Woolston / Heathcote Cemetery Tour - Christchurch City Libraries

Murray-Aynsley, a member of the House of Representatives and member of W. S.
Moorhouse’s provincial executive campaigned, in 1864, against William Rolleston
for a place in the provincial council. James Edward FitzGerald advised electors to
vote against Murray-Aynsley on the ground that ‘he was John Ollivier’s man’.
In 1865 Murray-Aynsley was active in the Middle Island Association, an
organisation which thought that too much of the tax take of the New Zealand
government was being swallowed up in the prosecution of the New Zealand Wars
which were a North Island rather than a South (or Middle) Island matter.
During his career Murray-Aynsley was Lyttelton representative on the provincial
council; chairman of the Chamber of Commerce; a member of the Lyttelton Harbour
Board and Christchurch Domain Board; President of the Canterbury Agricultural and
Pastoral Association; and a member of the Christchurch Diocesan Synod. In business,
he was director and chairman of the New Zealand Shipping Company and chairman
of the Grey River Coal Company.
‘The weather during the morning [of 6 May 1865] was very threatening and, about
two o’clock, the rain began to fall in torrents’. That week the Anglican Church’s
general synod had been meeting in the city and this meant that the Bishop of New
Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn, was available to lay the foundation stone of the B.
W. Mountfort-designed St. Mark’s Anglican church, Opawa. Despite the rain,
Selwyn arrived, along with the Bishops of Christchurch and Waiapu; Archdeacons
Maunsell and Jacobs; and the Revs. Edwards, Tripp and Cholmondeley; and
several ladies of the parish. Elizabeth, wife of Hugh Murray-Aynsley, ‘held an
umbrella over Bishop Selwyn during the service which began at 2.45 p.m.’ Bishop
Selwyn commented ‘that the ceremony in which they had been engaged was
symbolical of the Christian Church; Christ was the cornerstone of their faith and he
prayed that the work they had that day executed might form a cornerstone to salvation
to many’. On 25 December 1865 there took place the first baptism in the new church.
The child was George, son of H. P. and Elizabeth Murray-Aynsley. That this was a
society baptism can be seen from the fact that the godparents were C. H. Williams,
Joshua Strange Williams (later a judge) and Joseph Martin Heywood, founder of a
major carrying business. The church was to burn down, probably as the result of
arson, in 1949.
Elizabeth Murray-Aynsley actively sought to reduce the church’s debts; was
President of the Queen’s Jubilee Fund (Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee took place in
1887); and was on the committee of ladies which managed the Addington Orphan
Asylum. She promoted the growth of flowers, the Riverlaw roses, grown under her
supervision, being long known as among the best in Canterbury.
About 1892 Elizabeth suffered a stroke which left her ‘more or less an invalid’. A
year later, while sitting in her chair, she had another seizure but remained conscious
for two more days ‘when she became insensible, and gradually and quietly passed
away’. At the time of her funeral, the flags of the New Zealand shipping Company
and Miles and Co. were at half-mast.
Woolston / Heathcote Cemetery
2006
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