PILGRIMAGE TO ASHBURTON

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31984, 10 May 1969, Page 2

PILGRIMAGE TO ASHBURTON

Two Aucklanders, Misses Irma and Beryl O’Connor, are on a pilgrimage to their grandfather’s grave. Their mother’s father, Jerningham Wakefield, the only son of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, is buried in Ashburton. “He was on the eve of a lecture tour of New Zealand, when he was taken very ill in Ashburton and died there,” the sisters said in Christchurh yesterday. “His wife could not come down from the North Island because the only means of transport was irregular sailing ships. Although she directed that his books and papers be sent to her, she never received them.” Recently, some of Jer-

ningham Wakefield’s diaries came to light, and Professor Joan Stevens, of Victoria University, Wellington, is working on them. The books were passed on to the Alexander Turnbull Library by an Auckland man who found them after his father died. The father had apparently bought the books at an auction in Canterbury many years ago. The Misses O’Connor have been thrilled to learn that the Ashburton Borough Council has taken an interest in their grandfather’s grave and is proud to have it there. The sisters will meet the council when they go to Ashburton next Thursday. They are at present holidaying in Christchurch, where they were both born.