BELCHER, Horace
Born 1887 (?), died 13 November 1918, buried 15 November 1918; age 36
Horace, working in London as a tailor, sailed to New Zealand in 1911, but it seems that he did not then find work in his trade here. He also seems to have lost touch with his family back in England and with a relative, perhaps an uncle, who emigrated with him.
He might have settled in Auckland initially. Life began looking up for Horace when he married in March 1918, but his luck did not hold during the flu epidemic and 8 months later, he died in Wellington during the peak week for deaths from influenza.
The 1891 England Census records that his father, Ernest, was a 33-year-old foreman tailor, when Horace was 4 and his sister May was 2. Their mother, Elizabeth, née O’DONNELL, then 32, had been born in Ireland. She and Ernest had married in Islington 6 years earlier, during the first quarter of 1885 (i). The birth of another daughter, Daisy, in 1892 completed the family.
Tailoring was almost a family business. When Ernest was 22, the 1881 Census recorded his occupation as cutter, while his own father, John, was listed as a master tailor. In 1901, Ernest was described as a tailor’s cutter. The household included a 25-year-old niece listed as a tailoress.
Ten years later, Ernest was still listed as a tailor’s cutter and also as an employer; while Horace’s two sisters were waistcoat makers, both working from home. It was little surprise, then that Horace was also working as a tailor’s cutter, perhaps alongside his father.
The 1911 Census was taken on the nights of 2 and 3 April. Towards the end of the next month, Horace embarked for New Zealand on the ss Corinthic, heading for Wellington. He was accompanied by his uncle, John Donnell Belcher, another tailor, who was married to Lilian THOMAS (ii).
There is no evidence that Horace and John remained together in Wellington, or that they found work as tailors. However, Wises Directory in 1913 includes a listing for a Horace Belcher, a cleaner living in Jervois Road, Ponsonby. The 1914 electoral roll shows another person with the same name working as a porter in Te Kuiti.
It is open to question whether these people were the Horace of this account. However, by June 1915, Horace was definitely back in Wellington: the name of Horace Belcher, tailor, is among a list of volunteers published in the New Zealand Gazette on 11 June 1915. He next appears in the Army Reserve Roll compiled for the Wellington Recruiting District in September 1916. As he was between the ages of 20 and 45 and unmarried without dependants, he was eligible to be included in the frequent ballots for reservists eligible for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. However, his number did not come up.
Horace and John appear to have lost touch with each other after their arrival in New Zealand in 1911. Evidence of this can be seen in the personal column of The Evening Post on 1 October 1915 which carried the message: ‘Horace Belcher, write to me at once re cable from Home – Jack’. Almost a year later a similar message was printed in The Dominion on 20 September 1916: ‘Horace Belcher, wire at once to Jack, Auckland.’ The urgent tone gives no clue to the message Jack needed to pass on, and a search of the records reveals nothing concerning Horace’s parents or his sisters. Perhaps it was news from the Front about another family member or friend.
From at least 1916, Horace was working as a barman at the New Commercial Hotel on Lambton Quay, Wellington. He was living nearby at 78 The Terrace in a building long since replaced by high rise office blocks. The hotel might also have been where he met his future wife, Lily Mary TITSHALL, who had been born in 1890 in Wanganui.
Lily and Horace married on 25 March 1918, but the marriage was brief. Probably reflecting the vulnerability of workers serving the public, Horace caught influenza in mid-November 1918 as the epidemic was reaching its peak in Wellington, and died on the 13th, which was the day district health officers were given the power to close hotels and bars to prevent further spread of infection (iii). This came too late to save Horace, who been taken to the temporary hospital in Sydney Street, where he died.
Lily continued working in a hotel, moving to the Trocadero on Lambton Quay. On the anniversary of Horace’s death, she had a tribute printed by The Evening Post on 13 November 1919:
If only I could have raised his dying head
Or heard his last farewell
The shock would not have been so hard,
By one who loved him so well.
In 1924 Lily married again, this time to George Philip DYKE. She lived until 1969.
Horace’s grave is in the CH ENG2 section, Plot number 37E.
Born 1887 (?), died 13 November 1918, buried 15 November 1918; age 36
Horace, working in London as a tailor, sailed to New Zealand in 1911, but it seems that he did not then find work in his trade here. He also seems to have lost touch with his family back in England and with a relative, perhaps an uncle, who emigrated with him.
He might have settled in Auckland initially. Life began looking up for Horace when he married in March 1918, but his luck did not hold during the flu epidemic and 8 months later, he died in Wellington during the peak week for deaths from influenza.
The 1891 England Census records that his father, Ernest, was a 33-year-old foreman tailor, when Horace was 4 and his sister May was 2. Their mother, Elizabeth, née O’DONNELL, then 32, had been born in Ireland. She and Ernest had married in Islington 6 years earlier, during the first quarter of 1885 (i). The birth of another daughter, Daisy, in 1892 completed the family.
Tailoring was almost a family business. When Ernest was 22, the 1881 Census recorded his occupation as cutter, while his own father, John, was listed as a master tailor. In 1901, Ernest was described as a tailor’s cutter. The household included a 25-year-old niece listed as a tailoress.
Ten years later, Ernest was still listed as a tailor’s cutter and also as an employer; while Horace’s two sisters were waistcoat makers, both working from home. It was little surprise, then that Horace was also working as a tailor’s cutter, perhaps alongside his father.
The 1911 Census was taken on the nights of 2 and 3 April. Towards the end of the next month, Horace embarked for New Zealand on the ss Corinthic, heading for Wellington. He was accompanied by his uncle, John Donnell Belcher, another tailor, who was married to Lilian THOMAS (ii).
There is no evidence that Horace and John remained together in Wellington, or that they found work as tailors. However, Wises Directory in 1913 includes a listing for a Horace Belcher, a cleaner living in Jervois Road, Ponsonby. The 1914 electoral roll shows another person with the same name working as a porter in Te Kuiti.
It is open to question whether these people were the Horace of this account. However, by June 1915, Horace was definitely back in Wellington: the name of Horace Belcher, tailor, is among a list of volunteers published in the New Zealand Gazette on 11 June 1915. He next appears in the Army Reserve Roll compiled for the Wellington Recruiting District in September 1916. As he was between the ages of 20 and 45 and unmarried without dependants, he was eligible to be included in the frequent ballots for reservists eligible for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. However, his number did not come up.
Horace and John appear to have lost touch with each other after their arrival in New Zealand in 1911. Evidence of this can be seen in the personal column of The Evening Post on 1 October 1915 which carried the message: ‘Horace Belcher, write to me at once re cable from Home – Jack’. Almost a year later a similar message was printed in The Dominion on 20 September 1916: ‘Horace Belcher, wire at once to Jack, Auckland.’ The urgent tone gives no clue to the message Jack needed to pass on, and a search of the records reveals nothing concerning Horace’s parents or his sisters. Perhaps it was news from the Front about another family member or friend.
From at least 1916, Horace was working as a barman at the New Commercial Hotel on Lambton Quay, Wellington. He was living nearby at 78 The Terrace in a building long since replaced by high rise office blocks. The hotel might also have been where he met his future wife, Lily Mary TITSHALL, who had been born in 1890 in Wanganui.
Lily and Horace married on 25 March 1918, but the marriage was brief. Probably reflecting the vulnerability of workers serving the public, Horace caught influenza in mid-November 1918 as the epidemic was reaching its peak in Wellington, and died on the 13th, which was the day district health officers were given the power to close hotels and bars to prevent further spread of infection (iii). This came too late to save Horace, who been taken to the temporary hospital in Sydney Street, where he died.
Lily continued working in a hotel, moving to the Trocadero on Lambton Quay. On the anniversary of Horace’s death, she had a tribute printed by The Evening Post on 13 November 1919:
If only I could have raised his dying head
Or heard his last farewell
The shock would not have been so hard,
By one who loved him so well.
In 1924 Lily married again, this time to George Philip DYKE. She lived until 1969.
Horace’s grave is in the CH ENG2 section, Plot number 37E.
Researched by John Boyd and Max Kerr, written by Max Kerr
(i) Records do not agree about the date of the marriage or Horace’s birth. The dates in this account are drawn the FindMyPast transcriptions for Elizabeth’s marriage to Ernest; and from records of the decennial English Censuses from 1881 to 1911 for the calculation of the date and place of Horace’s birth.
(ii) In the 1881 Census, when Ernest was 22, his siblings included John Belcher, age 6. If this is the same person, he would have been 36 at the time of his migration to Wellington.
(iii) Geoffrey Rice, The 1918 Influenza Pandemic in New Zealand, 2nd ed, Canterbury University Press, 2005, p 106. Full closure of bars, breweries and wine and spirits merchants was ordered in Wellington from 18 November, with alcoholic stimulants, thought to help influenza sufferers, then dispensed from the Town Hall to those with a signed authority from a doctor.
(i) Records do not agree about the date of the marriage or Horace’s birth. The dates in this account are drawn the FindMyPast transcriptions for Elizabeth’s marriage to Ernest; and from records of the decennial English Censuses from 1881 to 1911 for the calculation of the date and place of Horace’s birth.
(ii) In the 1881 Census, when Ernest was 22, his siblings included John Belcher, age 6. If this is the same person, he would have been 36 at the time of his migration to Wellington.
(iii) Geoffrey Rice, The 1918 Influenza Pandemic in New Zealand, 2nd ed, Canterbury University Press, 2005, p 106. Full closure of bars, breweries and wine and spirits merchants was ordered in Wellington from 18 November, with alcoholic stimulants, thought to help influenza sufferers, then dispensed from the Town Hall to those with a signed authority from a doctor.