By Roselyn Fauth
We had a nice wee look around the Ashburton Museum recently, and I was interested to come across a small section about the Hall family. It was enough to spark curiosity as I knew the family name for totally different and more sinister reasons! After a quick Google, I confirmed that these were the ancestors of Thomas Hall, the man later accused of the murder of Captain Henry Cain. That deeply dark story only came to light when Hall’s wife, Kate (Kitty), became ill and a doctor realised she was being poisoned. It is a grim chapter in South Canterbury’s history, and one I have written about elsewhere.
But standing in front of the museum panels, I found myself wanting to step back from that later scandal and learn more about the wider family. Who were the Halls before the name became shadowed by suspicion and tragedy? Why was it once a name that carried respect? And how did a family with strong Ashburton roots also have such clear links to Timaru, including places we still know today, like Elloughton Grange, now part of a retirement village?
The Hall story begins in England, in the port city of Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire. The brothers’ father, George Hall, was a mariner and shipowner who rose to become an Elder Brother of Trinity House, the maritime authority responsible for navigation, pilotage and lighthouse services. This was a family familiar with administration, responsibility and the wider world...
Three brothers, George Williamson Hall, Thomas Hall, and John Hall, came to New Zealand in the early 1850s. John Hall, born in 1824, arrived in 1852, followed closely by his brothers. He was unusually well educated for the time, having studied in England and across Europe, and had worked in London’s General Post Office. That background shaped both his approach to farming and his later political life.
By 1854, the Hall brothers were among the first runholders in the Ashburton district. Settlement was sparse. A census recorded just 26 people living between the Rakaia and Rangitata rivers. The plains were open and largely treeless, and daily life was shaped by distance, weather and rivers.
Initially, the brothers settled north of the Rakaia River, simply because crossing it with sheep, wagons and people was dangerous and unreliable. The Rakaia was widely regarded as one of the most hazardous rivers in Canterbury, its braided channels shifting with every flood. Only by the late 1850s did George, Thomas and their families establish themselves on their properties south of the river.
One of those properties was Elloughton Station, located across the Rakaia in what is now South Canterbury. Living there meant isolation, particularly for women. The river was a constant barrier, shaping when and how people could travel, visit neighbours, or seek medical help. Contemporary descriptions repeatedly emphasise distance and difficulty.
The name Elloughton itself is revealing. It almost certainly derives from Elloughton in East Yorkshire, near Brough on the Humber. Like many early settlers, the Halls brought familiar place names with them as a way of anchoring identity and memory in a new and often unforgiving land.
That name did not disappear when the station itself faded from use. Instead, it travelled south and forward in time to Elloughton Grange, Timaru
The name Elloughton re-emerges very clearly in Timaru through Elloughton Grange, a substantial residence built in 1893 at 1 Pages Road. The property was originally part of land owned by T. W. Hall, who named it after his family home in England, continuing the same tradition of place-naming seen at Elloughton Station.
The house was built for William Grant (1843–1910), some twelve years after he acquired the property from Hall. Grant had emigrated from Scotland in 1865 and began his New Zealand working life as a shepherd. He went on to farm sheep in the Mackenzie high country and became a major exporter of frozen lamb, as well as a successful stock dealer. By the time of his death, his estate was valued at over £200,000, a clear indicator of the wealth achieved by some early settlers.
Elloughton Grange was designed by Maurice de Harven Duval, a French or Belgian architect who practised in Timaru between about 1877 and 1895, and built by Frank Palliser, a Yorkshire-born contractor who trained in England before emigrating. The house is designed in the Jacobean Revival style, a confident architectural statement of prosperity and permanence.
It is a two-storey brick building with balanced gabled façades, an entrance tower with decorative cresting, leadlight windows, ornamental plasterwork, and detailing intended to resemble masonry construction. Foundation ventilator grilles even feature the architect’s name, a rare and telling detail. The building demonstrates both high-quality craftsmanship and the aspirations of its owner.
The house remained in the Grant family until 1954, when it was purchased by the South Canterbury Hospital Board for use as a home for the elderly. Since 1992, the site has been developed as a commercial rest home and retirement village. While much of the original garden setting has been lost through redevelopment, the former house remains prominent within the site due to its height and architectural style.
Elloughton Grange is now recognised as a Category B historic heritage item by the Timaru District Council and is listed by Heritage New Zealand. Its significance lies not only in its architecture, but also in its layered associations with early landholding, settler wealth, architectural ambition and later social use as a place of care.
Portrait of Sir John Hall (1824–1907), New Zealand politician and former Premier. The image shows Hall in later life, wearing formal nineteenth-century attire with a full beard, reflecting his public status and respectability. Published in The New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal on 20 August 1892. Sir John Hall KCMG (c. 18 December 1824 – 25 June 1907) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 12th premier of New Zealand from 1879 to 1882. He was born in Kingston upon Hull, England, the third son of George Hall, a captain in the navy. At the age of ten he was sent to school in Switzerland and his education continued in Paris and Hamburg. After returning to England and being employed by the Post Office, at the age of 27 he decided to emigrate. He was also Mayor of Christchurch.
Sir John Hall (1824–1907) was 12th Premier of New Zealand (1879–1882), MP for Selwyn, Colonial Secretary (1856), 1st Chairman, Christchurch Town Council (1862–1863), and Mayor of Christchurch (1906–1907)
Born: 18 December 1824, Kingston upon Hull, England
Died: 25 June 1907, Christchurch
Buried: St John’s Cemetery, Hororata
Politics: Independent, conservative-leaning
Spouse: Rose Dryden (m. 1861–1900)
Children: Five
Family: George Williamson Hall (brother); Mary Grigg (granddaughter); Thomas Hall (nephew)
Public life and private worlds
Of the Hall brothers, John Hall became the most publicly prominent. He built up a substantial freehold estate of around 30,000 acres, farming it efficiently and demonstrating the value of tree planting on the Canterbury Plains. His influence soon extended beyond agriculture. Entering politics soon after his arrival, he served in local, provincial and national roles, eventually becoming Premier of New Zealand in 1879.
After stepping down as Premier due to ill health, John Hall took on what was widely regarded as his most difficult political role, championing women’s suffrage. In 1893, he famously rolled out the massive suffrage petition across the floor of Parliament, a moment that has become one of the most enduring images in New Zealand political history. He retired from politics later that year, shortly after the Bill was passed, and went on to serve as Mayor of Christchurch before his death in 1907.
His brother George Williamson Hall also entered politics, serving briefly as a Member of Parliament, while maintaining his pastoral interests. Together, the Hall brothers were firmly embedded in both landholding and governance during Canterbury’s formative decades.
Alongside public achievement sat quieter, more private lives. Sarah Hall, living at Elloughton Station across the Rakaia River, was described as the most isolated of the women. Her world was largely domestic, shaped by geography and family responsibility. When living in Timaru, her activities outside the home centred on the church. Her surviving letters provide rare insight into settler family life, including deep concern for the health of her children and the limits of colonial medicine in the 1850s.
The Hall name later became entwined with a very different story through Thomas Hall, a nephew of Sir John. Thomas married Kate Cain, daughter of Captain Henry Cain, and moved within respectable circles in Timaru. He acquired land, conducted business, and was connected by property transactions to other well-known local families.
One such link was through Kingsdown, south of Timaru. In 1878, George Gabites, a prominent Timaru businessman, purchased around 244 acres at Kingsdown from the Rhodes brothers of Levels Station. Some years later, that land passed out of the Gabites family and was sold to Thomas Hall. There was no family relationship between the Halls and the Gabites, but the transaction places Thomas Hall firmly within the same local land economy as other respected settler families.
That context matters. Hall did not live on the margins of society. He was embedded within it, benefiting from trust, reputation and association. The later revelations about his actions are unsettling precisely because they emerged from within that world.
I often find myself wondering about the conversations that must have been had with Thomas Hall. The casual chats. The business dealings. The polite nods in the street. Who crossed his path, and what did they see, if anything at all? Was it one desperate act that spiralled, or had he been crossing lines for some time before he was finally caught?
History records the moment of collapse: the illness, the trial, the conviction. But the fuller story lies in the long stretch before that, in the ordinary days when nothing seemed amiss. Trust, once broken, reshapes not only a life, but the memory of a family name.
What I think this can this tells us
Standing back from the details, the Hall story tells us as much about the time as it does about the family.
This was an era shaped by land and legitimacy. Ownership conferred status. Respectability was built through acreage, business connections, marriage and public office. Names mattered, and once established, they carried weight. The Halls moved easily within this world. They were educated, connected, and embedded in the systems that governed land, politics and trade. Their story reflects a society that valued progress, productivity and propriety, often without the tools to question what lay beneath.
Thinking critically about this period means resisting the urge to reduce people to heroes or villains. It means asking how reputation was constructed, who benefited from it, and who was excluded. It means recognising that wrongdoing was not always visible, and that trust could persist long after it should have been questioned.
It also invites us to think about what is remembered, and why. Names like Elloughton survive not because of moral judgement, but because they were attached to land, buildings and institutions. Elloughton Station disappeared from the map, yet Elloughton Grange remains. The house endured, adapted, and was repurposed, first as a private home, then as a place of care. The name was preserved because it was embedded in property and usefulness.
By contrast, other names vanish quietly. Street signs change. Places are renamed or absorbed. The absence of a name can speak as loudly as its survival. A lost name on a street sign often signals a shift in values. What once mattered no longer does, or what was once celebrated now sits uneasily with contemporary understanding. These decisions are rarely neutral. They reflect what a community chooses to honour, what it prefers to forget, and what it is still negotiating.
Looking closely at the Hall family encourages us to ask better questions. Not simply what happened, but how did people live with it, who was believed, and what systems allowed certain stories to endure while others faded. It reminds us that history is layered, contingent and human.
In the end, this is less about judging the Halls than about understanding the world they inhabited, and recognising how its values continue to shape our own. History does not sit still. It asks us, again and again, to look closely, to think critically, and to decide what we choose to carry forward.
Side Quest: The Halls and Women’s Suffrage
I keep coming back to that image of Sir John Hall entering the House of Representatives with a roll of paper so long it had to be unfurled across the chamber floor... It must have been a bit awkward. Physical. Slightly theatrical... By 1893, Hall was no political novice. He had been in Parliament for decades, had served as Premier of New Zealand, and was well practised in how symbolism worked inside the chamber. According to the Selwyn Stories account, he presented a suffrage petition so huge — collected by women across the colony — that it had to be unrolled in a continuous roll of paper. The message was clear: this was not a fringe issue, but something with mass support.
What is often glossed over, though, is why Hall did this.
Sir John Hall was not a radical reformer in the modern sense. He was a conservative politician, a sheep farmer at heart, and someone who valued order and stability as much as change. His support for women’s suffrage did not come from a belief in gender equality as we might frame it today. Instead, he viewed women’s participation in elections through the lens of social balance — believing that women voters would act as a moral and stabilising influence on politics and society.
This interpretation of Hall’s motivations is also discussed in the Selwyn Stories profile, which places his support for suffrage within his broader political worldview rather than portraying him as a modern feminist advocate.
That does not make his role insignificant. In fact, it makes it more revealing.
Women like Kate Sheppard and her allies had organised, campaigned, written, petitioned and persisted for years. Their efforts included enormous petitions, one of which ultimately carried nearly 32,000 signatures, representing close to a quarter of adult women in the colony. These petitions alone made it increasingly difficult for Parliament to ignore the movement.
But the political world they were trying to change was still entirely controlled by men. Only men could sit in the House of Representatives. So for the movement to succeed, it needed someone inside that system who was prepared to carry its voice forward — someone like Hall.
Hall’s contribution was strategic rather than sentimental. He understood parliamentary procedure, political timing and symbolism. On the night he presented the petition, he didn’t simply table it — he made the scale of women’s support physically visible by unrolling it across the floor of the chamber.
Further context: So did Sir John Hall advance women’s rights? Yes — but not in the straightforward way history sometimes simplifies.
He did not start the movement. Women did that. His involvement came at the intersection of political opportunity, conservative belief in social order, and the reality that the suffrage campaign had become too powerful to dismiss. When the Electoral Bill was passed on 19 September 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to grant women the vote.
Perhaps this complexity is the most useful thing to hold onto? I guess history rarely changes because everyone agrees for the same reasons. Sometimes it changes because enough people, with different motivations and different stakes, decide that the moment has arrived. Sir John Hall’s role in women’s suffrage sits in that tension — between conviction and caution, belief and pragmatism — and that, perhaps, tells us more about the time than any simple hero story ever could.
Source:
https://selwynstories.selwynlibraries.co.nz/nodes/view/265
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/the-suffrage-petition
Side Quest: Who was George Williamson Hall?
George Williamson Hall (1818–1896) was the eldest of the Hall brothers and, unlike his younger brother Sir John, played only a brief role in public life.
Born in Sculcoates, Yorkshire, George began his working life as a merchant seaman. In 1850, he married Agnes Emma Dryden in Kingston upon Hull. The couple emigrated to Canterbury in 1853 aboard the Royal Albert, following John Hall, who had arrived the year before. Family ties were close: Agnes’s sister, Rose Anne Dryden, later married John Hall.
After settling in Canterbury, George became a pastoralist. In 1861, with no prior political experience, he stood as an independent for the Heathcote electorate. He defeated Edward Wakefield, a member of a prominent political family, and entered the 3rd New Zealand Parliament. George represented Heathcote from 1861 to 1862, then resigned and returned to private life.
George Hall died in Christchurch on 27 February 1896 and is buried at St John’s Cemetery, Hororata. His short political career contrasts with the long public life of his brother, offering a reminder that not all early settlers sought lasting influence or prominence.
Side Quest: Who was Mary Grigg and how did she also carry the Hall legacy forward
Mary Victoria Cracroft Grigg, later Lady Polson (1897–1971), represents the next generation of the Hall family story, and one where women moved from influence behind the scenes into formal political power.
Born at Culverden in 1897, Mary was the granddaughter of Sir John Hall, and also of John Cracroft Wilson, another prominent nineteenth-century politician. Politics was not distant or abstract in her upbringing. It was part of family life. Her mother, Mildred Hall, was active in public and women’s organisations, reinforcing the idea that civic involvement was expected rather than exceptional.
Mary was educated in London, where she became head girl, and during the First World War she served in the Voluntary Aid Division, nursing wounded soldiers. These experiences shaped a strong sense of duty and public service that would later define her political life.
In 1941, she became the first woman elected to the Ashburton Hospital Board, and was already deeply involved in community organisations, including Plunket, the Red Cross, and women’s guilds. When her husband, Arthur Grigg, MP for Mid-Canterbury, died in 1941, Mary stepped into his role, elected unopposed in 1942 in what was then known as widow’s succession.
Mary Grigg was the fourth woman elected to Parliament, and the first woman from outside the Labour Party to do so. Her priorities reflected both her rural background and her concern for social wellbeing: farming, housing, health and education. Notably, she worked across party lines with other women MPs to argue for more women police officers, proper uniforms for them, and for women to be permitted to sit on juries.
In 1943, she married William Polson, also an MP, and chose not to stand again for Parliament. However, she remained politically active behind the scenes, helping shape National Party policy and supporting other women candidates. She was appointed an MBE in 1946, and later became known as Lady Polson after her husband was knighted.
Mary Grigg’s story sits neatly alongside that of her grandfather. Where Sir John Hall helped open the door to women’s political participation, Mary walked through it. Her career shows how change unfolds across generations: first through advocacy and legislation, then through presence, practice and leadership.
It is a reminder that political legacies are not always linear, but they do echo.
Thomas Hall — the uncomfortable contrast
If you follow the Hall name through history, a pattern begins to form. You encounter politicians, landholders and people associated with public service and civic life. Sir John Hall appears as Premier and supporter of women’s suffrage. His granddaughter Mary Grigg steps into Parliament decades later. The name, at first glance, carries weight... and then there is Thomas Hall.
When his name appears today, it is almost always accompanied by a qualifier. Not a title or a role, but a warning. Thomas Hall (murderer).
Thomas Hall was born in Hull, England, around 1848, and came to New Zealand as a child in the early 1850s. He was part of the extended Hall family and a nephew of Sir John Hall. For a time, his life followed a familiar and respectable path. He managed property connected to his uncle, established himself in Timaru as a commission agent, and dealt in land, money and insurance. He married into one of the town’s most prominent families. Outwardly, nothing marked him as an outlier.
Thomas Hall was as a partner in the Timaru commission agency Hall and Meason, a firm operating in the early 1880s that dealt in land sales, loans and other financial transactions. Through this business, Hall was embedded in Timaru’s colonial land and finance sector, working within networks that included banks, solicitors, landowners and investors. His livelihood depended heavily on trust, personal reputation and continued access to credit, leaving him particularly exposed during the economic downturn of the 1880s when confidence in speculative finance began to collapse.
Behind the scenes the economic downturn of the 1880s must have placed pressure on men whose livelihoods depended on credit and confidence. Hall’s financial dealings would have become increasingly precarious, and instead of retreating or failing openly, he turned to deception.
In 1885, he married Kate Emily Espie, the stepdaughter of Captain Henry Cain, Timaru’s second mayor and a widely respected figure. Cain’s sudden death in early 1886 did not immediately arouse suspicion. It was only later, when Kate herself became seriously ill, that doubts began to surface.
What ultimately exposed Hall was not rumour or reputation, but attention. A nurse noticed inconsistencies. A doctor questioned the pattern of illness. Samples were tested. Evidence accumulated. Slowly, a story that had been concealed behind respectability began to unravel.
Hall was convicted of attempted murder and multiple counts of forgery. A later conviction relating to Captain Cain’s death was overturned on appeal due to legal technicalities, but the public judgment was uncompromising. At sentencing, the judge described Hall as the most reprehensible criminal ever brought before a New Zealand court. He spent 21 years in prison, longer than was typical for a life sentence at the time.
When he was released, he left New Zealand. He died overseas, reportedly in Australia, under another name.
What makes Thomas Hall’s story so confronting is not simply the crime itself, but where it sits. He was not isolated or marginal. He was trusted. He moved within the same circles as men whose names remain carved into churches, towns and institutions. For a time, the Hall name offered him credibility and cover.
In the end, it could not protect him.
Within a family remembered for leadership and reform, Thomas Hall remains the exception. His story disrupts any neat narrative of inherited virtue or legacy. It reminds us that family names do not guarantee shared values, and that respectability can exist alongside profound harm.
The contrast is stark, and it lingers. And perhaps it should. History is not obliged to be comfortable. Sometimes its most instructive moments sit precisely where the story breaks down.
Catherine Emily Hall (née Elspie, later Cain, known as Kate or Kitty) was the daughter of Jane (née Ellis) Cain, her step father was Captain Henry Cain, half-sister of Jane Ellis (Espie) Collins, married Thomas Hall in Timaru on 26 May 1885, she was the mother of Nigel Cuthbert Hall born 1886; she would be forever linked to the story of the Timaru poisonings, with her husband convicted of one crime and suspected of another. Details from Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 24/07/2025, https://aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/773
Report of the Trial of Thomas Hall Charged with the Wilful Murder of Captain Cain. Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 23/07/2025, https://aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/43
Jane Cain (née likely Jane Ellis or Jane Espie) died on 26 July 1878, aged 59. This is confirmed by her headstone inscription in the Timaru Cemetery, which reads: "SACRED, To the Memory of JANE, The beloved Wife of Captⁿ HENRY CAIN, Who Died July 26ᵗʰ 1878, Aged 59 Years."
When Catherine was poseined they had moved from Kingstown to the Woodlands home. Catheines mother had passed away by then, I wonder if Thomas would have got so far into his plan if she had been alive to protect her husband and daughter. The household at the time of her poisoning included Miss Houston, a nurse, and servants. Section of a map of Timaru in 1875-6 by Wises Directory. Detail shows Cains Paddocks. Auckland Librarues Heritage Collections Map 6537a - No known copyright
Thomas Hall was convicted in 1886 of attempting to murder his wife, Kate Emily Hall, by poisoning her with antimony. He was also tried and found guilty in 1887 of murdering his stepfather-in-law, Captain Henry Cain, however, that murder conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal. Cain’s murder was quashed, and he was never legally punished for that crime, even though many believed he was guilty. Hall served 21 years in prison for the attempted murder of his wife. That was the only conviction that stood. He was released in later life and lived quietly in Australia as a travelling photographer, receiving a small allowance.. Timaru alleged poisoning case. Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 24/07/2025, https://aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/773 No known copyright
He then collapsed and the police inspector sent his assistant for brandy from the next room - The New Zealand Railways Magazine Volume 8 Issue 1 May 1 1933
Graves in the mist. The resting place of many including Jane and Captain Henry Cain. - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025
Captain Henry Cain - Timaru Borough Council mayor from 1870 to 1873. South Canterbury Museum - 2016/011.024
This statue commemorates Captain Henry Cain, who bought the landing service in 1870. Captain Cain to keep watch over city (17 Aug 1999). Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed
Source:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/black-sheep/story/201860563/poisoner-the-story-of-thomas-hall
https://selwynstories.selwynlibraries.co.nz/nodes/view/265