One of the people listed as eligible to be jurors in 1860/61 is Burgess, Richard Plummer, publican, Wairoa. He and his wife Winifred, nee Callaghan (an Irish Famine Orphan sent to Australia at age 14) had eventful lives, and I’m trying to fill in some gaps in my family history.

Richard was 5’9” tall, fair haired, blue eyed, and had his initials tattooed on his left arm (his seaman’s ticket still exists and I have a copy). He was originally Cornish. He and Win arrived in NZ from Australia in 1855 and remained around Wairoa until 1862, leaving to go to Christchurch. At the end of 1863 Richard was drowned, aged 40, in the loss of the Success off Wellington. Later Win remarried and went back to Australia with her younger children: no Burgesses still in the area are relatives as far as I can work out.

Captain Burgess is on the 1856 Electoral Roll for Hawkes Bay & Ahuriri. In December 1857 the newspaper records the death of his second child, two year old Mary Elizabeth, from drowning, and the birth of a son soon after. He is recorded in the shipping news on the Uncle John (schooner), arriving in Napier from Wairoa at various dates in 1857/58. In 1859 the Mohaka electoral roll records Burgess, Richd. Plummer, Master Mariner, with a household at Te Waiwa. (Where is that?) Then in 1860/61 he is a publican. It seems that he was a publican only for a year or two - but of what pub, and are there any records?

The final record of Richard is in the newspaper report of the wreck of the Success, when he is stated to have ‘formerly belonged to the schooner Crest of the Wave’. Does anyone know about this vessel, or the Uncle John mentioned earlier? Please contact me at migseder@paradise.net.nz
Many thanks,
Migs