children’s graves

Scattered around the Cathedral’s Churchyard are the names of children on gravestones taken by the epidemics that were rampant in the early 1860s.

During the Land Wars, many settler families moved into town for protection.  There was an area near the Cathedral known as Poverty Flats where many of the settlers lived. Living in cramped, overcrowded conditions meant that sickness was difficult to contain. Soon diseases such as scarlet fever posed a greater threat than warfare. By the time the truce was signed in March 1861 about 120 inhabitants of New Plymouth had died of disease, many of them children.

In 1852, John and Sarah Watson lost their 2 year-old daughter, Sarah. Then in 1861, they lost three more children, Fred (10 yrs), Fanny (7 yrs), Helen (1yrs).

In 1860, Elizabeth Jane Golding, 11 years old, died in one of the epidemics.

In 1860, Devenish and Hamerton [infants] stillborn to Mary and William in 1860 after their mother sought refuge on Marsland hill during fighting.

Christobella Single (9 yrs) died of one of the epidemic diseases.

We also remember the children who have died of cancer. There is a large rock in the Garden of Remembrance with names inscribed to remember the children who have died of cancer. Our hope is that every child and their family walking the child cancer journey will never feel alone.