![]() Hokitika Cemetery in 2020 | |
Details | |
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Location | |
Country | New Zealand |
Coordinates | 42°42′37″S170°58′33″E / 42.71028°S 170.97583°E Coordinates: 42°42′37″S170°58′33″E / 42.71028°S 170.97583°E |
Owned by | Westland District Council |
Website | www |
Find a Grave | Hokitika Cemetery |
Footnotes | Westland District cemeteries database |
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Hokitika Cemetery, also known as Seaview Cemetery, is the cemetery for Hokitika in New Zealand.
The cemetery is located on Hospital Hill Road in the suburb of Seaview on an elevated site north-east of the town, giving a good outlook over the settlement and the Tasman Sea. State Highway 6 is located at the bottom of the hill. Hokitika Airport is located just east of the cemetery. Previously, the jail, mental institution (Seaview Asylum) and hospital were located between the cemetery and the airport, and there is a memorial in the cemetery to the inmates of the asylum and gaol who were buried in unmarked graves.
The Westland Explorers' Monument was erected in 1868 in the centre of the intersection of Weld and Sewell Streets. It was moved to the entrance of Hokitika Cemetery in 1880; the Hokitika Clock Tower was later erected in the same place in 1902. [1] The monument memorialises four explorers, surveyors Henry Whitcombe (1830–1863), Charlton Howitt (1838–1863), and George Dobson (1840–1866), and government agent Charles Townsend (1826–1863). Whitcombe, Howitt and Townsend all drowned in separate accidents in 1863, while Dobson was mistaken for a gold buyer, E.B. Fox, and murdered by the Burgess Gang. [1] [2]
Drowning, either while crossing the Hokitika bar or attempting to cross a river, was such a common death that it became known as the West Coast Disease, and between 1865 and 1870 more than 40 deaths by drowning were recorded. [1] Amongst the earliest burials in the cemetery are those who drowned after a boat ferrying passengers from the steamer SS Lady Darling to shore, on 29 July 1865, was overwhelmed in the surf: Allen Thomas, Robert Turner, Edward Samson, unknown Thompson, John McIntosh, George Hawkins and Henry Heron or Hearn. [1]
There are a small number of Jewish graves in the cemetery, although the Jewish community was of considerable importance in the early settlement of Hokitika. [1] The synagogue on Tancred Street was dedicated on 23 September, 1867 by the Reverend Isaac Zachariah. [3] The first Jewish burial in the cemetery was in 1872. [3] John Lazar, who had been Mayor of Adelaide, Provincial Treasurer and a prominent Freemason, was buried in Hokitika in 1879. [1] [3]
In 1898 the local paper records complaints about Chinese residents' celebrations of the Feast of the Dead, causing "litter and ugly confusion" in the cemetery, the effects of which could be minimised by "setting apart a portion of the cemetery for Chinese interments". [1] In 1902, the remains of fifteen Chinese people were disinterred from Hokitika Cemetery for return to China. Unfortunately these remains were on board the SS Ventnor, which sank after hitting a reef. [1]
According to the New Zealand War Graves Project, Hokitika Cemetery holds four war graves. Three of the soldiers served in World War I and one served in the Vietnam War. [4]
The Hungerford Mausoleum is the largest monument in Hokitika Cemetery and is listed by Heritage New Zealand as a Category II structure. It is the only mausoleum on the West Coast. The mausoleum was built to house the infant sons of Thomas Walter Hungerford and Eliza (née Delany). Both the sons were also named Thomas Walter, and died in Feb 1873 (aged 18 months) and Feb 1874 (aged 10 months). A local court bailiff Thomas Christian (d. 2 April 1878 aged 52) is also buried in the mausoleum. [5]
Richard John Seddon was a New Zealand politician who served as the 15th premier of New Zealand from 1893 until his death. In office for thirteen years, he is to date New Zealand's longest-serving head of government.
Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederick Carden. The cemetery opened in 1833 and comprises 72 acres (29 ha) of grounds, including two conservation areas, adjoining a canal. The cemetery is home to at least 33 species of bird and other wildlife. This distinctive cemetery has memorials ranging from large mausoleums housing the rich and famous to many distinctive smaller graves and includes special areas dedicated to the very young. It has three chapels and serves all faiths. It is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London.
The parish of Trinity Church has three separate burial grounds associated with it in New York City. The first, Trinity Churchyard, is located in Lower Manhattan at 74 Trinity Place, near Wall Street and Broadway. Alexander Hamilton, Albert Gallatin, and Robert Fulton are buried in the downtown Trinity Churchyard.
Hokitika is a town in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island, 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Greymouth, and close to the mouth of the Hokitika River. It is the seat and largest town in the Westland District. The town's estimated population is 2,860 as of June 2022.
The Taramakau River is a river of the West Coast Region of the South Island of New Zealand. It rises in the Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana near Harper Pass, 80 kilometres (50 mi) due east of Hokitika, and runs westward for 75 kilometres (47 mi) into the Tasman Sea 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south of Greymouth.
John Lazar was an actor and theatre manager in Australia. He was Mayor of Adelaide from 1855 to 1858.
Edward Cephas John Stevens was a New Zealand politician in provincial government in Canterbury, and a member of both the lower and upper houses of parliament. A businessman, he controlled the Christchurch Press for many decades. He was instrumental in introducing cricket to Canterbury and one of his dealings as a land and estate agent resulted in the creation of Lancaster Park.
Charles Edward Douglas was a New Zealand surveyor and explorer, who came to be known as Mr. Explorer Douglas, owing to his extensive explorations of the West Coast of New Zealand and his work for the New Zealand Survey Department. He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society Gill Memorial Prize in 1897.
The Seaview Asylum was a psychiatric hospital located to the north of Hokitika, in the West Coast Region of New Zealand's South Island, adjacent to the former Westland Hospital. Open from 1872 to 2009, Seaview trained psychiatric nurses and was once the town's biggest employer.
Sergeant Major Edwin Bezar was an English soldier and author who fought in the Crimean War, counter-insurgency in the Aden Settlement and the New Zealand Wars. At his death in 1936 aged 97 he was the last surviving soldier of the 57th Regiment that had fought in the New Zealand Wars; he may have been the war’s last surviving combatant but this is impossible to confirm due to incomplete records. In retirement he was an active public servant for the New Zealand Defence Department, including organising the first Maori Rifle Corps of Volunteers in the 1870s. He was a prolific correspondent and wrote an account of his experiences in the New Zealand Wars.
James Holmes was a member of the New Zealand Legislative Council from Hokitika on the West Coast.
SS Marquette was a British troopship of 7,057 tons which was torpedoed and sunk in the Aegean Sea 36 nautical miles (67 km) south of Salonica, Greece on 23 October 1915 by SM U-35, with the loss of 167 lives.
The Hokitika Clock Tower, initially called the Westland War Memorial and then the Coronation and War Memorial, is a prominent landmark in Hokitika, New Zealand. The memorial was initiated, fundraised for, and carried out by a committee, to commemorate the region's contribution to the Second Boer War; not just the four local men who had died but all 130 who had gone to war in South Africa. An additional purpose was to provide Hokitika with a town clock.
This statue of Richard Seddon is in Hokitika, on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. The statue is situated on Sewell Street, outside the Government Buildings known as Seddon House.
Hokitika Gorge and the surrounding Hokitika Gorge Scenic Reserve are a major tourist destination some 33 kilometres (21 mi) or 40 minutes drive inland from Hokitika, New Zealand. Since August 2020, a second suspension bridge over the Hokitika River at the gorge provides the opportunity for a round track.
Elizabeth Mary Hudson was an early nurse in Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
Ebenezer Teichelmann, known as 'the little Doctor' to his friends, was an Australian-born surgeon, mountaineer, explorer, conservationist and photographer in New Zealand. He was a survivor of the sinking of the SS Marquette in 1915. He achieved 26 first ascents of mountains and seven first ascents, or crossings, of passes, cols, or saddles, and is credited with reviving climbing in New Zealand when the sport was almost dead. A keen photographer, he used a full-plate glass camera, which was hauled up many mountains. His photographs were used in books and advertisements, and helped to achieve conservation status for West Coast reserves.
Westland Hospital was one of two hospitals in Hokitika, on the West Coast of New Zealand. It was founded in 1865 and closed in 1989.
George Dobson was a New Zealand surveyor and engineer who was murdered in the Brunner Gorge on the West Coast by the Burgess Gang after being mistaken for a local gold buyer.
The Westland Explorers' Monument, also known as the Explorers' Monument, is an obelisk in Hokitika, New Zealand. It commemorates four men who lost their lives on the West Coast of the South Island between 1863 and 1866. The impetus for its erection in 1868 was the 1866 murder of George Dobson, and early on the monument was referred to as the Dobson Memorial. It was then referred to as the Weld Street Monument in reference to its original location in the centre of the intersection of Weld and Sewell streets. Deemed a traffic impediment, it was shifted to Hokitika Cemetery in 1880, but an even larger structure was put in its place at this intersection in 1902/1903: the Hokitika Clock Tower.