Woolston / Heathcote Cemetery Tour - Christchurch City Libraries

Canterbury, the sheep station owned by his father-in-law, Robert Waitt. A son,
Edmund, was born in 1864, but, in May 1865 Mary died. Robert Waitt, 50, died in
September 1866, a son George, 12, died in 1867, and Mrs. Catherine Waitt, 54, died
in December 1877. They were buried in the Barbadoes Street Cemetery.
Bishop Harper baptised Leopold George Dyke, only son of Thomas and Flora
Acland at St. Luke’s, on 13 August 1876. The godparents were the mother’s sister,
Agnes Isabel Jameson; the father’s partner at Hesleton, Cecil Augustus Fitzroy; and
the bishop’s son, Leonard Harper who was later the leading figure in one of the city’s
biggest legal and financial scandals.
Flora M. Acland, 34, died at Sumner on 29 September 1885 when her son was but
nine years old. About 1891 T. D. Acland became ‘a sufferer from a combination of
diseases, of which gout was the principal’. He sought but did not find relief in
Sydney. He came to the polo races at Riccarton on 12 March 1892 but could remain
only a brief time. He entered the Rhodes Convalescent Home, dying on 20 March.
To acknowledge an active member of its committee, the Christchurch Club lowered
its flag on the day of the funeral, Tuesday 22 March. The funeral left the Acland
residence, No. 37 Gloucester Street, at 2 p.m. The aged Bishop Harper, his son, the
Rev. Walter Harper and ‘a thoroughly representative gathering of commercial and
sporting gentlemen’ accompanied 16 year old L. G. D. Acland as he followed his
father’s wreath and immortelle covered polished kauri coffin to the Heathcote
Cemetery. The Press noted that ‘the grave is situated at the south-west corner of the
pretty little cemetery, amid a perfect bower of shrubs’.
The world of the Canterbury gentry was a closed society. Bishop Harper officiated at
and members of the Reeves family witnessed the wedding of T. D. and Flora Acland.
In adulthood L. G. D. Acland ran a number of sheep runs, one partner being Hugh
Maude Reeves. In 1935, after his partner’s death, Acland married the widow, a
daughter of Walter Harper.
Row O
No. 511
Buxton
Born in Derbyshire, England, in 1821, Thomas Buxton came, with his parents, to
Tasmania, in 1822. About 1835 he began work on a whaling ship and cruised about
the New Zealand coast. Later he had a barque, the Missionary and carried cargoes of
timber to Sydney. The vessel caught fire and captain and crew spent two weeks in an
open boat, depending for food on sea-birds and rain water.
Buxton had schooners, Pride and June, and brought timber from the Derwent River
to Lyttelton. He had vessels built at Auckland, including the Queen wave, Dancing
wave and Ocean wave. The purchase price for the last named was 3300 pounds.
Buxton was the first captain to negotiate the Greymouth Bar and gained the 500
pounds reward offered by the Government to the man who could take supplies from
Lyttelton to the West Coast miners.
Woolston / Heathcote Cemetery
2006
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