William and Martha Harris nee Crabb
William Harris was born c. 1829 in Somerset. His wife Martha Crabb was born in January 1832 at Ilminster in Somerset to Hugh and Elizabeth Crabb nee Pope.
William and Martha were married in 1854 at Chard and later resided in Taunton in Somerset. in 1876, Mr and Mrs Harris and three of their Children (Alfred age 20, Emily age 18 and Bessie age 15) sailed to New Zealand on board the Waimea. They were some of the Manchester Special Settlement immigrants who were settled in Halcombe, near Fielding. On their arrival in New Zealand, passengers from the Waimea were landed on Foxton Beach, where they were loaded into bullock wagons for their journey to the settlement. There they found that the houses being built for them were not complete, and they were forced camped out for some time. William died in 1886 aged 57, while Martha lived on to the ripe old age of 91, dying in Wanganui on the 17th of May 1923. They are buried in the Wanganui Cemetery. |