ALBUM - Emma Greville Hokitika ,1862 - 1910.

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Description1.Emma Mary Greville (nee Ward).
2.Emma Greville and her five daughters.
3.The Five Daughters c1905.
4.Advert - Sale of Emma's business Hokitika;.
5.Charles Greville.
6.Charles Greville Grave photo.
7.Emmas grave at Karori.
8.West Coast Times Charlie Greville.
9.Barrowman Family.
10.Barrowman Grave Kumara.

In 1866, Emma Ward, aged 4, and her family arrived on the Mary Jane from Victoria, Australia. Some years later, she married Charles Greville, a printer with the West Coast Times, who had arrived in NZ in 1861 aged 4 from Tasmania. Thanks to the West Coast Times I have been able to source stories and write a yarn about their lives, especially their life in Hokitika, Charles' death aged 35 (1893), the widow, Emma's struggle to support and raise five daughters aged 3 to 14, in a town that economically was in decline, her decision to set up home and a drapery shop on Revell Street, and finally in 1898 her decision to take her daughters to Wellington where she ran a boarding house. It is a story of love, loss and survival repeated many times by many women in our colonial history.
When Charlie died, she was not alone. Her brother Adam Ward, a labourer, lived in Hokitika. Her older sister, Elizabeth, lived in Kumara. She was married to Moses Barrowman, a goldminer. Her youngest sister Francis had married well. Her husband, Thomas Vincent Byrne, was or became a solicitor, and they, too, lived in Kumara, a town that boomed in the late 1870s and 80s. It's hard to believe how big it was. At its peak, it had 41 licensed hotels, a hospital, a courthouse, a police station and its own newspaper.
As for her mother, Emma Ward, I am a little uncertain whether she was alive and kicking. She had been widowed some years back and, as far as the official records are concerned, appears to have gone off-grid. She may have remarried because when she was widowed, she buried husband number two. This husband, John Ward, died in 1868. He owned a boat and ferried people across the river. The West Coast Times reported his coffin was ferried across the river in the deceased's own wherry...and was covered in the St George ensign. The mourners included his wife and children who were decently and becomingly clad. Pleased to hear that!
Emma Greville's uncle Moses also had a newsworthy death. He was working the nightshift on the New Greenstone dredge and drowned in mysterious circumstances in 1903. His wife had died two years before him after a long illness, and her doctors having long since despaired of restoring her health. I'm guessing that she died of cancer.Date of Photo1862 -1910Map^[1]ContributorPhil Butler

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Location (city or town)HokitikaPersonCharles GrevilleAdam WardEmma WardJohn WardEmma Greville

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Date Created4th January 2025

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