HILL, John Albert
Born c 1890; died 1 December 1918; buried 2 December 1918; age 28
John HILL was born in Brunswick, Victoria, Australia and named Albert John Nelson Hill. According to his 1892 birth registration, his mother was Maud Nelson WATSON and his father was Frederick Albert Nelson Hill. His father worked as a horse trainer at some point and spent some of his working life in Calcutta, India (but research has not been able to confirm his exact occupation there). We know nothing of the origins of his parents or whether his mother remained in Australia and died or remarried there.
In 1914 when he was 24 John Hill married Ivy Florence TURNER, also 24, in Launceston, Tasmania, but the lack of digitisation of the Tasmanian BDM records, makes it hard to explore this further. However, in the same year the couple married, they came to New Zealand where John worked as a waterside worker to support his wife. It is unclear where John and Ivy lived and worked in their early time in New Zealand, as there are no references to the couple on Papers Past, or on electoral rolls, or the usual genealogy websites.
By 1918 the Hills were living at 39 Holloway Road, Mitchelltown, off the top of Aro Street, Wellington. John was taken from there when he contracted influenza to the temporary hospital at St John’s Church in Willis Street. He died on 1 December 1918 just past the peak week of flu deaths in November. At the time of death, his occupation of waterside worker was recorded and he was buried on 2 December 1918 in the Anglican section of Karori Cemetery. No children are listed as living on John Hill’s death record.
Born c 1890; died 1 December 1918; buried 2 December 1918; age 28
John HILL was born in Brunswick, Victoria, Australia and named Albert John Nelson Hill. According to his 1892 birth registration, his mother was Maud Nelson WATSON and his father was Frederick Albert Nelson Hill. His father worked as a horse trainer at some point and spent some of his working life in Calcutta, India (but research has not been able to confirm his exact occupation there). We know nothing of the origins of his parents or whether his mother remained in Australia and died or remarried there.
In 1914 when he was 24 John Hill married Ivy Florence TURNER, also 24, in Launceston, Tasmania, but the lack of digitisation of the Tasmanian BDM records, makes it hard to explore this further. However, in the same year the couple married, they came to New Zealand where John worked as a waterside worker to support his wife. It is unclear where John and Ivy lived and worked in their early time in New Zealand, as there are no references to the couple on Papers Past, or on electoral rolls, or the usual genealogy websites.
By 1918 the Hills were living at 39 Holloway Road, Mitchelltown, off the top of Aro Street, Wellington. John was taken from there when he contracted influenza to the temporary hospital at St John’s Church in Willis Street. He died on 1 December 1918 just past the peak week of flu deaths in November. At the time of death, his occupation of waterside worker was recorded and he was buried on 2 December 1918 in the Anglican section of Karori Cemetery. No children are listed as living on John Hill’s death record.
Ivy inserted a death notice on page 4 of the 5 December issue of the New Zealand Times, following one on 3 December 1918 in the Evening Post. The notice asked Auckland and Australian papers to copy it, so perhaps this is a clue to John having spent time in Auckland where the New Zealand Gazette captured in 1917 a military call-up record for a Mt Eden driver of the same name. The notice also referred to his father being ‘Mr F Hill of India, Calcutta’.
The Union Steam Ship Company paid the costs of John’s funeral - £9/15/0 - according to the E Morris junior funeral registers now held in the Turnbull Library in Wellington. However, the plot in which John Hill was buried has no marked grave or headstone.
Ivy remained in Holloway Road for a time, possibly needing to consider her future. She advertised in the Evening Post on 22 April 1919 for washing and cleaning work by the day…
‘WANTED, Washing and Cleaning by the day; Kelburn preferred. Apply 39, Holloway road, Mitchelltown.’
A lack of memorial notices for her husband in subsequent years suggests that Ivy may have returned to Australia or elsewhere as she adapted to life without him.
Researched and written by Jenny Robertson
Grave Information:
Section: CH ENG2
Plot: 164 E
The Union Steam Ship Company paid the costs of John’s funeral - £9/15/0 - according to the E Morris junior funeral registers now held in the Turnbull Library in Wellington. However, the plot in which John Hill was buried has no marked grave or headstone.
Ivy remained in Holloway Road for a time, possibly needing to consider her future. She advertised in the Evening Post on 22 April 1919 for washing and cleaning work by the day…
‘WANTED, Washing and Cleaning by the day; Kelburn preferred. Apply 39, Holloway road, Mitchelltown.’
A lack of memorial notices for her husband in subsequent years suggests that Ivy may have returned to Australia or elsewhere as she adapted to life without him.
Researched and written by Jenny Robertson
Grave Information:
Section: CH ENG2
Plot: 164 E