Death On The Bridle Path

“…unusual fatigue, to which, in his praiseworthy endeavors to find a suitable spot on which to locate his family, the deceased had exposed himself…”     The Lyttelton Times    January 1851 John Williams was painfully aware that he, his wife Isabella and their 7 children only had a few days of grace at their first Canterbury lodgings …

William Barbour Wilson – ‘Cabbage Wilson’ (1819 – 1897)

William Barbour Wilson was born in Kirkcudbrightshire in Scotland. He started off his adulthood as a nurseryman’s apprentice. He then moved to Ireland where he worked as an overseer for a few estates there. No one knows why he set his sights on New Zealand next. Maybe it was because New Zealand seemed a certain …