpe and Scott had found a few other nuggets - but nothing like the size of what came to be called the Roddy nugget after the Minister of Mines at the time Roderick McKenzie. It was bought from the two men by the mayor of Kumara, James Alexander Murdock, for about £400 - a staggering $70,000 now. In 1911 the nugget was bought by the government to be used as a coronation gift to King George V. Here’s where something goes wrong. The nugget was allegedly melted down and used to gild a tea service. But no one is completely sure. But the Royal Collection Trust which manages the Royals’ collection of valuables have been unable to find either the nugget or the tea service or a record of them. There was also a conspiracy theory linked to it and whether the nugget was planted by the Ross Goldfields Co to boost its share price. Arthur Ernest Sharpe had been born in Ross to James (Jim) and Elizabeth Sharpe (nee Phillips). Jim had been born in Staines, Surrey while Elizabeth was born in Hampshire. Jim himself was a miner and his son followed in his footsteps. Sharpe died on July 15, 1938 and is buried - along with his parents in the Ross Cemetery. John Scott is also in the Ross Cemetery - he died on November 3, 1927 aged 76.  On his deathbed, Leo Silvester/Sylvester Hannan confessed to three murders. That brought his total to four, making him a serial murderer.
It’s unusual in New Zealand. We have a few mass murderers, like David Gray and Stephen Anderson, but we are mostly free of what are called serial killers overseas. Red-haired blue eyed Leo Hannan who also called himself Herbert James Ross, was born on October 23, 1900. He was the last of eight children to Edmond Hannan, a carpenter, born in 1857 in County Cork, Ireland. Edmond immigrated to New Zealand in 1877 on the ship Oamaru and married Annie Bannor from Donegal, Ireland in 1881. Not all that much is known about his childhood but he was considered of low intellect and somewhat abandoned by his family early. Despite that he tried to make it as a bootmaker but most often was itinerant around the North Island. He spent most of his life in and out of prison. He was in Rangipo prison for safe breaking in 1926 from which he escaped. He wasn’t ever caught, instead he turned himself in and in 1931 was sentenced again in Waipukurau for burglary. IN 1940 he went to jail for a large number of burglaries and then again in 1941. In 1943 he skipped out on military service and was picked up by police and turned over to military police. It was a murder in 1950 that put an end to Hannan’s freedom. Frederick Andrew Stage, 54, was a tough ex-military man who worked as a night watchman at the Wellington Railway Station. His body was found about 1.30pm on August 10, lying face down, badly battered. He had been bashed with an iron bar. Hannan was in custody before dawn broke. He had been found with blood on his face, hands and shoes. Ironically it was Dr Lynch, the pathologist who had been called to the murder of the two sisters, who was called to examine him and noticed the blood. Despite his denial he went to trial and was convicted and sentenced to life. He had a brief reprieve when he escaped while working in the prison quarry while in Auckland but was caught. It was in 1962 that Hannan was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He spoke to his lawyer George Israel Joseph confessing that not only had he killed Stade, but also the two sisters Annie and Rosamund Symth in Wairoa in 1942 and that he was also responsible for the death of Herbert William Brunton on December 16, 1948. Brunton, 69, a former railway guard who lived alone, was killed in his railway hut near the Wairoa Railway Station. His neighbour went to visit him and found his body sitting propped against the bed in a pool of blood. He had been killed by blows to his head. Brunton’s killing sparked a huge manhunt by police who took more than 5000 fingerprints from the men in the area. Joseph included the story in a book he wrote, By a Person or Persons Unknown but did not use Hannan’s name. It was not until many years later that a researcher for the television programme Epitaph asked Chief Inspector Sherwood Young, the grandson of the police officer in charge in Wairoa at the time of the killings who it was. Young gave him Hannan’s name. But by then Hannan had died aged 61, on October 9, 1962, only three months after his deathbed confession He is buried in Waikumete Cemetery.  In August 1942 the people of Wairoa were deeply troubled.
No one had seen Annie Smyth, 63, or her 74-year-old deaf sister Rosamund Jane Smyth for days. Annie was well known in the area, out riding her bike. A brigadier in the Salvation Army, she had been stationed in Japan for many years before going to Wairoa. She and her sister lived behind the Salvation Army hall on King Street but often went out and about spreading the word. Annie was born at Kaiwharawhara, Wellington on October 25, 1878, to Edward Smyth and Isabella Cansick. She was the seventh of 10 children, Rosamund was her elder sister. When Rosamund went to a talk by William Booth who founded the Christian Mission that became the Salvation Army, Annie went too, later going into training. When asked to be New Zealand’s first overseas salvationist, she accepted and went to Japan. She worked for the rehabilitation of prostitutes and travelled extensively. She never married and served in Japan for 34 years, stopping only because of the outbreak of World War two. When she returned to New Zealand she asked to keep serving and wanted the most difficult location they had and ended up in Wairoa. It was war-time in New Zealand and Annie was fond of many things Japanese. It wasn’t a popular sentiment. She was a vigorous, active woman, considered brash and even bullying. Annie missed a meeting on August 9 and originally it was thought she was just out ministering, then on the 16th, a group turned up for service but found the doors shut. A neighbour, thinking it was strange, spoke to her lodger Arthur Percy Farn, who managed to get into the house through a window and found, to his horror, Annie lying dead in a chair. She had been brutally hacked about the head. Rosamund was found lying under a bed with similar wounds. It began a huge police investigation. A blood stained axe was found in a wash house at the rear of the property. Annie had been hit with the axe while Rosamund had been killed with a poker. Police struggled, pleading for information. A number of people had seen Annie, on August 8 - when both sisters were believed to have been killed. They offered a reward of £500 to no avail. There was a inquest more than six months later - headed by Dr Lynch (see one of our previous stories) and he outlined the head wounds to Annie and Rosamund. Despite Annie’s clothes being rearranged, Dr Lynch thought it was for show and that neither woman had been interfered with. His belief was despite Rosamund being deaf, she realised there was a commotion in the house and had confronted her sister’s murderer, ending in her becoming the second victim. A funeral service was held in Wellington for both sisters who are buried at Karori Cemetery. And for years who killed them was unknown. Until 1999. Keep watch for our next update: The serial killer’s death bed confession.  In 1890 Arthur Bently Worthington took Christchurch by storm.
He created a new religion, known as the Students of Truth, after he arrived with his attractive wife Mary (Margaret) Plunkett from America. Worthington had charm in spades. Tall, handsome, with steel-blue grayish eyes, a fluent talker and appeared to be a well-bred gentleman. People flocked to the new ideas. Within two years the sect was successful enough to have built a Temple of Truth and beside it, a big 12-room residence for the Worthington family. Worthington was well ahead of the times. He was teaching, among other things, free love, the non-resistance of evil and was known for ‘visiting’ the female members of the church. A group of Christchurch clergymen, led by Methodist minister John Hoskin, began publicly opposing him. And Hosking, suspecting him of swindling his congregation, went further, investigating Worthington’s past. His investigations revealed that Worthington was actually Oakley Crawford, sometimes called Samuel Oakley Crawford, born March 1, 1847 in Saugerties, New York State. He had served in the American civil war and was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1867. His first marriage to Josephine Erricson Moore in 1868 was the first of nine. All except the first were bigamous. He also started on a long life of fraud, changing his name to Worthington, going to jail in 1870 in New York for obtaining money by false pretences. Once he came out of prison,he began marrying women, taking all their money then abandoning them - sometimes having fathered children. In 1889 Worthington joined a Christian Scientist sect as a faith healer. There he met Mary Plunkett, the wife of John Plunkett. Plunkett investigated Worthington finding he was the “one of the most notorious rascals in the United States”. Worthington, declaring that Mary had converted him to righteousness, fled to New Zealand. Under fire from Hosking, Worthington denied it all. But he then made a big mistake. He ejected Mary from his church and his household, which resulted in some of his church members turning against him. Mary went to Sydney. Moves were made during police investigations to have Worthington extradited back to America or to sue him. The situation was made worse when he ‘married’ Evelyn Maud Jordan, an Australian woman living in Christchurch. In December 1895 he fled New Zealand, supposedly to gain funds, and ended up in Hobart, Tasmania. When his ventures there failed, he came back to Christchurch in 1897 but public opinion had grown against him and he was faced with threatened riots. He left again - never to return. But he continued his tricks - being jailed in Melbourne in 1902 for defrauding a wealthy French widow by telling her he was the reincarnated god Osiris and she was his Isis. After release from prison, he and his family - the long-suffering Evelyn and their three children - ended up in the United States where he set up as a Presbyterian minister but continued swindling. He was jailed again and died of a heart attack on December 13, 1917 while in custody in New York. Meanwhile, the spurned Mary had returned to Christchurch and in 1901 married dentist John Stains Atkinson. Within a few months she took her own life in a fountain at her home aged 53. She is buried in the Barbardoes Street Cemetery. |
AuthorFran and Deb's updates Archives
August 2025
Categories |
RSS Feed