Martha was born in Ashford in the Water on the 21 Jan 1821 to parents Robert Handley and Ann Taylor. She married David Wilson Hamilton on the 13 Apr 1846 at Bakewell All Saints Church, Derbyshire.
Between her marriage and emigration, Martha had 6 children, 5 of which made it to the sailing ship, but one son, Handley, died as an infant.
When David and Martha stepped on board the ship ‘Joseph Fletcher’ at London in 1856, they did so as a family of 7, with the youngest, also named Handley, aged only 2 months.
The journey to New Zealand was long and somewhere in the Southern Ocean, below Australia, Handley died and was buried at sea.
Upon arrival at Lyttelton, Martha, David and the surviving children were first quarantined and then housed in barracks at Lyttleton. Sadly on the 4 Nov 1856, just two weeks after arriving in New Zealand, Martha died. She is buried in the Anglican Cemetery at Lyttelton and was one of the very first people to be buried there. She is not recorded with her given name, only her surname, but the cemetery record ties up with the death record. Anglican Archives have early maps of the cemetery, but as of writing (Mar 2022), they are moving to new buildings so the archives are temporarily unavailable.
The burial record states that she died in the Hospital before burial, so obviously very sick prior to death.
The gravestone at Avonside Church Cemetery is really a memorial stone, as the body is not in that cemetery, nor are her two sons that predeceased her.
Her passing left David with 4 children, no home and no real support. The root over the Bridal Veil walk would have been hard for all the family as they made their way to a very young Christchurch town.
My grandparents had a tapestry in their home about the Wheeler family. There exists another tapestry, but this time associated with the Handley family. The frame and stitching of the two artefacts are identical. I do not know the origins of this one, but here is a photo.
