Local History and Community Groups
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William Haydn Flood | Musician
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- As his middle name suggests, William came from an enthusiastic musical family. His father, Joseph was a musician in Honiton, Devon. William followed his father and brothers in this profession...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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George William MacNamara (Sam) Barford
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- George died in 1913 and was buried in the Church of England 2 section. On 22nd September 1916, the Town Clerk received a letter from his widow asking if the...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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‘Distressing Mistake’
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- ‘A distressing happening at Karori cemetery last Saturday when the bodies of two women who had died that week in the Wellington Hospital were discovered by the relatives to have...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Margaret French aka Mrs Death
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Margaret – Mrs Frued or Freude or Mrs French On 3rd December 1892, a woman arrived in Wellington at the Te Aro Hotel named Margaret. She had a note of...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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John Alvin LeBlanc 1918-1943
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- John was one of many US Soldiers that found themselves on shore in New Zealand during World War 2. Between June 1942 and mid 1944 there were between 15,000 –...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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‘Te Whaea o te Katoa’
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Janet Munro was born on 31 January 1883 in Glasgow, to Mary McLean, a housekeeper, and William Munro, an iron foundry warehouseman. She was educated in Glasgow and became a...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Captain Butt
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Richard Groombridge Butt was born on June 2, 1832, in St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, to Marie (Mary) Cabot (Smith) and Richard Butt. He travelled to New Zealand, via Brisbane,...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Winifred Jean Duncan
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- While our Gum Gully volunteers were weeding the cemetery next to Ian Galloway Park, Russell made a remarkable discovery among the tradescantia: the headstone of Winifred Duncan. The headstone appears...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Special General Meeting & Speaker – March 2026
- Karori Historical Society
- Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday 3 March 2026 at St Ninian’s, Newcombe Crescent, Karori at 7pm. Members and friends welcome. The meeting on 3 March will be in two parts: At 7pm, we are holding a Special General Meeting to approve changes to our constitution and the decision to reregister in order to meet […]
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Karori, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Captain William Kelly | Master Mariner
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- As part of our gardening project, Russell tackled the Kelly plot and over several days persevering, removed the enormous flax that had dwarfed the beautiful headstone. The plot interested Russell...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Karori Ghosts
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- ‘Cemetery Reported to be Haunted’ We found this article from July 1939.
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Marion Martin
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- ‘Mrs Martin was one of the oldest residents in Wellington, and was highly esteemed for her plain unostentatious kindness of disposition’. Marion Baird was born in Fountainhall, a hamlet southeast...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Working Bee Find
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- This beautiful object was found by one of our volunteers at our October 2025 Working Bee in Gum Gully. Our volunteer very carefully cleaned the floral tribute as well.
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Jacob William Heberley (Hākopa Hēperi) | Carver
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Jacob was the sixth child of James ‘Worser’ Heberley and his wife Te Wai (also known as Māta Te Naihi), of the Puketapu people of Te Āti Awa. James and...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Sarah Jane Kirk | temperance leader, suffragist and human rights activist
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Sarah Jane Mattocks was born in 1829 in Warwickshire, England. She worked as a silk marker before marrying Thomas Kirk, a bookkeeper on Christmas Day, 1850. In 1862, the Kirk...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Thomas Ward | Engineer & Surveyor 1849-1934
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Thomas was born in Oxford, England and trained as an engineer, working on the Great Northern Railway and at University College, London. He came to New Zealand in 1873 and...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Walter Joseph and Phoebe Elizabeth Lawrence
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Walter Joseph Lawrence was born in Camberwell, London in 1878[i] and Phoebe Elizabeth Thornton[ii] in St Saviour, London in 1881. The couple married in London in 1906[iii] before immigrating to...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Compton Family
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Mary Martha Whiting was born in 1854 in Tasmania and came to New Zealand with her family at a young age. She was the third child of thirteen siblings. Her...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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William Henry Willway | The Children’s Friend
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- William was born in 1823 in Bristol, England. His father was a silk dyer, but by age 15, William was working as a clerk. On Christmas Day 1849, he married...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Services Section | Photo Find
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- WCC Archives sought our help to identify the location and occasion of this photo: It is interesting to note that there were so many women in the photo, which made...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Thomas Kirk | botanist
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Thomas grew up in a household where botany was a common interest. His father George was a nurseryman and his mother Sarah (born West) was both a nurserywoman and a...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Henry Mitchell | Founder of Mitchelltown
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Henry arrived in Wellington as an 8-year-old child and died in 1913, aged 80. He came out from England with his parents, brothers and sisters on the ‘Gertrude’ in 1841....
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Last meeting for 2025 – 16 December 2025
- Karori Historical Society
- Our last public meeting for 2025 will be held on Tuesday 16 December 2025 at St Ninian’s, Newcombe Crescent, Karori at 7.30 pm. Members and friends welcome. South with Shackleton and Endurance, 1914-1917 Join us for a talk by Graeme Jupp who is sharing his deep knowledge of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914–1917). His interest […]
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Karori, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Swimming against the tide
- Architectural Centre Inc
- press release – December 4, 2025. Victoria University of Wellington is out of step with global practice in demolishing the Gordon Wilson Flats and McLean Flats on the Terrace The Architectural Centre notes with great sadness the planned demise of the Gordon Wilson Flats, one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most important post-war buildings, along with […]
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Gordon Wilson Flats, Maurice Terrace, Aro Valley, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6040, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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George Rignold Fossette
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Kaitoke Drowning Tragedy George, aged 23 years of age and a carpenter, was on a camping party of twelve friends at Kaitoke over Christmas 1905. They had pitched their tents...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Archibald Fea
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Archibald Fea was born in Yorkshire, England on 15 June 1880. He was born to James Cape Fea and Jane Elizabeth Carter. James Fea at the time of Archibald’s birth...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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John McMenamen
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- The night of Friday 12th February 1909 bore witness to New Zealand’s worst 19th century maritime disaster. The inter-island ferry SS Penguin struck, what was surmised to have been, Thom’s...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Ellison Plot
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Thomas and Ethel Ellison were married at St Peter’s church in Wellington in 1899. Thomas, also known as Tom or Tamati Erihana (Ngāi Tahu and Te Āti Awa) was the...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Ford plot
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- Mr & Mrs Ford William Florington Ford was born in 1823 in Durham, England. He was a schoolmaster. He taught initially in Salford and then later in Manchester. He married...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Young plot
- Friends of Karori Cemetery
- As part of our gardening project, we weeded and mulched around the roses in this plot. They are a lovely fluttery, open, pink flower. None of us can recall a...
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Karori Cemetery, Northland, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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