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Genealogy Investigations, Wellington (2026)

07/08/2026

The Pianist
Who knows where Richard Farrell would have ended up had his life not been cut short.
By the time he died in a car accident when the car he was in hit a tree, he was only 31. He had already been called New Zealand’s greatest classical pianist.
Thomas Richard Farrell was born on December 30, 1926, to Thomas and Ella Farrell and grew up in Wellington.
While his parents were not musicians, his uncle John was an actor and singer.
Called Richard, he was a child prodigy. He was only four when he made his first radio broadcast and at six he was having piano lessons and was seven when he played his own compositions in a public concert with the Wellington Symphony Orchestra.
He was said to have perfect pitch.
His mother took him to Sydney when he was 12 to study under Russian-born pianist Alexander Sverjensky at the New South Wales Conservatorium.
It was there he came to the attention of the great classical pianist Arthur Rubenstein.
Richard came back to New Zealand giving recitals and performances but also spent a great deal of time in Australia.
In 1944, he won the NSW state final of the inaugural competition that later evolved into the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards.
It was in 1945 Eugene Ormandy, violinist and director of the Philadelphia Orchestra invited him to America where he became friends with William Kapell, another young pianist and on Kapell’s recommendation he was granted a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School in New York. His teacher at the time, Olga Samaroff, thought he was the best student she had ever had.
Richard toured around America for a while before returning to New Zealand for a tour.
In 1948, Richard debuted at Carnegie Hall and was given rapturous reviews.
When he moved to London in 1951 he was taken under the sponsorship of Princess Marie Louise, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. He was one of the first pianists to play at the newly built Royal Festival Hall.
He worked with the greatest conductors and orchestras of the time and played for Queen Elizabeth during her first royal tour of New Zealand.
His ambition was to become a conductor and moved to Zurich in Switzerland for the next stage of his career.
But back in England on May 27, 1958 Richard died in a car accident.
It was generally considered he would have gone on to become one of the world’s greatest classical musicians.
Richard Farrell Avenue in Auckland is named for him.
Richard is buried in the Islington and St Pancras Cemetery in London.
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31/07/2026

The last coffee call

There wouldn’t be many homes that hadn’t had a tin or jar of Gregg’s instant coffee in it at one time or another.
After 165 years operating in New Zealand, the final manufacturing factory in Dunedin is to close, bringing an end to the production of the instant coffee powder.
We have written before about how Invercargill’s David Strang is credited with creating instant coffee.
But Gregg’s was about more than just coffee - originally it was also a spice merchant and it kept expanding its range of products.
How many of us remember the delight of a slightly wobbly jelly? Now there are many gourmet versions but for most of us, it was Greggs. (Try mixing one of the instant pudding and one of the jellies!!)
William Gregg was born in Ballymena, Ireland about 1836 and originally emigrated to Australia going to the Ballarat gold fields in the 1850s where he started his first coffee and spice business before moving to Dunedin about the same time as the Otago Gold Rush.
He established W Gregg and Co in 1861 with wide ranging foods available but mainly as a coffee and spice merchant.
One of his biggest sidelines was in starch - something all households used then.
In 1867, a huge fire in Dunedin wiped out nearly all businesses along both sides of Princes St including Gregg and Co. William went on to rebuild.
It became a limited liability company and by 1925 was moved to business premises in Forth St, Dunedin.
It went on to launch a lot of products that we remember today, including salad dressings, sauces and instant puddings.
The first instant coffee was put out in 1951 and it was the first time it was widely available in New Zealand.
In 1991, Gregg’s launched granulated coffee under the name Red Ribbon Roast - the first of many makers to turn to granulated coffee.
It would later merge with Cerebos, then added the Robert Harris coffee brand to its stable.
The proposal to close the coffee factory was first put up in March as part of Wattie’s downsizing of its national operations.
William had married Eleanor Rosetta Lovell in 1864.
William died on May 9, 1901, he had been ill for a while but then suffered a stroke and did not recover.
He is buried in the Northern Cemetery in Dunedin.
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24/07/2026

Petone’s wharf
Petone’s long timber wharf, much loved by its residents, is a beloved part of the Hutt Valley’s history.
Generations of Hutt residents have walked it or fished from it.
It’s now over 116 years old and not only has started to look its age but was closed in 2021 after storm and earthquake damage. The Hutt City Council is committed to preserving at least a part of it at a cost of $12-million.
The wharf was one of two big firsts for the Hutt - it was originally built by the Gear Meat Company which was one of the biggest employers in the Hutt between 1874 and 1981.
Established by James Gear, an English-born butcher who emigrated to Australia before coming to New Zealand, he originally ran butcher’s shops then a meat preserving plant around Wellington.
In 1874, he built a slaughter house and processing plant near the waterfront in Petone. Part of the reason was a nearby railway line that could bring stock in.
It was hugely important for the Hutt - considered the first major industry - so much so that it was included on Petone Borough’s first coat of arms.
It did not take long to grow - by 1881 the plant had over 100 men and was killing 3400 bullocks and 80,000 sheep a year. It also exported tallow and preserved meat. A nearby area where pigs and sheep were kept became called Gear Island.
When the first successful shipment of frozen meat went to Britain, Gear established the Gear Meat Preserving and Freezing Company of New Zealand to create the basis for the new trade in frozen meat.
By 1885 he had retired for health reasons.
By then, the company had built the wharf under a 14-year license from the harbour board. It also bought an old ship - the Jubilee which was fitted out with freezing equipment. Meat could be transferred by rail to the ship moored at the wooden wharf.
Once the license ran out, the wharf ended up leased to the Petone Borough Council but was still used for shipping until a proper freezing plant was built.
The original wharf however deteriorated and in 1902 was removed and the harbour board built a new one - a bit more east in 1908-1909.
In 1976, the last ship tied up at the wharf - the Te Aroha. Since then there was an attempt to use it by one of the cross harbour commuter ferries but it was not successful.
It became a treasured part of Petone - walked and enjoyed by many. It is the second longest remaining wharf in the country behind Tiwai Point or Bluff wharf.
James Gear was born in Somerset about 1839. His family home in New Zealand was in Porirua called Okowai but now known as the Gear homestead.
Gear’s health was badly affected by a back injury, he needed a wheelchair as he got older and found he could not cope even with his family so built an annex next to his house where he lived with a nurse.
Gear died on April 5, 1911 and is buried at Porirua Cemetery.
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17/07/2026

The shepherds
It was always inevitable that at some point we’d write about sheep. After all, New Zealand is known for having more sheep than people.
It’s a well known story that Captain James Cook brought sheep with him on his voyages in 1773 and 1777 and released a ewe and ram in Queen Charlotte Sound. They did not make it, eating plants that poisoned them.
Later missionary Samuel Marsden bought more in 1814 but they never spread beyond a little settlement.
It was John Bell who imported 103 and established them on Mana Island in Wellington. His intent was to provide fresh meat for whalers.
But the real foundations of sheep farming was in the Wairarapa, Canterbury and Otago.
William and John Deans - sons of John Deans and his wife Catherine had been born in Scotland, William in 1817 and John in 1820.
Despite legal training, they wanted to emigrate and took up training in farming.
The pair came out to New Zealand looking for land in Wellington but neither were happy with what they found. Land they had been promised was not surveyed and William took to surveying as a job.
William then sailed the length of the east coast of the South Island and went ashore with a whaler who led him to Putaringamotu or Potoringamotu, now called Riccaton - and decided it would do.
He returned to Wellington and told his brother. They applied for permission to squat there and there was no objection - as long as they were not near any Māori cultivations.
They took their families - John’s wife Maria and children, William, Samuel and Jean Manson and their children - a small settlement of people. With them they took timber to build homes.
Then John headed to Sydney where he bought sheep and cattle.
They set up the first really big farm and sheep run and got the approval of chief 'To-One' (Te One) signing a 21 year lease for the land running six miles in every direction from Putaringamotu. Their property included the rivers Waimairi (or Waimaira), Wairarapa and Ōtākaro. The rent was £8 yearly.
Later the farm had to be shifted under an arrangement with the government who were looking to colonise the Canterbury plains.
Unfortunately after the agreement was signed, William went to sail to Sydney for more stock but the ship, the Maria was wrecked near Cape Terawhiti on July 22, 1851.
John, who had returned to Scotland to claim a bride, came back to New Zealand but became ill and died on June 23, 1854.
He was buried in the Barbadoes St Cemetery.
Photo by Sam Carter
New Zealand tales: https://genealogyinvestigations.co.nz/index.html

10/07/2026

Harold Logan
With a father like Ernest Hinds, it was hardly surprising Effie Hinds would like speed.
Ernie Hinds was known as a leading motorcycle racer on New Brighton beach in Christchurch, aboard his 1000c Indian motorcycle.
So Effie took on the training of a horse he had bought for £100 from an undistinguished line who had raced a handful of times and not made a name for himself.
It would turn out to be a fateful decision.
Harold Logan was born in the yard of a hotel in Canterbury in 1922 and no one thought looking at him that he would be the champion trotter he would become.
Under Effie’s training, Harold Logan began a campaign as a trotter that would see him become one of the biggest names in the racing industry.
Within a few years he had made a clean sweep of his races.
By the time he reached eight years old he was a star with people shouting his name as he was brought on the tracks.
His victory in the Oamaru Handicap was regarded by many experienced observers as one of his greatest performances.
Buffetted from pillar to post, he was apparently out of the contest more than once, and it was a supreme effort in the straight that enabled him to get up and win in a blanket finish between four of the best stayers of that time. The public could not believe the watch when the world's record race figures of 4.13 2/5 for two miles were hung up for his third placing in the Midsummer Handicap at Addington in 1931.
He won his first New Zealand Cup aged 9 and kept on breaking records in most races, taking out the New Zealand Cup again a year later.
A match race with several of the biggest names of the day, Red Shadow, Walla Walla and Jewel Pointer was organised. It was Red Shadow who was the favourite.
None of that mattered to Harold Logan who took out the win.
More records fell, including a world record, before Harold Logan was retired with a record of 29 wins and 20 times second or third in 108 starts, earning just over £10,000.
His death at Sefton in 1948 was mourned by the public who had loved him with obituaries written in many newspapers.
Ernest Frederick Charles Hinds was born in Narribri in New South Wales on March 28, 1884 to John and Jane Hinds.
He came to live in Christchurch early in the 1930’s and along with motorcycles, set up stables there. He ran his horses on the same beach he raced his motorcycles.
He died on July 19, 1948 - the same year Harold Logan died - and is buried at the Canterbury Memorial Gardens and Crematorium.
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03/07/2026

The legacy of Hope
New Zealand’s National Archives has a gorgeous new building in Wellington.
Our archives hold the collective memory of our nation but not all that long ago much of our historic memories suffered a huge blow due to a fire.
One of the buildings used to house the stacks of paper was the Hope Gibbons Building in Wellington - on the corners of Dixon St and Taranaki St.
Fire broke out on July 29, 1952 and as the building was full of aged paper records, it proved to be the perfect source of fuel.
Among the records were public works orders, lands and survey, labour and employment, agricultural and marine departments were destroyed or damaged and conservation work on what remained continued for decades.
It’s created a gap in our historical record .
You would think a building with the name of Hope Gibbons would be named for a firm.
In fact it’s named for a businessman, philanthropist and politician Hopeful Barnes Gibbons.
Gibbons was born in Launceston, Tasmania on October 4, 1856 to Robert and Sarah Ann.
He got his name from a character in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress but preferred to be called Hope.
The family came to New Zealand in 1862 living first in Dunedin and then Nelson.
He left school at 13, working at a couple of jobs before going to help his brother Robert in his brewery. But it failed and he went on to a sawmill then worked as a shipping business.
He got his engineering certificate in 1876 then moved to Napier.
In 1879 he started his own brewery in Pātea, and before long was distributing Hopeful Gibbons Pātea Brown Stout and Pātea Pale Ale to hotels in the district.
He married Jessie Barnes in Onehunga and went on to have four sons and a daughter.
Along with the brewery he ran a farmlet and then bought a hotel.
In 1895 he bought the Whanganui Brewery and moved his family there.
He specialised in taking over businesses and bought land in Wellington.
It was in 1916 that the original part of the Hope Gibbons building was completed with a second wing added 10 years later.
It was the Gibbons family who bought a controlling interest in the Wellington Colonial Motor Company that would go on to hold the Ford franchise for the country.
While his sons, all actively involved in the businesses, he stayed in Whanganui where he served on committees for Queen Victoria’s jubilee and for building the South African war memorial.
Gibbons was elected mayor of Whanganui from 1924-1927.
After his wife died in 1936 he lived on in Whanganui before dying on June 25, 1947.
He is buried in the Aramoho Cemetery.
Stories of New Zealand: https://genealogyinvestigations.co.nz/index.html

26/06/2026

The milk powder man
Baby milk powder is one of those products that we don’t think too much about. It’s easily available now and there are many different types.
But one of the most common for many years was Glaxo. The pale blue or cream tin would have been familiar on many grocery shelves.
It started in Wellington, with Joseph Edward Nathan who was born in 1835 in Houndsditch, London to Edward Ezekiel Nathan and his wife Rachel, the eighth of their 10 children.
He came to Australia in 1853 where at first prospected then opened a miners supply store but when it did not take off then came to New Zealand where his sister Kate had married a merchant Jacob Joseph who offered him a job in his store.
He returned to Australia briefly to marry Dinah Marks and the pair arrived in Wellington in 1857 on the Cheetah.
Jacob’s company imported goods for sale, soap, candles, tar, ironware and many other things. They also bought wool for export and sold butter.
Joseph became a partner in the company and they lived in the company’s storehouse on Lambton Quay.
He bought a large amount of land in Manawatu which would later become the setting of his baby milk powder business. Initially called Defiance Dried Milk, he rebranded it as Glaxo.
When his partnership with Jacob dissolved, Nathan bought part of the business and set up his own company.
He negotiated the rights to make dried milk, employing a milk drying machine in a factory near Feilding then designed a new factory in Bunnythorpe.
He became a director of the Wellington Gas Company, the New Zealand Candle Company and the Wellington Woollen Manufacturing Company and was president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce in 1881. He helped set up the Wellington Harbour Board in 1880 and with others inaugurated the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company in 1881. As its chairman of directors, Nathan officiated at the 'last spike' railway completion ceremony on 3 November 1886.
He was also president of the first synagogue in Wellington, Beth El, which opened its door on The Terrace in 1870.
His son Alexander went to England in 1907 and organised marketing of the powder - called Glaxo using the now famous slogan Builds Bonnie Babies.
By now Joseph and his wife had gone to England to live where he continued with his business. The dairying branch made and exported the dried milk then milk, butter and cheese from New Zealand - it was his influence that led to the development of the New Zealand export dairy industry.
Later the business would become known as GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies.
He died on May 2, 1912 and is buried in the Willesdon Jewish Cemetery.
Influential New Zealanders: https://genealogyinvestigations.co.nz/index.html

19/06/2026

Nelson’s photographers
In the Nelson Provincial Museum are 200,000 negatives collected by the Tyree brothers and a few other photographers.
The brothers were Fred and William Tyree and it was their images that helped sell the region to the world early on.
Deb came across several lithographs of early New Zealand cities in an op shop. They had been printed from early photographs taken by well-known photographers from 1800’s.
Fred and William had been born to master bootmaker William Tyree and his second wife Elizabeth in Surrey England.
In 1971 the family, now with William Snr married to Ann Baker, arrived in Port Chalmers where the boys began working as photography. William worked in the goldfields for a while but soon turned to photography.
He went to Nelson where he set up the Tyree studio in Trafalgar Street, specialising in studio portraits and keeping a photographic record of civic events in the growing city.
He married Mary Ann Evans, a young widow with a son, whom he adopted in 1882.
By late 1884 Fred was working with him too, specialising in scenic images.
The demand for portraiture in particular was taking off. It would not have been cheap but photos were treated as heirlooms and now are our best way of seeing what our ancestors looked like.
In 1892, William began giving evening limelight slide exhibitions - projected images from inside his studio onto the first floor window.
A couple of years later he and his family sailed to Sydney with a huge collection of slides to advertise the attractions of Nelson before going to England to see new technology.
It was William who brought back to Nelson an Edison phonograph and moving pictures of Queen Victoria’s jubilee.
He was also a well known inventor - establishing a company to produce generators, inventing an improved egg tester (no, we’re not quite sure what that is), a life saver and a new apparatus for washing clothes.
He moved to Sydney in 1910 and bought a photography business there but it never took off, and instead he created an engineering firm Tyree and Tyree.
He died in Sydney on June 1, 1924 and was buried in the North Macquarie Park Cemetery.
Fred worked at several other jobs but also continued his photography including now-famous images of goldmining, industrial and rural development, and social and transport activities. He died only a couple of months before William on April 9, 1924 and is buried in Collingwood cemetery in Takaka.
Stories of New Zealand: https://genealogyinvestigations.co.nz/index.html

12/06/2026

The movie star
Eve Balfour’s early life would not have prepared her for a life on stage or in films but she remains one of New Zealand’s greatest - if now barely remembered - actresses.
But for a time she was our greatest movie star, known as a vamp and photographed and painted by some of the most famous artists in the world.
Born to Charles and Eliza Hulston in Christchurch on May 3,1882, she herself said she was born in a wild remote country where she spent most of her time outside.
Throughout her school days she performed often showing remarkable ability.
In 1904 she married James Lawson Balfour - an artist - and they made their home in Christchurch where they were active members of the arts community.
Then in 1908 the couple sailed for England, where Eve became a member of the Actresses Franchise League taking part in suffrage activities and began her stage career.
She was described as graceful and having a forceful delivery .
A couple of years later James returned to New Zealand without Eve, and never went back.
Her career on stage continued - now referring to herself as Miss Balfour.
In 1913 she gave birth to a daughter - the father believed to be Stanley Howlett - also known as Arthur Stanley Howlett - another stage actor. They would go on to marry in 1918.
Eve’s first movie would be The Mystery of the Diamond Belt in 1914 - a silent film. And in the five years following would go on to feature in 10 more films.
She was often interviewed and photographed and described as having a magnetic personality, vitally alive and with a modern woman’s feminist bent.
Eve also set up her own production company - something women rarely did - at Elstree and began making films.
Despite not being quite as well known in New Zealand - she was rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names of the day like Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Theda Bara.
In the 1920’s she was working on Broadway and often called the Venus of England.
Not stopping at acting, she tried her hand at painting, writing, sculpture and film scenarios.
By 1928 Eve was back in England, although she travelled back and forth several times and now seemed to be mentally unwell, often acting erratically. But after a short stint with a theatre company, she and Stanley Howlett seem to retire to private life.
Most of what is known about Eve comes from the carefully crafted side of herself she showed the public of being seductive and glamorous but she also had a head for innovation and business, being one of the first female film producers and an activist feminist.
Eve was old enough to vote in Christchurch in the 1905 general election at which Richard Seddon’s Liberals were returned in a landslide.
She died on March 19, 1955 and she was cremated at the Birmingham Garden of Remembrance.
With thanks to Ian St George for immaculate research.
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05/06/2026

Napier's photographer

Old photos of New Zealand are fascinating. You can see how much things have changed.
We’ve been lucky to find several prints of what New Zealand looked like - especially the ones before cars were on the scene.
Recently Deb found a series of prints in an op shop. One is of Napier - looking over Hawke Bay. It’s a lithograph of a photo taken by Samuel Carnell whose photography business was well known after 1869. It shows Marine Parade without the famous trees lining it.
Early photographers were the ones who recorded what is now lost to memory. Carnell’s photos - especially ones of Māori of the time, were well known. He is also responsible for photographing residents who otherwise we would have no image of at all.
Samuel was born in about 1932 to Joseph and Sarah in Lenton, Nottingham. Joseph was a lacemaker and initially Samuel followed him into the trade.
Along with his brothers the family lived in France and Samuel developed a passion for photography.
He married Mary Ann Bunting on May 24, 1858 and they went on to have two sons in England. In 1862 the family boarded the Caduceus for the trip to New Zealand. Their daughter would be born there.
Initially Samuel tried his hand at the gold fields but turned to photography, working in Nelson and Auckland before settling in Napier.
He initially worked with George Henry Swan’s studio which he later took over - although the premises moved several times - and for three decades photographed the area and the people.
Samuel is famous for his portraits of the Māori tribe, Ngati Kahungunu and other prominent Hawke’s Bay people.
He was prominent in local life, a prohibitionist during the time of the struggle for women’s suffrage when that was one of the founding premises in the early days of getting women the vote.
He was elected the Member for Napier in the 1893 election - the same one to include women but lost the seat at the next election.
He turned to local politics - becoming Mayor of Napier in 1904 .
Samuel and his work was hugely admired by Gottfried Lindauer - the prominent painter - who works also included portraits of Māori, sometimes painted from photos.
Lindauer not only painted the portrait of Samuel now in the possession of the Napier City Council and named his first born son for the men he admired including Samuel.
In 1882 disaster struck with a massive fire wiping out a great deal of Hastings St where Samuel’s studio was. A huge number of negatives that he had were lost. He rebuilt his studio.
Throughout his career Samuel is responsible for photographing people who we otherwise might not have pictures of like William Colenso and George Grey.
He was a member of the Harbour Board, Charitable Aid Board and Hospital Board.
Samuel died on October 14, 1920 and is buried in the Old Napier cemetery.
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Genealogy Investigations

07/08/2026

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