Keeping the family together after loss at the Grosvenor and Gallipoli
c.1865/66–1942
Family care
Grosvenor Hotel
First World War
Mary Ann Fitzgerald, née Madden, was the woman I found when I went looking for the history of Timaru’s Grosvenor Hotel.
Available family research identifies Mary Ann as Irish-born, although her exact birthplace, birth date and arrival in New Zealand have not yet been confirmed from a primary record. She married William Fitzgerald, a builder’s labourer. Their older children were born in Ashburton before the family settled in Timaru, where their home was at 3 Wellington Street, later renumbered 2 Wellington Street.
Mary and William raised a large Catholic family. Their children attended Sacred Heart and Marist schools and became closely connected with Timaru’s Celtic sporting clubs. Their youngest child, Lawrence, died in 1908 when he was only three weeks old.
On 21 April 1915 William was working on the demolition of the old Grosvenor Hotel. The brickwork beneath him gave way and he fell to the pavement. He died aged 56, leaving children whose ages ranged from 31 to eight. The present Grosvenor was subsequently built on the site during 1915.
Mary suddenly became the surviving parent at the centre of a household that still included dependent children. On 30 April she placed a public notice thanking the insurance company for promptly settling her claim. It is a small but revealing record of the practical matters she had to deal with immediately after William’s death.
The family was already being pulled into the First World War. Their son Patrick Gregory Fitzgerald had embarked with the Fourth Reinforcements four days before his father died. On 7 August 1915 Patrick was killed during the Gallipoli campaign. His brother Thomas, known as Ben, was wounded in the same fighting. Mary became Patrick’s next of kin and later received his medals, memorial scroll and plaque.
The surviving records show that the Fitzgeralds responded collectively rather than leaving Mary to manage entirely alone. Her son William appealed his military call-up because he helped support his mother. Garrett Fitzgerald later said that he supported Mary and the rest of the family as well as his own wife and children. When Michael Joseph Fitzgerald enlisted in 1918, he recorded that his mother, brother and sister were absolutely dependent on him.
These records do not tell us everything Mary did each day. They do, however, repeatedly point back to the household in Wellington Street and to Mary as the person around whom the family’s responsibilities were organised.
Her granddaughter Anne O’Connell later remembered the Fitzgeralds as an extremely poor family. That is family testimony rather than an independently verified financial record, but it is consistent with the sons’ military appeals and declarations of family dependence.
Mary Ann Fitzgerald died on 30 January 1942 and was buried at Timaru Cemetery on 2 February. She rests in General Section, Row 23, Plot 380, with William. Their headstone also remembers Patrick, whose body was never returned from Gallipoli. The cemetery record and headstone differ slightly over whether Mary was 75 or 76, so her birth year is best recorded for now as about 1865 or 1866.
Impact: Mary Ann Fitzgerald helped keep a large family household and support network functioning through bereavement, economic insecurity and war. Her story makes visible the unpaid work that often sat behind the recorded achievements of sons, soldiers, sportsmen and buildings. The Grosvenor is remembered for its architecture, but Mary can remind us that built heritage also includes the workers who created it, the risks they faced and the families who carried the consequences when someone did not come home.
Existing WuHoo story I Went Looking for the Grosvenor, and I Found Mary
Sources and what they support
South Canterbury Museum, SCRoll profile for Patrick Gregory Fitzgerald, researched by Teresa Scott, South Canterbury Branch of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists. Supports the Fitzgerald family relationships, Wellington Street address, William’s workplace death, the children’s age range, Patrick’s service and death, Thomas’s wounding, the sons’ financial support of Mary, Mary’s receipt of Patrick’s medals and Anne O’Connell’s family recollections. The profile draws on military files, BDM indexes, school records, contemporary newspapers and family testimony.
South Canterbury Museum, SCRoll profile for William Alphonse Peter Fitzgerald. Supports Mary Madden’s identity as his mother, the Ashburton and Timaru family connection and William’s recorded financial responsibility for his mother.
South Canterbury Museum, SCRoll profile for Michael Joseph Fitzgerald. Supports the Wellington Street address and Michael’s 1918 declaration that his mother, brother and sister were dependent upon him.
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, Grosvenor Hotel List Entry 2054. Supports the demolition of the earlier hotel, construction of the replacement building in 1915, and the roles of architect James Turnbull and builders Shillito Brothers.
Timaru Cemetery headstone and burial information. Supports Mary’s death and burial, William’s death and the memorial inscription for Patrick. The small discrepancy in Mary’s recorded age should remain visible until her birth or death registration is checked.