John Bonfield O'Mealy -- losing a family in the gap

Researching a life, the further back you go, means there will always be gaps. Gaps in which something happened that changed that life, often for the worse, but exactly what is lost or when or why isn't known, or at least not readily available to discover. 

I first came across John Bonfield O’Mealy when I was researching and pulling together stuff on Te Wai Horotiu back in 2017. I found the colour version of his 1842 plan of Auckland town (image detail here, from National Library) and thought how well it showed the true early course of the stream, before the Ligar Canal was added to divert part of the water from below Wyndham Street. O’Mealy showed clearly that the stream didn’t flow down Queen Street really, it was more or less parallel to it. 

Then, while researching Maungawhau this year, I looked again at a scan of a very battered, ripped and incomplete map from December 1843 of the area of the maunga and its surrounds – and saw O’Mealy’s signature again. Sort of like an old friend popping back into view. 

John Bonfield O’Mealy was born somewhere in Ireland, around 1810. He was appointed as an assistant surveyor in April 1841 and arrived in Wellington with Charles Ligar and the rest of Ligar’s survey department, along with his wife Elizabeth, aboard the Antilla on 8 December 1841. This after the ship they had been on originally, the Prince Rupert, wrecked off the Cape of Good Hope. 

He and his wife had three children, all born in New Zealand, and they lived at “Glen Ligar”, somewhere near Official Bay, beside Charles Ligar and his family. The name of the O’Mealy family home, “Acacia Cottage,” may be just a coincidence with the Acacia Cottage later connected with Dr John L Campbell. O’Mealy’s cottage was on two acres, had five rooms, and a “three-roomed kitchen”. In 1850, the O’Mealys left Auckland, bound for San Francisco. 

They show up on an 1850 census at Trinity, California, a place of gold panning and wild dreams, where many Chinese worked hard as well to win riches from the ground. O’Mealy described himself then as a miner, so was apparently taking advantage of the gold rush fever of the time. There are traces of O’Mealy in America through to 1859, where in 1958 and 1859 he won prizes at state fairs for penmanship and topographical drawings. 

Then, he reappears in the Southern Hemisphere in 1863, his signature on a survey plan once again, this time for Dromana in Victoria, Australia. From this point, though, there is no mention of his family. He became a district surveyor by 1868 for the district of Inglewood, but by 1870 was heavily in debt. O’Mealy apparently did drink more than a fair bit, but in 1875 suddenly decided to quit and go absolutely tee-total. Later, some cast the opinion that he was “mad as a March Hatter” at times, and going stone dry suddenly didn’t help. 

One day in 1876, in a barn, he rigged up a razor on a piece of wood so it wouldn’t slip, had a large knife handy in case he needed that as a plan B, and slit his own throat. He died intestate, and his estate, what there was of it, went to his creditors after advertisements placed in the newspapers for a widow or other family led to no results. 

He wasn’t without friends, though. Four members of the community, two of them his fellow surveyors, carried his coffin to a Roman Catholic cemetery, and set to in digging his grave before a service there by the local Church of England minister. No one could say, at the inquest, if O’Mealy had been thinking of suicide before he did the deed or not. 

 But somewhere in the gap, both in time and across an ocean, he had parted ways for some reason with his family, and so died alone. He has, though, left behind something of a legacy for his time on the planet.

The "dilapidated baronet": Sir Charles Wentworth Burdett (1835-1892)

 

Fourteen days hard labour in Mt Eden Gaol in Auckland for the theft of some roses. Such was the sentence in 1888 for Sir Charles Burdett, Baronet. 

Sir Charles Wentworth Burdett, 7th Baronet of Burthwaite, was born 4 November 1835 in India. His father, also Sir Charles Wentworth Burdett, was an officer in the service of the East India Company, and died in 1848 when his son and heir was only 13. 

 The younger Sir Charles went in for a military career, rising to the rank of lieutenant in the 54th Foot, and arrived in New Zealand in the early 1860s. Here, he served as a captain in the Waikato Militia, and later in the armed constabulary for nearly 11 years, discharged in 1874. In 1864 he married Betsey Higginson in Onehunga, then Grace Grant in 1871. He and Grace had three children. His son Charles Grant Burdett succeeded him as 8th Baronet. His father-in-law Matthew Grant was described as a well-to-do Pakeha-Maori frontiersman. 

According to Australian sources at the time of his death, Sir Charles had a heated argument with the Minister of Defence, Thomas Russell in the 1860s, insulting the other man, and that this led to Sir Charles being cashiered, then rejoining the militia just as a private, followed by the armed constabulary. It might also have been linked with rumours that he was to be an aide to Governor Sir George Grey. According to the same sources, Sir Charles’ downward spiral was assisted by his “strong affection for the bottle … He soon sank [after his stint with the AC] to the level of cook in surveyors camps, and to even more menial employment.” (Queensland Times, 2 June 1892) 

According to the Otago Witness, “In the Australian colonies he had been known for many years as a veritable "Jack-of-all-trades." He picked up a precarious living by stripping bark from trees, cooking for bushmen, and doing odd jobs about squatters' stations.” (Otago Witness, 7 November 1889) 

Sir Charles ended up as an inmate at the Auxiliary Old Men’s Refuge in Auckland in 1886, aged just 51. In April that year, he wrote to the Hospital Committee applying for the job of manager of the refuge. The Committee members responded that if Sir Charles was capable of managing that institution, he was capable of making his own living, and therefore had no need to be in a refuge, living on charity. 

Then in November 1888, the “dilapidated Baronet” was charged with stealing two roses and other flowers from Albert Park. 

“For some time past the flowers and plants in the Albert Park have been systematically purloined, and the police having been on the watch for weeks to discover the perpetrators of such mean and contemptible thefts, yesterday Constable McCoy was coming down Victoria-street, when he encountered Sir Charles Burdett, who was carrying a handkerchief full of roses and other flowers. As the worthy baronet was known to the constable he accosted him, and asked him where he obtained them. He first of all replied at a place in Hobson-street, and afterwards changed the locality to the cemetery. The constable, as the outcome of their conversation, invited Sir Charles to accompany him to the police station. The custodian of the Park was communicated with, and it being seen that some of the roses in the Baronet's bundle were Duke of Wellington roses, the custodian looked over the bed where these had been planted. It was discovered that several of the roses had been plucked. Owing to the drizzling rain making the volcanic soil plastic, a footmark was noticed in the bed, and on taking one of the boots of Sir Charles to the spot, it was found to correspond with the footprint in the bed. He was accordingly locked up on a charge of larceny of the flowers.” (NZ Herald 8 November 1888) 

He was found guilty, and sentenced to 14 days hard labour at Mt Eden Gaol. 

He was admitted into the Costley Home at Epsom on a trial basis in 1890, but ended up staying there until his death two years later. He was buried at Purewa Cemetery, his burial registration giving his occupation as “gentleman”. His son, Sir Charles Grant Burdett, died in 1918, and was buried at Eltham.