A Life Most Difficult

Even though Lucy is not a direct ancestor, her story is an interesting one and worth recording.

Lucy was 12 years old when she arrived in Nelson on the “Camperdown” with her parents, Thomas MILES and Ellen HAWKINS, older sister Ann Maria, and younger brother Howard in April 1876. Travelling with the family was the man who would later become Lucy’s first husband, Alfred BENNETT, and Lucy’s cousin, Mary Ann HAWKINS who would be later murdered by her husband, Daniel SWAN, in Invercargill. Lucy’s older siblings, William Henry MILES (my 3rd great-grandfather) and Mary Ann MILES also came to New Zealand but on a different ship. Thomas and Ellen originated from Gloucestershire, England and were married in Monmouthshire, Wales.

Just a year after they arrived and settled in Ashburton, Canterbury, Lucy’s mother Ellen died when Lucy was 13 years old. Two years later, at the age of 15, Lucy married Alfred BENNETT who had been on the ship with her family when they came to New Zealand. Two months after they married, Lucy gave birth to her first son, Richard, on November 20th, 1879. By the time Lucy was 23 years old, she had given birth to another four children, Alfred Thomas, William, John, and Henrietta. With five young children under the age of ten, Lucy’s husband Alfred died on January 6th, 1890, in Grasmere, after his horses bolted and he fell beneath the wheels of his dray. Alfred was buried in St. John’s cemetery in Invercargill. Lucy gave birth to her sixth child, Henry Alfred, three weeks later.

The estate of Alfred sold his assets in March 1890.

Five months after his death, the community held a benefit concert to help Lucy and the children financially.