MILROY, James Richard Theodore
Born 1887; died 17 November 1918; buried 19 November 1918; age 31
James was the fifth child and second youngest son of Otago engine driver, Thomas MILROY (who was born 1853 in Stanraer, Scotland but who spent his boyhood in Ireland [i]) and his wife Margaret Jane CRAN (born about 1861, also in Scotland, in Banffshire [ii]). The Milroy parents [iii] had married in New Zealand in 1877 and had six children between 1878 and 1889. Their eldest son, Thomas Alexander, became a surgeon and served in World War I. All three of James’ sisters were older and one brother was younger. Another (younger) brother also signed up for active service in August 1915, but was discharged on medical grounds in November the same year [iv].
James’s father worked the bulk of his career in the Railways, serving 26 years [v] driving train engines, based some of time in Balclutha but more of the time in Dunedin before retiring in 1913 and moving north to Auckland. He took an active interest in the affairs of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, serving a term as its president and served as a member of the Railway Appeal Board. In addition, his New Zealand Herald obituary (see endnote i) identified an ‘unflagging interest in politics, having been a strong supporter of the late Mr Seddon throughout the Liberal leader’s career’.
On leaving school James studied dentistry in Dunedin and qualified in October 1907 among 15 of the 23 candidates examined by the Dental Board [vi]. James practised in Dunedin and Invercargill, and resided for a time in Wyndham and Christchurch before being appointed the manager of the American Dental Parlours in Wellington, a business he came to own [vii].
A 1910 report in the Mataura Ensign aired a dispute with Leah Myers, a restaurant owner in Armagh Street, Christchurch who reluctantly agreed to apply the debt James owed her in entertaining friends to meals in her premises by making her a set of teeth in lieu of cash payment of his outstanding debt. The court, however, found in an action brought by the dental firm as a whole [viii] that James’ personal debt with Miss Myers could not be traded off in this way and that in effect both business debts would need to be met directly by those who had contracted them out.
On 20 December 1911 James married Isobel Jannette HANNAN in the Presbyterian church of Woodlands, Southland [ix]. Isobel (registered as Isabel Jannette at birth in 1886 in Invercargill, but later known as Isobel Jeanette) was the eldest of six children born to Daniel and Isabella Hannan née BELL who had married in 1885. At least two of the Hannan children died in infancy. This branch of the Hannan family had longstanding connections with Central Otago and Southland. While Isobel’s mother ran the local Woodlands Railway Private Hotel for a time [x], her father, Daniel, was for 22 years the manager of Tait’s meat works at Woodlands [xi]. He also managed a new rabbit operation in Alexandra from 1915 for the Central Otago Preserves cannery until it closed, and worked for a time in 1914 in Wellington for Gear Meats. His extensive experience in the meat industry enabled him to bring to the canning process inventions of his own in processing both sheep and lamb tongues, compressed mutton cuts, as well as whole rabbits [xii].
Like her mother who was a keen croquet player in Alexandra [xiii], and her sister May who was a keen tennis player [xiv], Isobel Hannan also had sporting interests, serving in 1908 as the secretary of the Woodlands Ladies’ Hockey Club [xv].
In 1913 the Milroys had their only child, a son they named Thomas Edward Noel born on 14 January.
In 1916/17 James enlisted for military service and his name appears on the second division reserve roll while living at 133 Hataitai Road in Wellington. He was called up for military service in 1918 [xvi] but as he has no army file among those now held by Archives New Zealand, it does not appear that he served. However, James proceeded to make his final will on 15 July 1918 appointing Isobel ‘Jannatte’ as executrix and leaving his estate to her [xvii].
As the flu epidemic unfolded James was struck down in the peak week for deaths in Wellington. He was taken first to the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Coromandel Street in Newtown and thence to the Fever Hospital in Newtown where he died on 17 November 1918.
Isobel inserted a death notice in the Evening Post on 18 November 1918:
‘MILROY – On the 17th November 1918, at Wellington Hospital, James Richard Theodore Milroy, the dearly beloved husband of Isobel Milroy, of No. 10, Oriental-terrace, Wellington, and son of Thomas and Margaret Milroy, of 40 Woodside-road, Mount Eden, Auckland.’
Isobel was still living at 10 Oriental Terrace when she paid her husband’s funeral bill of £13/5/0 at E Morris junior on 19 December 1918.
Sadly, James was not the only member of his wider family to be infected; Mr and Mrs Henry of Invercargill, the sister of his father-in-law, Daniel Hannan, (and her husband) also contracted influenza and died, leaving a large family [xviii].
Worse still was to follow for Isobel. In 1920 while she was taking a break in the Cook Islands her only child Noel, then 7, ‘a bright and promising pupil’ attending the Alexandra Public School, and in the care of his Alexandra-based maternal grandparents, contracted meningitis and died on 7 June [xix]. He was buried in Alexandra Cemetery.
The headstone on James Milroy’s grave in Public 2 in Karori Cemetery says:
‘In Loving Memory of James Richard Theodore (Doc) beloved husband of Isobel MILROY died 17 Nov 1918 at 31 yrs. “Until the day break and the shadows flee away”.’
The quotation comes from the Old Testament, Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 17.
In 1921 Isobel remarried, a company secretary, Wilfred John GRAY. By the time of the 1928 electoral roll, the couple lived at 16 Mowbray Street, Wellington.
Isobel ‘Jeanette’ Gray lived until 1943 and was buried in Karori Cemetery in the Church of England 2 section.
James’s father, Thomas, died in Auckland in 1923, aged 76, and his mother Isabella died there too in 1942, aged 81.
Researched and written by Jenny Robertson
Grave Information:
Section: PUBLIC2
Plot: 275 I
Sources:
[i] Obituary in New Zealand Herald 12 February 1929
[ii] A maritime county in the north-east part of Scotland
[iii] Thomas Milroy migrated to New Zealand in the mid-1870s; it is unclear when Margaret Cran migrated.
[iv] This brother was named William John Sawers Milroy at birth in 1889 or ‘William John Sawyers’ as stated in his Union Street, Dunedin school record in 1902, his probate when he died in 1917 after a time in Carrington Hospital, Auckland, and on his burial record at Purewa Cemetery. In 1915 he worked as a bank clerk. William had attested at Trentham for service in World War I on 25 August 1915 and was discharged in November 1915 after a hearing by an emergency medical board while he was suicidal and experiencing a mental breakdown.
[v] Otago Daily Times 10 May 1905. Thomas Milroy’s 1929 obituary explains that he had arrived in New Zealand with letters of introduction that would have helped him go farming, but instead he took up the opportunity to join the railway service, then in its infancy.
[vi] Evening Post 21 October 1907 While the registration of ‘dentists’ in New Zealand was introduced in 1880 in a bid to ensure ‘a standard of practice’, it was not until 1904 that dental education was placed under the control of the University of New Zealand. As James Milroy qualified under exams run by the Dental Board, this predated the 4-year Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree at Otago introduced in 1907, catering for 20 – 25 students.
[vii] Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette 4 December 1918
[viii] James was in practice with Robert Henry Barron.
[ix] Woodlands was a rural servicing town on the banks of the Waihopai River, situated northeast of Invercargill between Dacre and Longbush. At one time it had a school, a public hall, hotel, saleyards, saddlery, blacksmith, and four sawmills as well as a large meatworks among other enterprises.
[x] Southland Times 30 October 1915
[xi] Southland Times 25 February 1914
[xii] In 1899, for example, 250 000 rabbits a month were processed at the Alexandra plant according to the Southern Cross 10 June 1899.
[xiii] Obituary in Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette 15 April 1942
[xiv] Southland Times 30 October 1915
[xv] The Southern Cross 29 August 1908
[xvi] See page 1177 of the NZ Gazette 1918.
[xvii] Probate in Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
[xviii] Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette 4 December 1918
[xix] Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette 9 June 1920
Born 1887; died 17 November 1918; buried 19 November 1918; age 31
James was the fifth child and second youngest son of Otago engine driver, Thomas MILROY (who was born 1853 in Stanraer, Scotland but who spent his boyhood in Ireland [i]) and his wife Margaret Jane CRAN (born about 1861, also in Scotland, in Banffshire [ii]). The Milroy parents [iii] had married in New Zealand in 1877 and had six children between 1878 and 1889. Their eldest son, Thomas Alexander, became a surgeon and served in World War I. All three of James’ sisters were older and one brother was younger. Another (younger) brother also signed up for active service in August 1915, but was discharged on medical grounds in November the same year [iv].
James’s father worked the bulk of his career in the Railways, serving 26 years [v] driving train engines, based some of time in Balclutha but more of the time in Dunedin before retiring in 1913 and moving north to Auckland. He took an active interest in the affairs of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, serving a term as its president and served as a member of the Railway Appeal Board. In addition, his New Zealand Herald obituary (see endnote i) identified an ‘unflagging interest in politics, having been a strong supporter of the late Mr Seddon throughout the Liberal leader’s career’.
On leaving school James studied dentistry in Dunedin and qualified in October 1907 among 15 of the 23 candidates examined by the Dental Board [vi]. James practised in Dunedin and Invercargill, and resided for a time in Wyndham and Christchurch before being appointed the manager of the American Dental Parlours in Wellington, a business he came to own [vii].
A 1910 report in the Mataura Ensign aired a dispute with Leah Myers, a restaurant owner in Armagh Street, Christchurch who reluctantly agreed to apply the debt James owed her in entertaining friends to meals in her premises by making her a set of teeth in lieu of cash payment of his outstanding debt. The court, however, found in an action brought by the dental firm as a whole [viii] that James’ personal debt with Miss Myers could not be traded off in this way and that in effect both business debts would need to be met directly by those who had contracted them out.
On 20 December 1911 James married Isobel Jannette HANNAN in the Presbyterian church of Woodlands, Southland [ix]. Isobel (registered as Isabel Jannette at birth in 1886 in Invercargill, but later known as Isobel Jeanette) was the eldest of six children born to Daniel and Isabella Hannan née BELL who had married in 1885. At least two of the Hannan children died in infancy. This branch of the Hannan family had longstanding connections with Central Otago and Southland. While Isobel’s mother ran the local Woodlands Railway Private Hotel for a time [x], her father, Daniel, was for 22 years the manager of Tait’s meat works at Woodlands [xi]. He also managed a new rabbit operation in Alexandra from 1915 for the Central Otago Preserves cannery until it closed, and worked for a time in 1914 in Wellington for Gear Meats. His extensive experience in the meat industry enabled him to bring to the canning process inventions of his own in processing both sheep and lamb tongues, compressed mutton cuts, as well as whole rabbits [xii].
Like her mother who was a keen croquet player in Alexandra [xiii], and her sister May who was a keen tennis player [xiv], Isobel Hannan also had sporting interests, serving in 1908 as the secretary of the Woodlands Ladies’ Hockey Club [xv].
In 1913 the Milroys had their only child, a son they named Thomas Edward Noel born on 14 January.
In 1916/17 James enlisted for military service and his name appears on the second division reserve roll while living at 133 Hataitai Road in Wellington. He was called up for military service in 1918 [xvi] but as he has no army file among those now held by Archives New Zealand, it does not appear that he served. However, James proceeded to make his final will on 15 July 1918 appointing Isobel ‘Jannatte’ as executrix and leaving his estate to her [xvii].
As the flu epidemic unfolded James was struck down in the peak week for deaths in Wellington. He was taken first to the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Coromandel Street in Newtown and thence to the Fever Hospital in Newtown where he died on 17 November 1918.
Isobel inserted a death notice in the Evening Post on 18 November 1918:
‘MILROY – On the 17th November 1918, at Wellington Hospital, James Richard Theodore Milroy, the dearly beloved husband of Isobel Milroy, of No. 10, Oriental-terrace, Wellington, and son of Thomas and Margaret Milroy, of 40 Woodside-road, Mount Eden, Auckland.’
Isobel was still living at 10 Oriental Terrace when she paid her husband’s funeral bill of £13/5/0 at E Morris junior on 19 December 1918.
Sadly, James was not the only member of his wider family to be infected; Mr and Mrs Henry of Invercargill, the sister of his father-in-law, Daniel Hannan, (and her husband) also contracted influenza and died, leaving a large family [xviii].
Worse still was to follow for Isobel. In 1920 while she was taking a break in the Cook Islands her only child Noel, then 7, ‘a bright and promising pupil’ attending the Alexandra Public School, and in the care of his Alexandra-based maternal grandparents, contracted meningitis and died on 7 June [xix]. He was buried in Alexandra Cemetery.
The headstone on James Milroy’s grave in Public 2 in Karori Cemetery says:
‘In Loving Memory of James Richard Theodore (Doc) beloved husband of Isobel MILROY died 17 Nov 1918 at 31 yrs. “Until the day break and the shadows flee away”.’
The quotation comes from the Old Testament, Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 17.
In 1921 Isobel remarried, a company secretary, Wilfred John GRAY. By the time of the 1928 electoral roll, the couple lived at 16 Mowbray Street, Wellington.
Isobel ‘Jeanette’ Gray lived until 1943 and was buried in Karori Cemetery in the Church of England 2 section.
James’s father, Thomas, died in Auckland in 1923, aged 76, and his mother Isabella died there too in 1942, aged 81.
Researched and written by Jenny Robertson
Grave Information:
Section: PUBLIC2
Plot: 275 I
Sources:
[i] Obituary in New Zealand Herald 12 February 1929
[ii] A maritime county in the north-east part of Scotland
[iii] Thomas Milroy migrated to New Zealand in the mid-1870s; it is unclear when Margaret Cran migrated.
[iv] This brother was named William John Sawers Milroy at birth in 1889 or ‘William John Sawyers’ as stated in his Union Street, Dunedin school record in 1902, his probate when he died in 1917 after a time in Carrington Hospital, Auckland, and on his burial record at Purewa Cemetery. In 1915 he worked as a bank clerk. William had attested at Trentham for service in World War I on 25 August 1915 and was discharged in November 1915 after a hearing by an emergency medical board while he was suicidal and experiencing a mental breakdown.
[v] Otago Daily Times 10 May 1905. Thomas Milroy’s 1929 obituary explains that he had arrived in New Zealand with letters of introduction that would have helped him go farming, but instead he took up the opportunity to join the railway service, then in its infancy.
[vi] Evening Post 21 October 1907 While the registration of ‘dentists’ in New Zealand was introduced in 1880 in a bid to ensure ‘a standard of practice’, it was not until 1904 that dental education was placed under the control of the University of New Zealand. As James Milroy qualified under exams run by the Dental Board, this predated the 4-year Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree at Otago introduced in 1907, catering for 20 – 25 students.
[vii] Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette 4 December 1918
[viii] James was in practice with Robert Henry Barron.
[ix] Woodlands was a rural servicing town on the banks of the Waihopai River, situated northeast of Invercargill between Dacre and Longbush. At one time it had a school, a public hall, hotel, saleyards, saddlery, blacksmith, and four sawmills as well as a large meatworks among other enterprises.
[x] Southland Times 30 October 1915
[xi] Southland Times 25 February 1914
[xii] In 1899, for example, 250 000 rabbits a month were processed at the Alexandra plant according to the Southern Cross 10 June 1899.
[xiii] Obituary in Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette 15 April 1942
[xiv] Southland Times 30 October 1915
[xv] The Southern Cross 29 August 1908
[xvi] See page 1177 of the NZ Gazette 1918.
[xvii] Probate in Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
[xviii] Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette 4 December 1918
[xix] Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette 9 June 1920