Sue Rine stands with the headstone of her great, great, great grandfathers grave at the Timaru Cemetery. Samuel Williams was born in 1818  and laid to rest in 1883. With Ann, they were the parents of William Williams the first recorded birth of a European baby born in Timaru.

In Search of Ann Williams (1823–1860)

It began with whales. I thought I was simply following Timaru’s short whaling era, two brief seasons in the late 1830s. But the deeper I went, the more rabbit holes I uncovered. And then I noticed something missing: not a single woman’s name appeared in the record. That void of information then sent me searching... and that’s how I eneded up on a journey to find the grave of Ann Williams (nee Mahoney). 

After hunting for whales, then hunting for gold, Sam eventually found Ann. Now I am trying to find her grave.

Samuel “Yankie Sam” Williams first came to Timaru as a whaler, working for the Weller Brothers. When their whaling business collapsed, Sam moved to Akaroa to work for the Rhodes brothers, and later crossed the Tasman to try his luck at Ballarat’s goldfields. I think that this is where he met Ann. Her maiden name was Mahoney (although was recorded as Manry at times). She was born 1823 in Cork, Ireland. 

Ann's father was Patrick Mahoney was born in 1801 to Ellen Casey and Danl Mahony.
Ann's mother was Catherine Rourke, her parents at this stage are unknown.

Ann ad two children with a guy nicknamed Yankie Sam. Samuel Williams was born on 21 June 1818 in Taunton, Massachusetts, USA, to Lucy Stowell, age 26, and Thomas Williams, age 27. The family research suggests he may have come off an American Whaling ship in 1840 aged 17. But I think it might have been in New Zealand a bit earlier becuase of other information showing when he was in Timaru. His daughter Rebecca was born in 1854 in Ballarat, Victoria to Ann. His son William was born on 22 September 1856 in Timaru, Canterbury to Ann.

With their daughter Rebecca, they left Ballarat, and moved to Timaru, New Zealand. By then the Rhodes family had moved inland to huge sheep station 'The Levels' the original house still stands close to Pleasant Point. The Rhodes left the basic 1851 beachside cottage at the foot of George Street, Timaru. It was built to as accomodation to link to the supply ships mooring just off shore. Where whales were onced pulled in, wool was later exported and this was the early trade that got Timaru and the region's colonial chapter started. Sam and Ann moved in, and in that simple home Ann gave birth to William Williams – the first recorded European baby born in Timaru.

I wonder if they were madly in love. Or if it was a partnership that gave them both opportunity..

Who Was Here Before the Settlers?

Of course, Timaru was not an empty place. For centuries, different iwi lived, travelled, and gathered kai along this coast. Waitaha were the earliest people remembered in South Island traditions, followed by Kāti Māmoe, and later Ngāi Tahu, who became the predominant iwi in the region.

The shoreline was an important mahinga kai, a place of food gathering and travel. But by the time Ann and Sam arrived in the mid-1850s, the history books describe the Timaru foreshore as scattered with abandoned Māori huts. The larger Māori population were living in Temuka.

So when Ann began her life at the bay, she was stepping into a place where Māori presence was still visible, though later settlers would write of it as “deserted”. That framing is part of the colonisation story I think too.

The Baby in a Gin Crate

Life was tough and resources scarce on the raw shoreline of Timaru. History books recall that William’s cradle as a gin crate – a detail that I think says alot about those early years. For all the importance later attached to his “first European baby” title, his beginnings were as rough and makeshift as the settlement itself.

When Sam and Ann first arrived, there were no other Europeans in Timaru. Within just a few years the settlement grew to around seventeen pioneers. Then, in 1859, everything changed: the immigrant ship Strathallan arrived, bringing 110 new settlers to the shore.

Ann was there to see it. She welcomed strangers, raised her children, and helped lay the foundations of a community. Her time in Timaru was short, barely four years, but she was part of its earliest chapter of colonisation.

1868 photograph of the foot of George Street, Timaru, shows the Rhodes cottage built in 1851 by George Rhodes and his employees near the landing site for ships. The site had once been an abandoned whaling station, used to land stores and ship wool, and at the time it was the only habitation between Lake Ellesmere and the Waitaki River. The cottage was a simple 20-foot hut with battened sides, clay-plastered walls, and a thatched tussock roof. Its steeply pitched roof was designed to shed rain and snow, and it sat on the beach backed against the coastal escarpment — a practical spot close to the landing service rather than a scenic one. By 1857, Archdeacon Harper recorded being warmly received there by Samuel Williams, his wife Ann, and their son. The couple had converted the cottage into a general store and informal inn, providing supplies and shelter to travellers. This was the beginning of Sam’s role as hotelkeeper and community host, and he was listed as a storekeeper and householder (No. 57) on Timaru’s first electoral roll in 1858.

Views of today, from the site where the 1851 Rhodes cottage was at the foot of George Street, and corner of Turnbull St. - Photography By Roselyn Fauth

The Woman Who Vanished from the Records

Ann’s story could have ended there – and in many ways it nearly did. Samuel’s grave is easy enough to find in Timaru Cemetery. But Ann’s? It has remained a complete mystery.

She died on 16 November1860 Timaru, South Canterbury, New Zealand, collapsing in the doorway of the Timaru Hotel that George Rhodes had built for them. By then the Williams family had worked their way up – William owned the hotel’s chattels, and opportunity seemed close at hand.

Ann was only 37, with two little children – Rebecca aged 6,  and William aged 4 were left behind with their father Sam who was 42.

The cased and coloured ambrotype pictured here. ... shows Rebecca and William Williams, the children of one of our earliest settlers Samuel and Ann Williams. Rebecca Hobbs born 1854 Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, and died 1856 buried in Linwood Cemetery, Christchurhc. It would have been a relatively rare and expensive item for a working man like Sam. His story, which also mentions his son William Williams, born 1856 in Timaru, was the first European child born in Timaru and used a gin crate as his crib. - Courtesy of the South Canterbury Museum 3438. 

I assumed she might have been laid to rest near the first recorded burials in Timaru Cemetery – two men who drowned in a sea rescue only a month earlier. But the records are silent. To this day, Ann’s final resting place is unknown. Although after a lot of cemetery history hunting, I have a few theories, but I doubt I will ever be able to prove them. It is strange to me that she is not in the cemetery records, she should have been entry number three. So, I am curious why she didn't make it onto the list, which could suggest she isn't buried at the cemetery. If she is, her location is not in any record that I can find today.

2 March 1861 Samuel Williams married his second wife, Mary Ann Gardner (born in 1845 in Gloucestershire to Caroline Curtis and Henry Gardner) on 2 March 1861 when he was 42 years old. He was 42, Mary was 16. Their daughter Emily was born on 14 August 1862.

Ann's record of death confirms a few deatils, and but no grave location. I wrote back and asked if they could explain the fields on this register image... they noted that in 1861 the place of burial was not asked for. So the government does not hold that information, unfortunately. The record lists her as 35 years old. Althought family records say she was 37. Apoplexy was recorded as the cause of death

Hunting through records and cemeteries, so far the location of Ann's grave is a mystery.

The Day I Met a Descendant

After many hours in the South Canterbury Museum research room, the staff knew about my hunt. So when descendant Sue Rine arrived in town for a short visit from Taranaki, they kindly connected us. (Gotta love a small city!).

I practically flew out the door when I got the call. Meeting Sue at Samuel’s grave was surreal – the first time I’d stood beside a blood relative of the Williams family. I tried not to stare too hard, but I couldn’t help studying her face, wondering if any trace of Sam or Ann lingered there. I was also super nervous, till now I had been researching and sharing what I had found, and I was worried about how she may have felt about that. Fortunatly she was lovely. I think she was surprised at how much interest I had. I gave her a tour of the cemetery, pointing out the graves of people that Ann and Sam would have known. And we talked about what Timaru might have been like then. She was happy for me to take her photo, and I was super excited when she was happy to share her chapter of this history hunt with Timaru Herald reporter, Racheal Comer.

Sue Rine - great great great granddaughter of Ann and Sam Williams at Sams grave in Timaru - Photograph By Roselyn Fauth

Carrying On the Work of Nola Towgood

Meeting Sue, was a relief. I was conscious of having written so much about the family without knowing how they would feel. I worried that it wasn't my story to tell. Years earlier, descendant Nola Towgood had devoted decades to researching and publishing their story, but she had since passed away. Her work gave me a head start – and a responsibility.

Sue was warm and generous. She connected me with Lindsay, a researcher in the family who has carried the torch since Nola’s passing.

Nola Towgods family history book on the Williams Family at the South Canterbury Museum complied from 20 plus years of research. Nola is a decsendant from Ann and Sam Williams. She passed away Peacefully in Tauranga on Friday 27th March 2015 aged 85, married to Iam Towgood, mother of Jenny and Chris Wilson, and Rob and Helen. Nana to her grandchildren, Sonya, Rhys and Libby, Craig and Mitzi, and Mark; Kylie and Russell, Blake and Chelsea, and Alice. And very special nana to her 2 great grandaughters, Ava and Tilly. 

Thinking Carefully About Whose Story We Tell. Meeting Sue made me pause in ways I hadn’t expected. It made me think carefully about how we share another family’s story – whose voices are centred, what details we highlight, and what we leave out. As a amituer researcher I am piecing together fragments from the past, but for descendants these fragments are deeply personal. Even 165 years on, the way Ann is remembered matters. It has taught me that history is not only about facts; it is also about respect.

Meeting Sue, and now in contact with Lindsay, has reminded me to think carefully about how we share another family’s story – whose voices are centred, what details we highlight, and what we leave out. But also to be mindful that we don't have the full story.

When History Drops Your Jaw

I have had a few emails back and forth with Lindsay. And he told me, how after Nola published her researched, the family has been using DNA. This science has uncovered new family connections and stories for them. When I read his email, my jaw dropped to the floor. Even 165 years later, Ann’s life continues to surprise.

I won’t share the details here – I need to think about this and make sure I am careful and sensitive. Even now 165 years since Ann's passing, the latest revelations are a powerful reminder that history is never complete. Every family carries private truths alongside the public record. Let's just say, for now, Ann had a whole other life in Australia before she met Sam.

Side Quests and Fellow Travellers

These side quests have also led me to meet new people who, like me, are drawn into the past. What begins as a simple curiosity often becomes something much bigger – they too catch the bug and end up buried deep in archives, both physical and digital.

The era we live in now is an exciting one for history hunters. As more material is digitised, it becomes easier to glimpse lives once thought lost. Even wills are now just a few clicks away. And those documents remind me, while many people tried to control their stories during their lifetimes – sometimes through silence, sometimes through deliberate family cover-ups – the truth can eventually find its way out.+

Tony Rippin at South Canterbury Museum giving Roselyn Fauth a quick hand to triangulate peoples burials around the time ann passed to see if there is a pattern. The process threw a few questions and theories, but nothing to hang our hat on. Photography By Roselyn Fauth 2025

What Ann Taught Me

I’ve since learned more about the lives of Ann, Sam, and of their children, William and Rebecca. Even the stories of the Williams kids, stepmother and stepsister who joined their story after Ann’s death. I don't think every thread was happy. Some chapters of their lives seemed scandalous. The hunt has taken me down to Otago, and up Kumara's Larrikins Road into the gold rushes of New Zealand, and now further still, to a new question: how did Ann, a woman from Cork, find her way to Australia in the first place? She was 31 when she had her daughter Rebecca. What had she been up to until then?

Larrikins Road, Kumara, hunting for a rock to bring home as a monument to Ann.  - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025

What I do know, is that Australia we know today was famously shaped by its convict immigrant past. Could Ann’s journey have links to that story? That may be the next side quest – into understanding who we are, where we come from, and how the choices, some successes and some failures can ripple through to the present. Because in the end, we are all human. We all make mistakes, we can worry about public fashions and expectations. Learning about Ann, has reminded me not to be so hard on myself, or so critical of others. We are all human.

What began as a small hunt for whaling facts has become so much more. I’ve now written over 100 blogs, each an attempt to bring voices from the margins – especially women’s voices – onto the page.

Ann was a mother. She lived, loved, and worked beside her husband in a very different world we live in today. She welcomed new immigrants to a fragile coastal community and helped shape its beginnings. And then she was gone far too soon.

Her story made me take a moment and think. As a woman and a mother today, I have freedoms Ann never had. I have choices. Many women of her time did not – their paths shaped by law, expectation, and circumstance.

They were not always remembered in the history books as the “first” or the “best” or the "most". But their lived mattered. They endured. They built homes, raised children, and held families together, were entrepreneurs. And because of women like Ann, I am here today, able to tell her story and shape my own and impact others, like my own children.

I am reminded that everything I do ripples forward. I will become another link in the timeline. I have found myself standing where I worked out her doorway would have been. My view is so different to hers from 165 years ago. I wonder what she would think about me learning her story today. I wonder what story she would want me to tell.

So thank you, Ann, for teaching me this.

Rest in peace.

Register of Deaths, Saint Mary's Church Timaru Parish records of deaths. Ann appears to be listed as number 12, November 18, 1860, 36 years.

Burials in the Parish of Timaru Canterbury, N.Z. 1860
No./ When Buried / Name and Surname / Age / Name of Parents or
Husband / Place of Residence / By Whom the ceremony was performed
1 May 15th. 1860 Helena Mary-Ann 15 Months Spencer A. Percival & Marianne Percival (P) Albury Station Geo. Foster
2 May 15th. 1860 Caroline Percival 2 Mo. Spencer A. Percival & Marianne Percival (P) Albury Station Geo. Foster
3 July 11th. 1860 Perriman 3 weeks “ “ Arowhenua Bush Geo. Foster
4 June 29th. 1860 Henry Clayson 23 yrs “ “ Timaru Geo. Foster
5 Sep 1st. 1860 Charles Kennedy 25 yrs “ “ Arowhenua Bush Geo. Foster
6 Sep. 2nd. 1860 John Henry Wilson 7 weeks John Wilson (P) Timaru Geo. Foster
7 Sep. 15th. 1860 _ Roberts 7 weeks “ “ Timaru Geo. Foster
8 Sep. 24th. 1860 James Day 32 yrs “ “ Arowhenua Bush Geo. Foster
9 October 4. 1860 Henry Fredrick Maslin 7 mon Caleb Maslin (P) Timaru Geo. Foster
10 October 16 1860 Dennis Corey 30 yrs “ “ Timaru Geo. Foster
11 October 16. 1860 William Bowbyas [Bowbyes] 33. Yrs “ “ Timaru Geo. Foster
12 Novem. 18 1860 Ann Williams 36 yrs Samuel Williams (S) Timaru Geo. Foster

Burials in the Parish of Timaru Canterbury, N.Z. 1860
No./ When Buried / Name and Surname / Age / Name of Parents or
Husband / Place of Residence / By Whom the ceremony was performed
1 May 15th. 1860 Helena Mary-Ann 15 Months Spencer A. Percival & Marianne Percival (P) Albury Station Geo. Foster
2 May 15th. 1860 Caroline Percival 2 Mo. Spencer A. Percival & Marianne Percival (P) Albury Station Geo. Foster
3 July 11th. 1860 Perriman 3 weeks “ “ Arowhenua Bush Geo. Foster
4 June 29th. 1860 Henry Clayson 23 yrs “ “ Timaru Geo. Foster
5 Sep 1st. 1860 Charles Kennedy 25 yrs “ “ Arowhenua Bush Geo. Foster
6 Sep. 2nd. 1860 John Henry Wilson 7 weeks John Wilson (P) Timaru Geo. Foster
7 Sep. 15th. 1860 _ Roberts 7 weeks “ “ Timaru Geo. Foster
8 Sep. 24th. 1860 James Day 32 yrs “ “ Arowhenua Bush Geo. Foster
9 October 4. 1860 Henry Fredrick Maslin 7 mon Caleb Maslin (P) Timaru Geo. Foster
10 October 16 1860 Dennis Corey 30 yrs “ “ Timaru Geo. Foster Inscription reads "In Loving Memory Of Morris Clayson Cory, Drowned off Timaru October 6th 1860, Aged 30 years. In the midst of life we are in death. Also Elizabeth Thompson Wife of the Above Who Died March 20th 1913, Aged 85 Years. Reunited after many years. H.B. Hall." His spouse Elizabeth Thompson Cory born 1828 was buried there 1913. Section General, Row 27, Plot 17.
11 October 16. 1860 William Bowbyas [Bowbyes] 33. Yrs “ “ Timaru Geo. Foster
12 Novem. 18 1860 Ann Williams 36 yrs Samuel Williams (S) Timaru Geo. Foster

In 1860, Ann Williams passed away, leaving what looks like a profound void in the life of her husband, Samuel Williams. As her grandson later wrote, her death deprived Sam of the stability, sound guidance, and steady influence that his restless spirit and easygoing business habits relied on. Ann had been the heart of their home and the grounding force behind their early success in Timaru, remembered not only as a devoted mother but as a kind and capable woman who helped shape the beginnings of the town. - Lyttelton Times, Volume XIV, Issue 840, 28 November 1860, Page 4.  There was no record published in the Timaru Herald, because the newspaper hadn't been established then. Incidentally, the first edition of the Timaru Herald was printed in the Williams George Street Kitchen.

This photo taken several hundred meters in front of her home on reclaimed land, is probably more what Ann's view was like from her house on George Street about 170 years ago!  - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025

George St and Stafford St Intersection ca1871 -1878. South Canterbury Museum

Above: The Fauth Family from Timaru, on a history hunt at the Greymouth Cemetery, paying our respects at the graves of Sarah and William Williams. Chris, Medinella 10, Annabelle 6, and Roselyn Fauth. Chris grew up in Greymouth and his ancestors lived in Kumara. The family go on adventures to find free fun, and share their stories to inspire others to learn about the past and have meaningful fun with their families for free.

Visit to the Linwood Cemetery to find the grave of Rebecca Hibbs (nee Williams). She married William Hobb, but when Rebecca died, he remarried. So William Hobbs is buried with his second wife. Rebecca Hobbs nee Williams is buried in section 24  an unmarked grave. The cemetery was damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes and it was sad to see the destruction. I guess it is too mammoth a task to restore the headstones, and make sure they didn't fall down again.

If we can't find her grave, maybe we can create a memorial to her.

We collected a rock from her sons Larrikin Gold Claim tailings near Kumara. Maybe this could be incorporated into a monument?

Along Larrikins Road, at the back of Dilmans town near Kumara, lies a pile of lichen covered rocks, remnants from the gold mining days known as tailings. Ann's son Williams Williams was Timaru's first recorded European baby to be born in the area, and was nicknamed Flash Billy by the goldminers for his fancy Christchurch attire, and was one of the three Larrikins who discovered one of the West Coast’s richest gold-bearing leads in the 1870s.

There are two stories on how the trio earned that nickname, one from breaking windows and being chased into the bush by the cops, the other having a bit lair up one night after their discovery of a gold seam deep in the Taramakau glacial gravels. From sleeping in a gin cradle as a baby on the East Coast, to raising his family on the West Coast, it is fun to imagine the change he witness and the life he lived. I think Ann could have scrunched her nose at his Larrikin behaviour, but maybe would have been proud of her sons contribution to gold mining history, and his legacy through his children.

We chose a rock from the roadside and brought it home as a way to remember the Williams family. Our next step is to work with the Timaru District Council and the South Canterbury Museum to explore the possibility of creating a memorial to the family here in Timaru, maybe even to all the mothers who are often missed in the history books, using this very rock. Photography: Roselyn Fauth, 2025

Hunting for Ann, unearthed a very sad situation at the Timaru Cemetery. A situation across the country. Where today, many people rest in unmarked graves. In Timaru there are over 700 people assigned to "row 0". They government paid for their burial, a term known as pauper grave. If the government stepped in to cover costs, the deal was you were not allowed a headstone. So like Ann, there are many who rest under the lawn. When I saw someone playing with their dog and running over their graves, I realised that a memorial would be helpful to remind people that people are resting there. And I hope that the memorial might bring some peace to the families and friends who morn those who rest in un marked graves.

From whaling connections through his father, to being part of Timaru’s first pub, losing his mother at a young age, working as a carpenter in Christchurch, and raising nine children while toiling in the goldfields, imagine the change he witnessed. His life is just one of many stories of early European settlers who helped lay the foundations of community life we know today. From sleeping in a gin cradle on the East Coast to becoming the West Coast’s Fancy Billy, a goldmining Larrikin from Timaru, his journey must have had grit and spirit to make the most of those times.

William Williams, was born in Timaru in October 1857 and died in Greymouth in 1936. William would have be around six years old at the time he experienced his parents Timaru Hotel burn down, two years after the hotel opened and his mother Ann died. He worked for a time in Christchurch as a carpenter, then walked to Kumara in the 1870s in search of gold. One of the stories says veteran miners deceive them about the best spots to go hunting, but they strike gold anyway. Their claim is dubbed “The Larikins”. William was one of those infamous trio of "Larrikins" and was nicknamed "Flash Billy" Williams due to his Christchurch attire. Their gold discovery was significant in the area, during the second to last New Zealand gold rush in Kumara. William married Sarah Ann SHIMPLETON (Born: May 31, 1862 in Tasmania, Australia, Died: June 23, 1939, Greymouth, New Zealand). They Married: December 24, 1879, Kumara, West Coast, New Zealand

West Coast New Zealand History (17th Dec 2022). Kumara from the air showing Goldfields and Dillmanstown and Larrikins.1959.. In Website West Coast New Zealand History. Retrieved 12th May 2025 06:38, from ;https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/31706

Standing on the Coastal Track link, looking West to the lawn where I often see people walking and playing with their dogs. There are over 700 people who rest in row 0 which are the pauper graves, the burials funded by the government.

Looking out North and the East to the area where people rest in government funded burials - Photo Roselyn Fauth July 2025

Roselyn Fauth with Les Jones from Aorangi and Harding Memorials (a long-standing member of the New Zealand Master Monumental Masons’ Association NZMMMA) planning the monuments and hunting for rocks.

Looking out to the Timaru Cemetery, wondering where Ann could be.  - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025

Thank you to Racheal Comer from the Timaru Herald for sharing my hunt for Ann.

The Original Gates, designed by architect Jame's Turnbull. - Photograph Roselyn Fauth 2025

Sam was buried in 1883 a year after the cemetery chapel was built. His grave would have been very close behind the chapel.

Medinella Fauth points to the plaque on the Timaru Landing Services Building - Photo Roselyn Fauth. When the Williams family vacated the cottage to move into the Timaru Hotel, it was occupied by Captain Scotte, the Rhodes’ business agent. In 1867, it passed into the hands of S. S. Griffin, who held it until 1872, when it was sold for fourteen pounds and demolished to make way for a commercial building.

Elizabeth Wood married George Rhodes on the 31 May 1854 at Lyttelton. A few weeks after their wedding the couple headed south, enduring many hardships as they crossed the plains to George's station 'The Levels'. George died in 1864 and in 1867 the widowed Elizabeth remarried local lawyer Arthur Perry. Elizabeth passed away in 1890.

This is the best description I could find to imagine what the cottage was like:

Whale Pot at Patiti Point, Timaru. - Photography by Roselyn Fauth 2025.

FDM-0690-G-TimaruFromTheAir-Caroline Bay harbour and town-DougMill-air transport and survey business from a hangar at Hobsonville Point between 1927-1937- Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections FDM-0690-

Help Us Honour Ann and All Who Rest in Unmarked Graves

Around 1856 in Timaru, Ann Williams with her husband, the American whaler turned publican Samuel “Yankie Sam” Williams, and their two kids, were the first European family to permanently settle in the area. Ann helped open the town’s first hotel, welcomed new settlers, and raised eldest child Rebecca, and William “Flash Billy” Williams, who was was the first recorded birth of a European child in Timaru.

Ann collapsed and died in doorway of the Timaru Hotel on George Street in 1860 at the age of 35, leaving behind two young children and her husband. She was the mother of Timaru's first recorded European birth, and welcomed many new immigrants and early European settlers who visted and moved to Timaru. Today, her grave is not only unmarked, it is unknown. After hunting and hunting, we don't think we will ever find our where she rests. Her story, nearly lost, I believe deserves to be remembered with a small monument by her husbands headstone and grave.

Through the journey of looking for Ann, I have also learned that over 700 people rest in Timaru's cemetery in unmarked graves assigned to row 0. When people couldn't afford a burial, the government stepped in on the condition that a headstone would not be raised. I learned that this was very difficult for some families to accept and often brought shame. Some burials were held at night, some without ceremony. So with your help I would like to also remember those who rest in unmarked graves in front of a large area of lawn where many "pauper graves" as they were known are.

The Timaru District Council has approved the plan. The Civic Trust is supporting the project by enabling us to fundraise through their registered charity account. Mason Les Jones from Aorangi and Harding Memorials has generously donated his time, so we just have to raise funds to:

• Install a memorial rock with a plaque for Ann Williams, using a rock brought from her son’s Larrikin goldmining site in Kumara to be placed with her husbands grave at the Timaru Cemetery. Ann's metal casted plaque  $900 + GST $135 Total: $1,035

• Erect a second memorial boulder and plaque to honour 700+ people buried in pauper graves + those in unmarked graves in Timaru Cemetery metal casted plaque
  Option A – Medium (300x200mm plaque) $1,300 + GST $195 Total: $1,495
  Option B – X Large (400x300mm plaque) $2,600 + GST $390 Total: $2,990
  

As of 08/08/2025 we have raised $1595 of the goal $4,025... Still to Raise: $2,430

"By learning about people from our past, we better understand where we’ve come from and who we are today. Then we can make better choices for our future. These monuments will help ensure that those who rest in unmarked graves... people who shaped our city and region, are recognised and remembered with the dignity they deserve by the community." - Roselyn Fauth

Please contact me, Roselyn Fauth This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for the bank details to donate to. 

The Timaru Civic Trust is a registered New Zealand charity, so donors can file a Donation Tax Credit (Rebate) with the IRD to request 33% of their donation back. Once your donation is received, a Donation Receipt for this purpose can be provided upon request by the Trust.

Thank you so much
Roselyn Fauth

Roselyn Fauth with Les Jones from Aorangi and Harding Memorials (a long-standing member of the New Zealand Master Monumental Masons’ Association NZMMMA) planning the monuments and hunting for rocks.

You may be wondering why I have become so passionate about creating these two monuments. It began while I was learning about Timaru’s early whaling history and discovered that a whaler’s wife, Ann Williams, became the mother of the first recorded European baby born in Timaru.

Sam left and returned to Timaru from Ballarat Australia, with Ann and their daughter Rebecca around 1856. They had William Williams in Timaru, and lived in a 1851 cottage built for George Rhodes, on George Street, Timaru where they established an accommodation house. Sam became the first licenced publican in Timaru. In 1860 with the help of George, they built the Timaru Hotel on the same block. Tragically later that year, Ann collapsed and died in the doorway of the Timaru Hotel just four years after she had arrived, leaving behind two young children and her husband. Timaru's first European permanent residents were now missing their wife and mother. Sam, now a widower married his children's' 16 year old governess, Mary Ann Gardner and together had a third child. The marriage did not last, and Mary moved to Hokitika with their daughter. Later, Sam and the two children moved to Christchurch, and William in his 20s moved to Kumara. Sam returned to Timaru and died 1883, aged 66. He rests in the Timaru cemetery behind where the old chapel would have been with a headstone erected by his friends.

My search for Ann's grave revealed something unexpected... while we have records of her death, no one knows seems to know where she was laid to rest. I hunted and hunted with the help of many professionals, we can't find her anywhere. This mystery led me to learn that Timaru Cemetery holds more than 700 unmarked graves, including over 200 stillborn babies. At first, I assumed it was due to a lack of records, but I later learned that those who could not afford burial costs were laid to rest with government assistance, in what were called pauper graves.

I was told that many families felt deep shame at not being able to afford the burial. to the point that some burials were carried out in secret, without ceremony, even at night, to protect the dignity of the deceased. And so, the records were also scare because families purposely hid the information for privacy. Even to this day, the rule still stands, that descendants are not permitted to place headstones on these graves. I suspect to prevent the misuse of public funds. The result is that these lives remain unacknowledged, only found with a search in row 0.

My journey to find Ann has taken me on many side quests and now led to a greater mission: to honour her with one small monument by her husbands grave, and to dedicate a second larger monument to the many who rest in unmarked graves, to recognise them, remember them, and help the community know why Timaru Cemetery holds so many humps and hollows in the lawns.

Cemetery search for row 0 brings up 717 peoples records in the Timaru Cemetery.

Standing on the Coastal Track link, looking West to the lawn where I often see people walking and playing with their dogs. There are over 700 people who rest in row 0 which are the pauper graves, the burials funded by the government.

Looking out North and the East to the area where people rest in government funded burials - Photo Roselyn Fauth July 2025

In 1860, Ann Williams passed away, leaving what looks like a profound void in the life of her husband, Samuel Williams. As her grandson later wrote, her death deprived Sam of the stability, sound guidance, and steady influence that his restless spirit and easygoing business habits relied on. Ann had been the heart of their home and the grounding force behind their early success in Timaru, remembered not only as a devoted mother but as a kind and capable woman who helped shape the beginnings of the town. - Lyttelton Times, Volume XIV, Issue 840, 28 November 1860, Page 4.  There was no record published in the Timaru Herald, because the newspaper hadn't been established then. Incidentally, the first edition of the Timaru Herald was printed in the Williams George Street Kitchen.

Here is my deep dive into a history hunt for Ann Williams... First Recorded European Mother in Timaru.

It started with the whalers.... I was researching their brief but significant chapter in Timaru’s early history. Although their Wellerman Whalers time here lasted only two seasons in 1839-1840, I imagine it was one of the first moments Māori encountered Europeans in this part of the world. Remnants of those days are still visible at Caroline Bay and Patiti Point where their whaling tri pots have been put out on display. Among the whalers Long John coffin, Billy the Bull, there is one name that went down in the history books... Samuel (Yankie Sam) Williams. He had sailed out on the Wellermans whale ship the Caroline, and lived at Patiti Point while spotting whales. You may remember the tik tok hit, "When the Wellerman Come"... well that was Sam's employers and it is quite plausible that sea shanty was sung here on our shore. 

The stations at Caroline Bay and Patiti Point were strategically located to exploit the migratory paths of southern right and sperm whales. The shore-based boats typically targeted right whales, which entered bays on the high tide and exited on the ebb. Sperm whaling continued offshore, but the rising demand for baleen (whalebone) shifted focus to right whales. Whales were pulled ashore at Caroline Bay. A small stream called Pohatu-koko, nicknamed Whales Creek, flowed nearby. This site is now commemorated by a whale pot located at the viaduct entrance beneath the railway bridge.

In 1839 the Sydney-based Weller brothers established a short-lived whaling station at Timaru. By the time Walter Mantell made this sketch, in 1848, the station was deserted. Mantell, Walter Baldock Durrant, 1820-1895 :MotuMotu, Timaru. Oct 20 Friday 1848.. Mantell, Walter Baldock Durrant 1820-1895 :[Sketchbook, no. 2] 1848. Ref: E-333-006. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

Sam worked for the Weller brothers, but when they went broke, he took a job with the Rhodes family at Kaituna Station in Akaroa. Sam told the Rhodes about the open plains and good sheep country here in South Canterbury. His stories inspired them to establish the Levels Station, one of the region’s most significant early sheep runs. When Sam heard about the discovery of gold in Ballarat, he rushed to Australia to find gold. I'm not sure how successful he was, but what he did find was a wife, Ann Williams (nee Mahoney also recorded as Manry) (born in Cork Ireland 1823), and together they had their first child, Rebecca born in Australia 1854. Around 1856 Sam returned to Timaru with his new family to work for the Rhodes brothers.

They moved into the Rhodes' 1851 shore station cottage at the foot of George Street, on the South side of where the Landing Services Building stands today. IT was recorded that at that time there was no one living in the area, with the Rhodes family now living at the Levels Estage, the Williams' were the first permanent European family to settle in Timaru. You can see the cottage in this photo below. 

This is where their son William Williams was born, September 22, 1856.  It is important to note that while Ann is credited with the first European birth in Timaru, two women Elizabeth Rhodes who lived at Levels near Pleasant Point, and Margaret Hoornbrook who lived at Arowhenua Station had become mothers earlier but seen as "living outside of Timaru". Sadly Elizabeth's four year old son died in 1859, and his headstone is not far from where Sam rests today. I don't know if her son was buried there, or if the stone was just laid in memory.  William Richard Hornbrook, born in Temuka in 1854, is recognised as South Canterbury’s first European baby, William Williams holds the unique honour of being the first born in Timaru.

1868 Photograph of the foot of George Street, Timaru, circa 1868. It was built in 1851 by George Rhodes and his employees. It was the only habitation between Lake Ellesmere and the Waitaki River at the time. The cottage was a simple structure with battened sides, a clay-plastered exterior, and a thatched tussock roof, located near present-day George Street. In 1857, Archdeacon Harper visited Timaru during his journey from Christchurch to Moeraki and was warmly received by Samuel Williams, his wife, and son. A commemorative plaque was placed on the site in 1955. Harper's letters from September 1857 mention encountering an old whaler (Williams) living in a hut with his family near the seacoast. Williams shared whaling stories with Harper during this visit; his wife provided directions for Harper's journey to Waimate. The building is pictured in the centre is a landing service building (either the Timaru Landing and Shipping Company or the George Street Landing Service), while Rhodes' original cottage is to the left. South Canterbury Museum 2000/210.095

I have stood where I believe their doorway once was. I looked out across the railway lines to the port stores and tried to imagine what Ann would have seen in the 1850s, when the shoreline used to came up to where the tracks are now. Her view would have taken in nothing but stony shore, vast ocean, tussocks, a small stream, and a few cabbage trees. In the few years that followed, she witnessed the arrival of Captain Cain, Lieutenant Woollcombe, Deal Boatmen, their families, and the first wave of UK immigrants, 110 people, arrive aboard the Strathallan Ship in 1859. A lady wrote in her dairy while on the voyage, that if Timaru was a third of the size of London she would be happy... Imagine her surprise when she arrived and there were only five houses in sight! One of which was the home of the Williams.

Looking out from the Landing Services Building and imagining Ann raising her family here when the sea used to reach the rail. - Roselyn Fauth 2025

This photo taken several hundred meters in front of her home on reclaimed land, is probably more what Ann's view was like from her house on George Street about 170 years ago!  - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025

Here you can see the boat launch at the foot of George Street, the Landings Service Building and beside, in the center the Rhodes cottage. Section from Hocken Snapshop hocken.recollect.co.nz/24023

By 1860, Ann and Sam had partnered with the Rhodes brothers to build the Timaru Hotel. The building was owned by the Rhodes, and Sam owned the chattels inside and ran the business as the first licensed publican in the area. Although he had been dealing grog unofficially for a while.

The population grew from the four of them, to around 400 by 1860. As well as welcoming the early wave of settlers, Ann would probably have witnessed the tragedy when two of the six Deal boatmen (who arrived in Timaru in 1857 hired by Henry Le Cren and Captain Henry Cain to take over the Rhodes landing service), were on a sea rescue and drowned in the shores in front of the Williams 1851 home. Morris Corey (married with 5 children) and Robert Boubius (married) became the first recorded burials in the Timaru Cemetery October 1860. For some reason, Boubius rests in an unmarked grave next to his crew mate.

Grave of the earliest burial recorded at the Timaru cemetery. Marris Clayson Corry was a boatman from Deal who with his crew went to rescue a ship in trouble. Clayson and his colleague William Bowbyes drowned in October a month before Ann died in November 1860.  - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025

Just a month after the Deal boatmen's deaths, when the new Timaru Hotel must have given Ann a feeling of progress and promise, Ann collapsed and died in the doorway of the Timaru Hotel she helped establish. She was 35 years old. She left behind two small children, aged around three and five, to be raised by their father, the former whaler now turned publican. After only four or so years, Ann's life in Timaru was over.

This article talks about the person who claims to have burried the second man at the Tiamru Cemetery... Oh I wish I could talk to them today to ask if they know where Ann is... This is a newspaper clipping shared with me, I am unsure what paper or what date...  

Kingsdown
Old Sod House Was Link With Pioneers

The second house ever to be built in the Kingsdown district is now being demolished at Normanby. It was built about 80 years ago by the late Mr E. F. Holmes with the assistance of Mr Tom Reid. Three generations of the Holmes family lived in the house, which was sold to the present owner of the land, Mr P. Rooney, in 1949.

Built of sod, the house is still in fair condition.

The late Mr Holmes came to New Zealand in the ship William Hyde in 1856, after spending two years in Australia. Arriving at Lyttelton, Mr Holmes worked at Longbeach and Geraldine before coming to Timaru. He was one of the early white settlers in Timaru, there being only one other house in the town when he arrived. He was one of the first threshing mill workers and was later a roadman and contractor between Kingsdown and Glenavy.

Mr Holmes started one of the first butcher shops in Barnard Street. His was the melancholy task of burying the second man to be interred in the Timaru cemetery. The coffin was made from a tree felled for just that purpose. Mr Holmes died in 1925, aged 96.

W.D.F.F. Flower Show

The cased and coloured ambrotype pictured here. ... shows Rebecca and William Williams, the children of one of our earliest settlers Samuel and Ann Williams. Rebecca Hobbs born 1854 Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, and died 1856 buried in Linwood Cemetery, Christchurch. It would have been a relatively rare and expensive item for a working man like Sam. His story, which also mentions his son William Williams, born 1856 in Timaru, was the first European child born in Timaru and used a gin crate as his crib. - Courtesy of the South Canterbury Museum 3438. 

That is where the trail for Ann comes to an abrupt halt... Apart from her official death registration and a single line in St Mary’s burial records, there is no further information about her final resting place. When I went to the cemetery, I found Sam’s grave. It was erected by his friends when he died in 1883. But Ann was not with him. I have hunted and hunted. No headstone. No plaque. No marker.

Looking out to the Timaru Cemetery, wondering where Ann could be.  - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025

The hunt for her grave and her story has been quite the journey. What I assumed would be a straight line process has instead been lots of fascinating side quests. In learning about Ann, I have learned so much more about myself. It has made me think more about my own mortality, what I am greatful for, and who I am thankful to share my life with.

Thank you to The South Canterbury Museum, Timaru District Council's Parks and Cemetery team, the Hokitika Museum, Keely Kroening and Tony Rippin South Canterbury Museum. Liz Shae from South Canterbury Genealogy Society, and my father in law who lives on the Coast, Paul Fauth for helping me on the hunt for history about Flash Billy, the Larrikin, and first European kid from Timaru.

Hunting for Ann in the fog at Timaru Cemetery - Roselyn Fauth 2025

Why has her grave been lost?

The records were pretty scarce back then. The Government Registrar Belfeild Woollcombe submitted her record of death, but at the time, the government did not require burial information. St Mary's Church was just getting going in Timaru in the 1860s. Ann was the 12th recorded death on their first page of records. Before the Cemeteries Act was passed, making councils in charge of burials, churches had the responsibility. Timaru had no graveyards (churches with burials on site). And while there were initially two reserves set aside for cemeteries, only one was used, which is the one South of the Timaru Botanic Gardens. It does seem that the burials were segregated at one stage by denominations, and while I tried to come up with all kinds of theories to predict where she could be, I, with the help of many historians profressionals, couldn't find any proof. I don't even know if she was even buried there.

Thank you to Racheal Comer from the Timaru Herald for sharing my hunt for Ann.

The Original Gates, designed by architect Jame's Turnbull. - Photograph Roselyn Fauth 2025

Architect James S. Turnbull made a significant contribution to South Canterbury’s religious and civic landscape through his work on numerous Anglican, Presbyterian, and Catholic buildings from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. His Anglican commissions include St. Stephen’s Church in Fairlie (1896), St. Peter’s in Temuka (1898–99), St. David’s in Raincliff (1907), St. Martin’s in Albury (1907), and St. Aidan’s in Kakahu (1910), with the St. Thomas Church in Woodbury (1913) completed posthumously by architect Cecil Wood. For the Presbyterian community, Turnbull designed churches in St. Andrews (c.1900) and Albury (1902), the prominent Chalmers Church in Timaru (1902–04), and manses in Temuka (1910–11) and Geraldine (1917). His Catholic works include St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church in St. Andrews (1902–03), St. Paul’s in Albury (1903), and the Chapel at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Timaru (1905). Beyond religious buildings, Turnbull also shaped civic spaces, designing the Timaru Cemetery Board wall and entrance piers (1897), the Temuka Pioneer’s Memorial in Victoria Park (1897), and the Fallen Troopers’ Memorial in the Temuka Domain (constructed in stages, 1903 and 1911–12), each reflecting his lasting legacy in both architecture and public remembrance.

The rock for Ann's memorial

Ann was the mother of William Williams, the first recorded European child born in Timaru. Fun fact... his cradle was a gin crate. After her death Sam with his two kids eventually moved to Christchurch. William aged 20 walked with his mates, just like his father on a quest to find gold. He would later become known as Flash Billy, one of the three “Larrikins” who discovered a gold claim in Kumara during New Zealand’s second-to-last gold rush. Depending on the source, the name came either from breaking windows and being chased into the bush by police, or from the celebrations that followed their discovery of gold beneath the forest roots.

Fauth family walking through the Greymouth cemetery on the hunt for William Williams grave.

Larrikins Road, Kumara, hunting for a rock to bring home as a monument to Ann.  - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025

Our family travelled to the end of Larrikins Road found a pile of tailings that remained from the old days of gold hunting. Who knows... William may have placed some of those rocks there himself. He raised his family in Kumara with his wife Sarah, and carried on the legacy of Ann through his decedents' veins.

While thinking this, I chose a rock from the pile, covered coastal lichen, and brought it home to Timaru with us. I would like that rock to sit beside Samuel William’s grave with a brass plaque, as a nod in recognition and remembrance to his mother. Because ultimately, while the history books note the achievements and the firsts, as a mother I feel our greatest gift to the world are the children we raise.

Screen shot of the Larrikins gold claim, and the end of the road with a pile of tailings where a special rock was taken for a memorial to Ann. - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025

West Coast New Zealand History (6th Jan 2024). Map of Kumara 1891 including Larrikins. In Website West Coast New Zealand History. Retrieved 12th May 2025 06:52, from https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/31708 Williams sharp Christchurch attire probably stood out among the moleskin-clad miners, and earned him nickname “Flash Billy.”

I would like to thank Les Jones from Aorangi and Harding Memorials, who with his enthusiasm and experience, we now have a plan. He has generously offered to organise and install a monument for Ann using the rock and gift his time. All we need now is a few donations to help us cover the cost of her plaque to attach to it.

But, the plan doesn't end here... while searching for Ann, I discovered something even more heartbreaking.

If you look up the Timaru District Council Cemetery Records, and search for Row 0, you will find 713 people listed. Row 0 is allocated to those who they know were entombed at the cemetery but don't know exactly where. So there are more than 700 people buried in unmarked pauper graves at the Timaru Cemetery. They were buried with financial help from the government, often without ceremony or recognition. Sometimes they were buried at night. And families were not allowed to erect a headstone. I guess because if they could, everyone would take up the option for a free burial. What I learned was, for many families and friends, there was a deep sense of shame in accepting public assistance, and so families deliberately obscured or withheld information for privacy.

Looking out to the Pauper Grave area where government paid for peoples burials. Roselyn Fauth 2025.

I had no idea this was part of our local history. I had assumed that records were missing, or headstones lost. So when I learned that the lack of records was sometimes intentional, I felt so sad for those who rest and for those who grieved in those circumstances. That is why I also want to raise a second monument. A memorial for those who lie in unmarked graves by the community. Council permission has been granted. Les has kindly offered to help. The Civic Trust, a registered charity, has offered to receive donations for the project, meaning that donors can claim 33% of their gift back. So we are ready to get cracking and make these two monuments happen. I just need a hand covering the costs of the two brass plaques. I would be deeply grateful for your support. Help us bring Ann’s name back to the surface. Help us honour those whose graves lie unmarked.

Let us remember the mothers, the settlers, the workers, the families, the children, the lost. 

Thank you.

If you are interested in my history hunt... here is a repost of some of what I have unearthed... 

The monument to those who rest in unmarked gracves is planned to be erected in this space on the edge of the free ground area, where many people go past on the Coastal Track.

Some photos and more information if you want to go into a further deep dive on Ann and her family's lives.

Next time you're in town... see if you can spy a plaque, for the 1851 hut that was built for the Rhodes, and transformed for a home for the Williams family - Timaru's first European permanent residents...

In 1851 Williams helped the Rhodes move stock to South Canterbury.  And oversaw the initial settlement and livestock management. A daub cottage was constructed by Rhodes by the landing site for ships, a the foot of what is now George Street. They used an area by the sheltered shore at Timaru, the site of an abandoned whaling station, to land stores and ship wool. At first George managed the Levels from near Timaru's pre-breakwater landing place, and there he brought his bride, Elizabeth Wood, whom he had married on 31 May 1854 at Lyttelton. The couple then moved out to the Levels, where they built a house and raised a family of five sons and a daughter. In 1855 some sheep were stolen from the Levels Station, by James Mackenzie. George's life was productive but brief. He died of typhoid fever at Purau on 18 June 1864.

The 1851 hut measured 20 feet (6.1 m) with a steeply pitched roof and was initially a home for Rhodes and his wife. A lean-to was added to provide more space for the family. By 1857, Rhodes leased the hut to Samuel Williams, an American whaler working for him. Williams received a publican’s licence in 1858 and ran the Timaru Hotel from the hut. He relocated to new premises in 1860, which burnt down in 1862, leading to the hotel’s relocation to Great South Road (now Stafford Street). Peter Daniel McRae acquired Section 10 and built the Landing Service Building (McRae’s Stone Store) in 1870 which was used for wool and grain storage until 1984. Rhodes’ original hut remained until about 1873, when it was demolished.

In 1984, the Timaru City Council purchased the bluestone Landing Service building and considered demolishing it and using the area as a carpark. The NZ Historic Places Trust placed a protection order to save it. The Timaru Civic Trust was formed, and the building was sold to them for a $1 1988–1989 along with a long-term land lease. With a community effort supporting the Timaru Civic Trust, the building was reopened in 1997, and repurposed for community events and now includes restaurant, function venue, the Information Centre and Te Ana Ngāi Tahu Māori Rock Art Centre.

It is fitting as the land owners of the site where Ann once lived, to support the monument project. Thank you to the board for their support.

George St and Stafford St Intersection ca1871 -1878. South Canterbury Museum

A photo os the Old Landing Service Building around 1983. South Canterbury Museum - Catalogue Number2014/008.010

Nola Towgoods' book on the Williams. "Another big occasion was the third anniversary of the opening of the Timaru Hotel when Mine Host gave a dinner followed by a "select" ball. Guests were again generous in their priase and had good cause to be, for hotel proprietors of the day provided food in generous measure and devised many forms of entertainment to attract patronage.

The Club Hotels neighbourhood in 1874. The Williams Cottage is gone the Timaru Landing Service Building we know today is called Cains Landing Service. Over the Road from the Club Hotel is Gabities Corner, now the Oxford, The Post Office and Timaru Herald and the Criterion Hotel. On the adjacent corner was The Bank of New Zealand. 

This historic photograph, taken between April and December 1868, captures a westward view along George Street in Timaru, near the corner with the Great North Road (now Stafford Street). In the foreground on the left is Flockton Well, with Mr Haugh Senior standing on the well and his son Robert in front of it. Prominent buildings include the original wooden Bank of New Zealand on the corner (centre), Clarkson and Turnbull across the road (left of centre), the Club Hotel beside the well, and the Russell Ritchie & Co. building on the right-hand corner. The image, mounted on a card with handwritten labels identifying each building, is titled “View Up George St., Timaru” and provides a rare visual record of early central Timaru and its key landmarks during the late 1860s. South Canterbury Museum Catalogue Number2102

Timaru, 1875, Dunedin, by Burton Brothers, Alfred Burton. Te Papa (C.014371)

Timaru Landmark Club Hotel Closes Doors (01 Jul 1970). Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 21/05/2025, https://aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/591

The hunt for Ann, actually started out as a hunt for whaling history... after learning how to find the records with the help of history hunting experts, we can't find her grave anywhere. I think it would be nice to remember her. 

Tony Rippin at South Canterbury Museum giving Roselyn Fauth a quick hand to triangulate people's burials around the time ann passed to see if there is a pattern. The process threw a few questions and theories, but nothing to hang our hat on. Photography By Roselyn Fauth 2025

Date and Place of Death: November 16th, 1860, Timaru. Age: 35. Rank or Profession: Publican's Wife. Cause of Death: Apoplexy. ;Signature, Description, and Residence of Informant: Rich'd Smith (Barman, Timaru). When Registered: November 18th, 1860.  Signature of Registrar: B Woollcombe (Government Registrar for Timaru) - Source: New Zealand "Registration Act, 1858"

Register of Deaths, Saint Mary's Church Timaru Parish records of deaths. Ann appears to be listed as number 12, November 18, 1860, 36 years. Photography by Roselyn Cloake with permission of the South Canterbury Museum 2025. William is recorded above. In 1860 Morris Corey and Robert Boubius became the first individuals to be buried in the Timaru Cemetery following a drowning incident off the coast of Timaru. They were part of a group of six experienced boatmen who had emigrated from England to Lyttelton in 1859 and were employed by Le Cren and Cain to work on their landing service at Timaru. The group included John Wilds, Morris Corey, Robert Boubius, Henry Clayson, William John Roberts and John J. Bowles. Boat handling was a perilous occupation and Henry Clayson also drowned shortly after arriving. He was replaced by Phillip Foster, another boatman from Deal.

- Lyttelton Times, Volume XIV, Issue 840, 28 November 1860, Page 4.  

In 1860, Ann Williams passed away, leaving what looks like a profound void in the life of her husband, Samuel Williams. As her grandson later wrote, her death deprived Sam of the stability, sound guidance, and steady influence that his restless spirit and easygoing business habits relied on. Ann had been the heart of their home and the grounding force behind their early success in Timaru, remembered not only as a devoted mother but as a kind and capable woman who helped shape the beginnings of the town.

Robert Cole is listed on the governments death record of Ann as the witness to her death.

Hunting through records and cemeteries, pauper graves in the distance. Center, the St Mary's Death Records her death November 19 1960. Right: Ann's husband Samuel Williams grave.

Sam was buried in 1883 a year after the cemetery chapel was built. His grave would have been very close behind the chapel.

Samuel Williams died in 1883 and was buried by his friends. There used to be a chapel here, and Sam's grave would have been behind it. Not too far behind him is the grave of Elizabeth Perry. She used to be married to George Rhodes who employed Sam, and their Rhodes house is where Sam and Ann raised their family. Elizabeth's child George William Wood was born at the Levels near Pleasant Point in 1855, who died August 9 1859 at Timaru, aged 4 years., a year before Ann passed away. I wonder if he was buried here when he died which would mean he was buried before Corry who is noted as the first burial at the cemetery in a museum cemetery guide? Interesting that Sam's head stone is not directly where the grave is marked on the map. Maybe the map is an indication only?

Arial Photo by Whites Aviation of the Timaru Cemetery- National Library PA Group 00080 WA 71959 F

Hunting for Ann at the Timaru Cemetery, looking towards the North, where the first recorded graves of the 1860s are. - Roselyn Fauth 2025

The Fauth Family visiting Greymouth from Timaru, on a history hunt at the Cemetery, paying our respects at the graves of Sarah and William Williams. Chris, Medinella 10, Annabelle 6, and Roselyn Fauth. Chris grew up in Greymouth and his ancestors lived in Kumara. The family go on adventures to find free fun, and share their stories to inspire others to learn about the past and have meaningful fun with their families for free.

From whaling connections through his father, to being part of Timaru’s first pub, losing his mother at a young age, working as a carpenter in Christchurch, and raising nine children while toiling in the goldfields, imagine the change he witnessed. His life is just one of many stories of early European settlers who helped lay the foundations of community life we know today. From sleeping in a gin cradle on the East Coast to becoming the West Coast’s Fancy Billy, a goldmining Larrikin from Timaru, his journey must have had grit and spirit to make the most of those times.

William Williams, was born in Timaru in October 1857 and died in Greymouth in 1936. William would have be around six years old at the time he experienced his parents Timaru Hotel burn down, two years after the hotel opened and his mother Ann died. He worked for a time in Christchurch as a carpenter, then walked to Kumara in the 1870s in search of gold. One of the stories says veteran miners deceive them about the best spots to go hunting, but they strike gold anyway. Their claim is dubbed “The Larikins”. William was one of those infamous trio of "Larrikins" and was nicknamed "Flash Billy" Williams due to his Christchurch attire. Their gold discovery was significant in the area, during the second to last New Zealand gold rush in Kumara.

William married Sarah Ann SHIMPLETON (Born: May 31, 1862 in Tasmania, Australia, Died: June 23, 1939, Greymouth, New Zealand). They Married: December 24, 1879, Kumara, West Coast, New Zealand

Left: Signpost for the Larrikins Road. Center: Section of an information sign at Kumara about the Larrikins. Right: looking down Larrikins Road. Larrikins was one of the most prosperous gold-bearing leads in the Kumara district. Located near Dillmanstown on New Zealand’s West Coast. Mining operations at Larrikins Lead continued into the 1890s, although the workforce gradually declined from five men to three by 1896.- Photography by Roselyn Fauth 2025

Exploring the Kumara bush on a wander into Londonderry Rock. There are lots of tailings and mining gear left behind from the days when the gold rush was on and Kumara was a craze of people hunting for gold deep below the forrest floor in the glacial gravels.

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West Coast New Zealand History (17th Dec 2022). Kumara from the air showing Goldfields and Dillmanstown and Larrikins.1959.. In Website West Coast New Zealand History. Retrieved 12th May 2025 06:38, from ;https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/31706

The Larrikins was the name given to one of the richest gold leads on the Kumara Goldfield, located near Dillmanstown on New Zealand’s West Coast. There are a few stories on how they got their name, one was when they discovered in the early days of the Kumara Gold Rush by a mischievous group of miners known for causing trouble in town, breaking windows and committing minor crimes. These antics led authorities (notably, the “Man in Blue”) to investigate them, but the group had fled to the bush, where they began digging for gold. Ironically, their rebellious escape led to the discovery of valuable gold, which sparked a mining boom at the site that came to be called Larrikins Lead. The troublemakers became folk heroes, and their mischief was soon forgotten. The main figures associated with the claim were Frank Payne, Sam Deans, and Billy Williams. Their team, called “Payne and Party,” worked the site using substantial water power from Holmes’ water race. Mining operations at Larrikins Lead continued into the 1890s, although the workforce gradually declined from five men to three by 1896.

Discovery & Rush Era (1860s–1870s)

The Hokitika gold discovery (mid-1860s) launched a wave of prospectors into the West Coast. Kumara’s gold was discovered by sly-groggers near the Teremakau River in the 1870s. News spread quickly, drawing thousands from Australia, Otago, and Canterbury, including Māori war veterans. Kumara rapidly expanded from a handful of diggers to a population of nearly 5,000. Richard John Seddon arrived early, establishing a store and hotel, and would later enter politics. Kumara’s survival depended on supply routes from Hokitika; a tramline to Greymouth was built but roads remained rough and unreliable. The town was planned with a grid layout, wide streets, and public amenities such as hotels, dancing halls, and business centres. Surrounding settlements; Dillmans, Cape Terrace, Greenstone, and Westbrook, contributed to a thriving local economy.

Williams married, raised a family in Larrikins, and became a local identity. His group contributed to Kumara’s early growth and community spirit.

FOR SALE. ONE FIFTH SHARE in SHRIVES and PARTY’S EXTENDED CLAIM, at the break. For further particulars, apply to WILLIAM WILLIAMS at the claim, or at bis residence, Hillmans Road.  - Kumara Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7916, 5 September 1896, Page 2

Medinella Fauth points to the plaque on the Timaru Landing Services Building - Photo Roselyn Fauth. When the Williams family vacated the cottage to move into the Timaru Hotel, it was occupied by Captain Scotte, the Rhodes’ business agent. In 1867, it passed into the hands of S. S. Griffin, who held it until 1872, when it was sold for fourteen pounds and demolished to make way for a commercial building.

There was a sentence in an archival report of the Timaru Landing Services building that noted: "By 1857, the hut had been leased to American whaler Samuel Williams, who was in the employ of Rhodes. Williams was granted a publican’s license in 1858 to run the “Timaru Hotel” from the hut, offering accommodation and a general store. Williams relocated to new premises in 1860 (Lyttleton Times 8/02/1860:6). The new premises burnt down in 1862 and Williams transferred his license to a new site located on Great South Road (Stafford Street)."

1858 Samuel William is noted at Timaru Storekeeper, Householder No 57.

"In March 1859 section 20 of Rhodestown was sold for 24 pounds 1 rood and 8 perches to Sam Williams." The deed is dated 13 September 1859 and shows the position of the hotel - the first in Timaru. It was included in the sale of the section. William also had a landing place further south, fronting section 15 on which stood the Rhodes wool store. This landing was used infrequently. When Williams vacated to move to the Timaru Hotel, it was occupied by Captain Scott, Rhodes' Brothers Agency. In 1867 it passed into the hands of S S Griffin who retained it until 1872, when it was sold for fourteen pounds and demolished to make way for commercial progress. It's such a shame the cottage wasn't retained for its legacy and built history.

In 1859, at 42 years old, Samuel Williams was one of the first three men to board the Strathallan to welcome Timaru’s new settlers, alongside Mr. Woollcombe and Captain Cain. A diary from that day recounts how immigrant women, sunburnt from washing clothes on the beach, sought help from “Old Sam’s,” where Ann Williams, described as a kind Irish lady, offered them a mystery remedy in a pannikin—suggesting they rub a little inside and outside, advice they half-followed. By 1860, Samuel opened Timaru’s first permanent hotel, the Timaru Hotel (now the Carlton Hotel), in a building erected by George Rhodes, with Williams owning the furnishings.

By January 1860, 40-60 Houses had sprung up in Timaru (one year after arrival). The population was recorded as 200.

February 1865 Sam sold the hotel to John Melton; the deed was reportedly held at Timaru Public Library. Williams moved north from Timaru for several years. Became licensee of a Beach Arms at a hotel at Birdling’s Flat, a small settlement near Lake Ellesmere. Later operated the old Hotel Wellington in on Thames Street, Christchurch. 1879 Sam was employed as a ganger on the Canterbury railways. Died in Timaru on June 29, 1883, at the age of 67, and his headstone was placed by his friends Row 9, Plot 10. 

Rebecca Hobbs (nee Williams) geni.com/Rebecca-Hobbs  Rebecca Williams Hobbs, Born 1854. Died 12 Feb 1896 (aged 42) Christchurch City, Canterbury, New Zealand. Burial Linwood Cemetery, Linwood, Christchurch. Plot, Block 27. Plot 115

Rebecca Williams was born in 1854 in Ballarat, Victoria, the daughter of Samuel Williams and Ann Mahoney. She moved to Timaru as a child, where her brother William was born in 1856 when she was two. Tragedy struck when their mother Ann died in November 1860. Rebecca gained a half-sister, Emily, in 1862 after her father remarried Mary Ann Gardner. At just sixteen, she married George William Hobbs in Timaru on 26 September 1870, and together they raised a large family. Their first child, Emily Olivia (known as Hettie), was born in 1872, followed by William Gilbert in 1873, Frederick Alexander in 1874, Florence Eleanor Rebecca in 1877, Edith Rose in 1880, Frances Grace Violet in 1885, Francis Wilfred in 1889, and Ina Winifred in 1891. Rebecca’s life spanned a time of rapid settlement and change in New Zealand. Her father Samuel died in Timaru in 1883. She died of typhoid fever on 12 February 1896 at Christchurch Hospital, aged just 42, and was laid to rest in Linwood Cemetery, leaving behind her husband and children.

Her husband, George William Hobbs, was born in 1851 in Gloucestershire, England, and came to New Zealand as a young man with his parents, James Hobbs and Olivia Rippingille. He married Rebecca in Timaru in 1870, beginning a partnership that lasted a quarter of a century. George’s life, like Rebecca’s, was shaped by movement across the country, raising their children in Timaru, Dunedin, and later Featherston, before the family settled in Christchurch. He endured the loss of his mother in 1887, followed less than a decade later by Rebecca’s death in 1896, which left him a widower with a large family to care for. George lived on until 1912, passing away in Christchurch at the age of 61, having outlived Rebecca by sixteen years and their son Frederick by just three.

Emily Olivia “Hettie” Hobbs, the eldest child of Rebecca Williams and George William Hobbs, was born in Timaru on 31 January 1872. She grew up in a large and scattered family, welcoming siblings in Timaru, Dunedin, and Featherston as her parents moved across New Zealand. In 1893, at the age of 21, she married Leonard Mansell Durell Cummins, beginning a marriage that would last more than fifty years. Their first son, Edward Durell, was born in Christchurch in 1892, followed by Roy Mervyn in 1894, Leonard Mansell Durell in 1900, and finally a daughter, Mavis Rowena, in 1909. Hettie’s life was marked by both resilience and loss: she was only 24 when her mother Rebecca died in 1896, and over the years she mourned the deaths of siblings and later her own son Leonard in 1951. She and Leonard built their family life in Christchurch, where he passed away in 1947. Hettie survived him by five years, living to the age of 80 and passing away in Christchurch on 8 April 1952. She was laid to rest at Linwood Cemetery, remembered as the matriarch who carried forward the Hobbs–Williams line into the twentieth century.

Rebecca’s Likely Residences

1854–1856 – Ballarat, Victoria
Rebecca was born in Ballarat, where her parents Samuel Williams and Ann Mahoney had settled during the gold rush era.

1856–1860 – Timaru, South Canterbury
Her brother William was born in Timaru in September 1856, so the family had returned to New Zealand by then. Rebecca was living in Timaru when her mother Ann died in 1860.

1860s – Timaru and Oamaru
Rebecca stayed in South Canterbury during her childhood. In 1862, her half-sister Emily was born in Oamaru, so it’s possible Rebecca spent time between Timaru and Oamaru with her father Samuel’s second family.

1870 – Timaru
At sixteen she married George William Hobbs in Timaru. Their first three children (1872–1874) were born there, so the couple established their first home in Timaru.

1877 – South Dunedin
By the time Florence was born, Rebecca and George were living in South Dunedin. This suggests the family had moved south, likely for work opportunities.

1880s – Return to Canterbury?
Edith (1880) and Frances (1885) have “New Zealand” listed as their place of birth, but given the family’s later movements, they may still have been in Otago or back in Canterbury by then.

1891 – Featherston, Wairarapa
Her youngest daughter Ina Winifred was born in Featherston, showing the family had shifted north to the Wellington region.

1896 – Christchurch
Rebecca died of typhoid fever at Christchurch Hospital in 1896. This suggests that by the 1890s the Hobbs family had settled in Christchurch, where George remained until his death in 1912.

https://www.ancestry.com.au/family-tree/person/tree/191766038/person/302485069857/story

It looks like by the early 1890s Rebecca and George had made their home in Christchurch, almost certainly in the Linwood area where George worked as a farrier and was later recorded at 53 Phillips Street. Rebecca died during a period when typhoid fever was troubling the city, and she was buried at Linwood Cemetery. A “Mrs Hobbs” at 171 Salisbury Street appears on the 1893 women’s suffrage petition — possibly Rebecca — suggesting she may have taken part in the landmark campaign that granted New Zealand women the vote, though this needs confirming against rolls or certificates. She died in 1896, three years after the women won the right to vote in New Zealand. She lived through the momentus passing of the law, and was alive fir the first election, where women voted in 1893, but died 10 months before the 1896 general elections.

Visit to the Linwood Cemetery to find the grave of Rebecca Williams. She married William Hobb, but when Rebecca died, he remarried. So William Hobbs is buried with his second wife. Rebecca Hobbs nee Williams is buried in section 24 an unmarked grave. The cemetery was damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes and it was sad to see the destruction. I guess it is too mammoth a task to restore the headstones, and make sure they didn't fall down again.

William Williams grave at Greymouth

Here you can see the boat launch at the foot of George Street, the Landings Service Building and beside, in the center the Rhodes cottage.  Landing Services Building and Rhodes' hut at the foot of George Street, c.1870 photograph believed to be by William Ferrier (University of Otago Hocken Digital Collection C/N E6970/9). Section from Hocken Snapshop hocken.recollect.co.nz/24023

The original 1851 Rhodes cottage remained until around 1873, after which it was demolished and the site cleared. Despite its rudimentary construction, it stood for over two decades and played a key role in early Timaru’s settlement, economy, and hospitality. Two further bays had been added to the Timaru Landing Services building. Timaru's population would have been around 1000 at that time.

Retrolens arial photography survey of the George and Turnbull Street Corner 23 5 1938 - Cropped Image

Shore change from 1851 compared to 1958. Amazing how far the shore has built out since the cottage was built by the shore in 1851. This railway survey is over a 1958 arial survey photograph.

Timaru Landing Services Building has a plaque on the wall for the first European House in Timaru. Samuel Williams lived there with his family. 

The grave of Timaru Whaler, Samuel Willams (Yankie Sam). He died at Timaru on June 29, 1883, at the age of 64. A bluestone monument erected by his friends describes him as the oldest resident of Timaru.

Williams sister Rebecca married George William Hobbs, a blacksmith and farrier. Together they have six children. Rebecca died in 1896, aged 42, and is buried at Linwood Cemetery, Christchurch. We went to find her grave, but while her plot is noted on a map, there is no headstone there.

Rebecca and Williams had a half sister, Emily WILLIAMS. Sam married the children's governess when she was 19, in 1861, after Ann passed away, and had his third child with her, when she was two, Mary left Sam and moved to Hokitika with their daughter. Emily was born on October 07 1862, Timaru. Died July 23 1942 Gore. Emily married Arthur James GIBB April 12 1888, All Saints Church, Dunedin. Emily's mother (Sam's second wife) was Mary Ann GARDINER. Born: 1845 in Surrey, England. Died: January 17, 1888, Dunedin. They married: March 02, 1861, St Mary’s Church, Timaru, NZ

1862 Mary Ann left Sam and moved to the West Coast. Sam placed a newspaper advert stating he was not responsible for her debts. March 1862, the Timaru Hotel was destroyed by a fire. Everyone escaped but Sam lost everything but a few record-keeping books. This could explain why there are so few photos or objects that have survived relating to Ann.

Yellow circle marks the grave of Samuel Williams, Ann's husband. His headstone was erected by his friends. At the time there would have been a chapel and his grave would have beem behind it.

Left: View of the Timaru Cemetery. Yellow circle is Sams grave. Right: The 87-year-old chapel at the Timaru Cemetery designed by Maurice de Harven Duval. The chapel had not been used for burial services for over 50 years, with the last conducted by Archdeacon H. W. Harper who retired in 1911. In recent years it had been used to store the cemetery's small tractor and other equipment. Structural damage, borer infestation, and weak mortar made most of the building unsalvageable, aside from the iron roof. A proposal after the First World War to renovate the chapel failed due to lack of interest, and a 1935 plan to convert it into a crematorium was rejected. There are no plans to build a new chapel at the site. - Timaru Herald, 20 Apr 1968. Timaru Cemetery Chapel Demolished (20 Apr 1968). Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 10/05/2025, aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/2037

Left Samuel Williams' grave erected by his friends, has no mention of Ann. Right Elizabeth's grave has a grave for her son who died a year before Ann in 1859. Was Elizabeths son buried here before Ann?

LEFT A try pot used at the Weller Bros Whaling Station near this place 1839-1840. The Wellers’ workers caught whales and rendered the blubber down into oil in try pots for two seasons. Members of the whaling gang were the first white men to live even temporarily in South Canterbury. RIGHT Looking up towards the viaduct near the Evans St and Wai-iti Rd intersection, where the stream runs underground. Photograph courtesy of Roselyn Fauth

Whales Creek Railway Viaduct at the foot of Wai-iti Rd and Evans Street, Timaru, New Zealand, 1904-1915, Timaru, by Muir & Moodie. Purchased 1998 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (PS.001051) 

Some years ago, Councillor Mathers, on behalf of the Timaru City Council, acquired an old try-pot that had once been used at Patiti Point Station. This, along with other relics of the primal industry, is to be found on a concrete pedestal in Caroline Bay Domain. It could be that those whaling implements were handled by Samuel Williams. Adverse reports on the 1840 whaling season, coupled with the financial difficulties of Weller Brothers, Sydney, were accepted as the reason for the closing down of their Timaru Station about March 1841—eleven months after its establishment. The whole of the shore party had of necessity to disperse to other whaling posts, some going to Otago, but the majority went to Banks Peninsula where they were engaged by Hempleman at his Paraki Station. Williams accompanied the party north, where his experience as a whaler was again in demand, for he was given charge of the Island Bay Fishery then owned by the Greenwoods. In 1848, he transferred to George Rhodes' station at Goashore (Akaroa), where he remained until his departure for Australia.

Whale Pot at Patiti Point, Timaru. - Photography by Roselyn Fauth 2025.

FDM-0690-G-TimaruFromTheAir-Caroline Bay harbour and town-DougMill-air transport and survey business from a hangar at Hobsonville Point between 1927-1937- Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections FDM-0690-G

Plot quest for early mother’s resting place 01 June 2025
The Timaru Herald. 27 May 2025. Rachael Comer

Roselyn Fauth shows a rock she found on a recent trip to Larrikins on the West Coast that she hopes to include in a memorial she is planning at Timaru Cemetery. Special thank you to Nola Towgood who compiled an incredible book on the Williams family. I wanted to reach out to her to thank her personally and was saddened to read she passed away in 2015. I saw comments online with her obituary that she had dedicated two years of research into the William's family who the descendants were very grateful to her for. The Book is available to read at the South Canterbury Museum Archive. https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-timaru-herald/20250527/281483577305052

Sources and great reads for you to learn more:
Jubilee history of South Canterbury by Johannes Carl Andersen. 775 Pages. Published by Whitcombe and Tombs Limited, Auckland, 1916
South Canterbury: A record of settlement by Gillespie, Oliver A.1958 507 Pages

South Canterbury: A record of settlement. Author Oliver A Gillespie, 1958. 507 Pages. 
Canterbury (N.Z.) History. New Zealand Canterbury. History, Timaru, Agriculture, Farming, Statistics

Early Timaru. Author Hall-Jones, Frederick George. 1956. 64 Peges. Publisher The Southland Historical Committee
Some historical records of the pre-settlement period, annotated and analysed.
Focuses on the period of whaling to just before the establishment of a permanent European settlement at Timaru.
The author, Frederick Hall-Jones, generously renounces his claim to copyright at the front of the book.

Samuel Williams Whaler/Publican. ;First Permanent Resident of Timaru New Zealand. History and Descendants. By Nola Towgood. 

1820-1895 :Tauamotu. Timaru. Camp of natives windbound. 17 October 1848 - Looking south along the beach line near Timaru towards a figure on the beach at a small campsite with a boat drawn up on shore. Mantell's three Maori porters are walking above the beach on flat land studded with cabbage trees towards a low hill - natlib.govt.nz/134166

The whaling industry played a vital role in shaping Timaru’s early economy and development. From the whaling ships that probably gave Caroline Bay its name, to the wreck of the Prince Consort, the history of the sea is still alive in the town. The playground near the whaling station and the ship barrel inside the ship structure are reminders of this fascinating past. By understanding these stories, students can better appreciate the local heritage and the ways in which history influences our surroundings.

Hall-Jones, Frederick George., Early Timaru: some historical records of the pre-settlement period, annotated and analysed.. Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 01/03/2025, https://aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/161

Red Map. Plans of Native Reserves in Canterbury - Caroline Bay, Native Reserve 8 - 10 chains to 1 inch (1:7920), Item Code:R25179855 - https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/IE40916334 

Elizabeth Wood married George Rhodes on the 31 May 1854 at Lyttelton. A few weeks after their wedding the couple headed south, enduring many hardships as they crossed the plains to George's station 'The Levels'. George died in 1864 and in 1867 the widowed Elizabeth remarried local lawyer Arthur Perry. Elizabeth passed away in 1890.

This is the best description I could find to imagine what the cottage was like:

The Levels homestead during the late 1850s. South Canterbury Museum, 2015/154.074. 

Looking North over Timaru City and its coastline. Once the stomping ground of whalers and then home to Sam, Ann, and the Williams kids William and Rebecca. Photography By Geoff Cloake

The grave of Samuel Williams errected for him by his friends. Timaru Cemetery. General Section, Row 9, Plot 10.