Linwood Cemetery Tour Guide - Christchurch City Libraries

… took a particular interest in the development of the grounds, at first merely
a heap of sandhills. The grounds at the back were developed and the banks
formed … most of the work being done by wheelbarrows. Mr. Florance still
speaks highly of the work done by the unemployed men [given work in the
1930s Depression] … and of the very real interest which so many of them took
in the job.
Augustus Florance married Edith Ireland of Riverton. They had four sons and three
daughters. Mrs. Florance was active in the Red Cross and Plunket societies.
The gravestone for Mr. And Mrs. Florance reads: Augustus Florance, 1878-1956:
Edith Louise Florance, 1883-1969
Row I
Smith, Lillian R. B.
Lillian Rota Bluff, daughter of Thomas Plumridge and Eliza Catherine Plumridge
nee Hawker was born on the ship Rota as it came into Bluff Harbour. At All Saints’
Anglican church, Burwood, on 23 February 1909, Lillian, 27, a dressmaker, married
Percy Daniel ‘Tod’ Smith, 22, a cabinetmaker. Tod was the nephew of Harry Nelson
Hawker and grandson of George Thomas Hawker, ‘Father of New Brighton’ who
are mentioned elsewhere in the text. George Thomas Hawker and Eliza Catherine
Plumridge were brother and sister.
The couple had three daughters, of whom one died in infancy. Lilian died on 19
December 1916. In Lilian’s entry in the Linwood burial book, in the section ‘last
came from’ there are the words ‘at sea near Bluff’. Tod put the surviving children into
St. Saviour’s Anglican orphanage (now the Churchill Courts retirement home), went
to war and was killed in action in France in 1918.
There survives a letter written by an Englishwoman who befriended ‘Tod’ when he
was at the war. The recipient was one of Misses Hawker who were ‘Tod’s’ aunts.
Hednesford
Staffs.
July 28 th 1919
Dear Miss Hawker
It makes it much easier to know that my letter went to a woman - I hardly
know why - and to a woman who knew Tod from the beginning of the story. I
wonder whether you would write to me sometimes if it is not too much to ask?
It would seem then that I hadn’t lost all connection. You will know how
anything about Todd - his early days and any little characteristic thing about
him - would interest me.
As you say, we may never meet - it is, indeed, very unlikely, except that I have
always had a keen desire to come south, and there has been lately more talk of
me going out to relatives and friends in Australia.
Linwood Cemetery Tour Guide
Updated 2013
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