BURLINGTON/DARLINGTON, Peter Allen
Born June 1880; died 13 December 1918; buried 14 December 1918; aged 38
A person recorded as Peter Allen BURLINGTON was 38, unmarried, with the occupation of ‘labourer’, when he died of influenza at the Wellington Fever Hospital. Under this surname, his death record contains little information other than one quirk, claiming burial in November 1918 before his death the following month. Perhaps the pressure on staff processing flu death records led to another mistake, this time in this person’s surname.
Thanks to great detective work by another Wellington researcher, it seems likely that the name of Peter Allen BURLINGTON is a mistranscription of Peter Allen DARLINGTON, New Zealand born and originally from the Ida Valley in Central Otago.[i] As a military deserter tried in Palmerston North in October 1918, he was at the start of a two-year sentence with hard labour in the Terrace Gaol, Wellington when he caught influenza and died.
Born June 1880; died 13 December 1918; buried 14 December 1918; aged 38
A person recorded as Peter Allen BURLINGTON was 38, unmarried, with the occupation of ‘labourer’, when he died of influenza at the Wellington Fever Hospital. Under this surname, his death record contains little information other than one quirk, claiming burial in November 1918 before his death the following month. Perhaps the pressure on staff processing flu death records led to another mistake, this time in this person’s surname.
Thanks to great detective work by another Wellington researcher, it seems likely that the name of Peter Allen BURLINGTON is a mistranscription of Peter Allen DARLINGTON, New Zealand born and originally from the Ida Valley in Central Otago.[i] As a military deserter tried in Palmerston North in October 1918, he was at the start of a two-year sentence with hard labour in the Terrace Gaol, Wellington when he caught influenza and died.
Peter Allen DARLINGTON was born in June 1880 in Central Otago, the first of three children to Carolina Christina ERICKSON, a Swedish migrant and Josiah Darlington from Cornwall, England. They had married in 1875 in New Zealand.[ii] Josiah had migrated at 16, in 1861 with his father, another Josiah, when both of them arrived in Otago from Melbourne on the ‘Mary Ann Wilson’ in pursuit of gold. While his father subsequently returned to Victoria, Josiah junior and his bride made their home in the Ida Valley after some time in Serpentine where a second son, Frederick was born in August 1881. Their daughter, Carolina Christina, given her mother’s name, was born in August 1888.[iii]
The eldest Darlington child appears to have been named after a neighbouring family friend, (another miner, and later a farmer at Mt Ida named Peter ALLEN).[iv] Allen was the name that Peter Allen Darlington was known by as he grew up.
By the 1880s when local gold was largely worked out, Josiah Darlington was keeping a store and the Carriers’ Arms Hotel, providing for both travellers’ refreshment and their accommodation at Mt Ida.[v] He took considerable interest in the sport of harness racing.[vi]
The Darlington children went to school initially in Dunedin where Allen attended George Street School and Union Street School while living with the HALE family in Dundas Street.[vii] He then returned to Mt Ida to complete his education at Moa Creek as well as Blacks, where the old school building still stands.[viii] (Blacks was subsequently renamed Ophir and known for the gold diggings on the pastoral property of Charles and William Black.)
Allen wrote to the ‘Otago Witness’ (1 September 1892, page 40) to communicate news of his young world:
Dear Dot, — I live in Ida Valley. I go to school, and am in the Fifth Standard. We had an Arbor Day here, and I enjoyed myself very much. I planted two trees, and all the rest of the scholars did the same. We had races, and a children's dance in the evening. The rest of night was taken up with other dances.— Yours truly, Allen Darlington Ida Valley, August 19.
Allen left Blacks School in 1893, perhaps to work in the family enterprises or to follow his father into mining. His brother Fred had left earlier, at the end of 1890.[ix]
The hotel trade was a common lure to those addicted to alcohol. So it proved for Allen’s mother in 1885 when Josiah sought mental health support to help her manage her dependence.[x]
Her struggle continued, however, with evidence of a debacle in 1891, when she was struck on the neck with a tomahawk and seriously cut during a beating by another Ida Valley resident with whom she had been drinking.[xi] On this occasion she was rescued by neighbour Peter Allen who took her in, struggling to stop the blood flow. Mrs Darlington took her assailant to court and while much (highly unpleasant) evidence was given behind closed doors, the case was dismissed.[xii] This prompted the Mt Ida Chronicle to criticise the way wholesale and bottle licences were granted, because of their injurious impact on communities.[xiii]
Mrs Darlington died in bed after a short illness in 1896. She was 49: the coroner found ‘chronic alcoholism, terminating in fatal syncope’ as the cause of death.[xiv]
Josiah also died in bed at the Carrier’s Arms Hotel a few weeks later on 19 July 1896 and was buried alongside his wife in the Ida Valley Cemetery.[xv] Allen was 16, an orphan but perhaps expected to keep an eye on both his younger siblings – his sister was just 8 and at school in Dunedin, while his brother was 14.
By 1900 Allen had turned his hand to mining, first at the Globe Mine in Reefton on the West Coast, and then returning to Mt Ida to mine by 1905/06. He then took to keeping a billiard saloon at 173 Princes Street in Dunedin with his brother Fred.[xvi] On taking out a membership of the Lodge of Otago in early 1904, he described his occupation as ‘contractor’. Still billiard-saloon keeping in Dunedin in 1907 according to Stone’s street directory, he had moved north by the time the 1911 electoral rolls were compiled to work as a flax cutter at Moutoa.[xvii]
Allen’s first court appearance (in 1912) was connected with alcohol, in Palmerston North. With a group of boarding house ‘mates’ he was convicted on 30 September of stealing whisky from the Railway Hotel and was sentenced to 30 days’ jail. Allen gave his age as 2 years older than he was, the oldest of the group and the only one to give evidence under oath. His fingerprints and photograph were taken after his conviction and before his discharge on 29 October 1912. This may have helped authorities track him down later as an army deserter once the war was on.
By August 1914 he was working in Taumarunui as a yardman at the Junction Hotel where he got involved in sly-grogging.[xviii] Accused of bringing 30 bottles of whisky in a horse and trap to sell in a no-licence area, Allen was convicted and fined £50 and costs for his part in an organised chain. In default, he spent 3 months in Auckland Prison. He was discharged on 13 November 1914. The ‘Police Gazette’ recorded that he had acquired a large scar on his left wrist and a scar on his right eyebrow. He also had a birthmark under his left eye.[xix] He was 5’ 7 ½” tall, with a fresh complexion, blue eyes, a medium build, and brown hair.
The ‘Waikato Argus’ reported his next appearance in the Magistrate’s Court in Hamilton on 21 November 1914 where he was charged with being drunk. He was fined 20 shillings and costs.
Just a week later, he had moved to Auckland where he appeared in court as a rogue and vagabond, for being found by night on enclosed premises. He was sentenced to 7 days’ jail with hard labour.[xx] On this occasion a newspaper reported his use of the alias ‘William Williams’. The magistrate did not accept his explanation of being ‘worse for liquor’ when he decided, at 1.30am, to walk along the verandah of a house fully occupied by women in Vincent Street. He had tried to run but was grabbed by a constable.
Allen then seems to have worked at Te Kauwhata as a flax mill hand, but his use of alcohol continued. A prolonged spree in October 1916 saw him remanded for a week to the Avondale Mental Hospital. Constable Horan of the Mercer Police Station described him as an ‘expert mill hand…a man of good address and education with socialistic views’ who ‘said he was willing to go the Front when he was drawn in the Ballot’.[xxi]
Allen’s ballot notification to serve in the NZ Expeditionary Force was initially sent to his address at Taniwha, Waikato and was redirected to a flax mill at Foxton where he was then working. He was ordered to parade for medical examination in Palmerston North on 27 February 1918 but did not turn up. Allen continued to evade authorities until 18 September 1918, in part by taking on the identity of another mill hand, one Donald Robert James SIMPSON who had a medical dispensation from army service.[xxii] When arrested Allen told the district court-martial that he ‘did not mind being caught as he had had a good run.’[xxiii]
Allen’s army file outlines the challenges involved in tracing his whereabouts after he failed to show for his medical examination in Palmerston North. As one of 58 ‘deserters from His Majesty’s Service’ at this time, there was growing resistance to the army’s insatiable thirst for reinforcements while the war dragged on. Men like Allen aimed to evade civil and military authorities for as long as possible in the hope that the war would end before their call-up could take effect.
The ‘Waikato Argus’ reported his next appearance in the Magistrate’s Court in Hamilton on 21 November 1914 where he was charged with being drunk. He was fined 20 shillings and costs.
Just a week later, he had moved to Auckland where he appeared in court as a rogue and vagabond, for being found by night on enclosed premises. He was sentenced to 7 days’ jail with hard labour.[xx] On this occasion a newspaper reported his use of the alias ‘William Williams’. The magistrate did not accept his explanation of being ‘worse for liquor’ when he decided, at 1.30am, to walk along the verandah of a house fully occupied by women in Vincent Street. He had tried to run but was grabbed by a constable.
Allen then seems to have worked at Te Kauwhata as a flax mill hand, but his use of alcohol continued. A prolonged spree in October 1916 saw him remanded for a week to the Avondale Mental Hospital. Constable Horan of the Mercer Police Station described him as an ‘expert mill hand…a man of good address and education with socialistic views’ who ‘said he was willing to go the Front when he was drawn in the Ballot’.[xxi]
Allen’s ballot notification to serve in the NZ Expeditionary Force was initially sent to his address at Taniwha, Waikato and was redirected to a flax mill at Foxton where he was then working. He was ordered to parade for medical examination in Palmerston North on 27 February 1918 but did not turn up. Allen continued to evade authorities until 18 September 1918, in part by taking on the identity of another mill hand, one Donald Robert James SIMPSON who had a medical dispensation from army service.[xxii] When arrested Allen told the district court-martial that he ‘did not mind being caught as he had had a good run.’[xxiii]
Allen’s army file outlines the challenges involved in tracing his whereabouts after he failed to show for his medical examination in Palmerston North. As one of 58 ‘deserters from His Majesty’s Service’ at this time, there was growing resistance to the army’s insatiable thirst for reinforcements while the war dragged on. Men like Allen aimed to evade civil and military authorities for as long as possible in the hope that the war would end before their call-up could take effect.
Allen’s brother Fred, then a taxi driver in Christchurch, enlisted on 26 February 1917 and in July 1917 was sent overseas with the 27th reinforcements. He served in France and spent over 2 years in the army. Fred did not return to New Zealand until well after the imprisonment and death of his brother.
Allen had to attest for service at Marton on 20 September 1918 – 2 days after his capture. At this time, he was working as a fencer in the Fordell area. He was unmarried and recorded Church of England as his religious affiliation.
Ironically, a medical examination found he had a ‘dilated heart, fatty’, classifying him C2 and fit only for service at home. He was sentenced by military authorities at a district court martial to 2 years’ imprisonment with hard labour.[xxiv] He was sent to the Terrace Gaol in Wellington where he contracted influenza as did prison warder William Goddard. Allen died in the Wellington Fever Hospital and Goddard at the Wellington College temporary hospital. Both men died a little over a week apart, perhaps affected by the close living conditions of the prison environment. They were buried in the Karori Cemetery.
Had Allen entered army training earlier when summoned to appear, he might have been free of close-living conditions by the time the flu struck.
The justice authorities promptly made a grant of £2/10/- to the Wilson funeral home for arranging the Allen’s burial in the Church of England 2 section of Karori Cemetery in what is described in Wilson’s records as a ‘coffin for paupers’. He was buried in the same plot as another prisoner, Phillip Le Mesurier, who was 69 and suffered heart disease. This may or may not have been Philip Le Masurier, a saddler turned waiter who worked in Wellington for many years.
Records do not show how or why Allen’s surname of Darlington was mistaken for Burlington, something that seemed to happen right at the end of his life after his death in detention. However, there is no official record for the death of a Peter Allen Darlington. Instead, Peter Allen Burlington’s death is recorded on 13 December – but his burial date was recorded as 14 November.
The fact that the ‘Police Gazette’ in 1919 (page 27) recorded Darlington’s ‘discharge’ from detention as taking place on 13 December 1918 (the very day Burlington died) and noted under ‘remarks’ that Darlington had ‘died’, are the strongest clues that this was probably the same man.
There is still no explanation for the claim on Peter Allen Burlington’s death record that he was buried in November, the month before he died.
Researched and written by Jenny Robertson with special thanks to the Dominion Post reader who brought their research skills to this story.
Grave Information:
Section: CH ENG2
Plot: 186 E
Allen had to attest for service at Marton on 20 September 1918 – 2 days after his capture. At this time, he was working as a fencer in the Fordell area. He was unmarried and recorded Church of England as his religious affiliation.
Ironically, a medical examination found he had a ‘dilated heart, fatty’, classifying him C2 and fit only for service at home. He was sentenced by military authorities at a district court martial to 2 years’ imprisonment with hard labour.[xxiv] He was sent to the Terrace Gaol in Wellington where he contracted influenza as did prison warder William Goddard. Allen died in the Wellington Fever Hospital and Goddard at the Wellington College temporary hospital. Both men died a little over a week apart, perhaps affected by the close living conditions of the prison environment. They were buried in the Karori Cemetery.
Had Allen entered army training earlier when summoned to appear, he might have been free of close-living conditions by the time the flu struck.
The justice authorities promptly made a grant of £2/10/- to the Wilson funeral home for arranging the Allen’s burial in the Church of England 2 section of Karori Cemetery in what is described in Wilson’s records as a ‘coffin for paupers’. He was buried in the same plot as another prisoner, Phillip Le Mesurier, who was 69 and suffered heart disease. This may or may not have been Philip Le Masurier, a saddler turned waiter who worked in Wellington for many years.
Records do not show how or why Allen’s surname of Darlington was mistaken for Burlington, something that seemed to happen right at the end of his life after his death in detention. However, there is no official record for the death of a Peter Allen Darlington. Instead, Peter Allen Burlington’s death is recorded on 13 December – but his burial date was recorded as 14 November.
The fact that the ‘Police Gazette’ in 1919 (page 27) recorded Darlington’s ‘discharge’ from detention as taking place on 13 December 1918 (the very day Burlington died) and noted under ‘remarks’ that Darlington had ‘died’, are the strongest clues that this was probably the same man.
There is still no explanation for the claim on Peter Allen Burlington’s death record that he was buried in November, the month before he died.
Researched and written by Jenny Robertson with special thanks to the Dominion Post reader who brought their research skills to this story.
Grave Information:
Section: CH ENG2
Plot: 186 E
[i] A search on Ancestry using only the first names ‘Peter Allen’, a birth year of ‘1880’ and a place ‘New Zealand’ brings up ‘Police Gazette’ entries and the army file for Peter Allen DARLINGTON. This breakthrough helped refocus the search on his life story.
[ii] Their marriage record gives their names as ‘Joseph’ Darlington and ‘Caroline’ Erickson.
[iii] Frederick was registered ‘Frederick Thomas’ but by the time he was called up for military service, he went by the name of ‘Frederick William’. His father’s will made in 1894 refers to him as ‘Thomas Frederick’. Their sister used the name ‘Caroline Christina’ when she married Thomas McGinn in 1903 and was known on her Kaikorai, Dunedin school record as ‘Christina’. There she boarded with Mrs McIntosh of Nevada having also attended the Normal School in George Street, Dunedin.
[iv] The connections between the families was close evidenced by Josiah appointing Peter Allen as his executor in the will he made on 29 January 1894 and by Frederick William Darlington, still connected with the Ida Valley in 1901, providing the affidavit of death when Peter Allen, intestate, committed suicide on 5/6 November that year. The Coroner’s Report into this death shows that Caroline Christina Darlington, Allen’s sister, was housekeeping for Peter Allen when he died.
[v] The Ida Valley is a wide flat valley about 40 miles long between the Manuherikia Valley and the Maniototo plains; the largest settlement in the now sparsely populated valley is Oturehua, a small village at the northern end. Alexandra is its closest larger settlement today.
[vi] ‘Dunstan Times’ 31 July 1896
[vii] Early school records use the spelling ‘Allan’ and link him to Mt Ida so we can be confident that the record is highly likely to be that of Peter Allen Darlington.
[viii] A school was established in the Ida Valley and named that in 1880 the same year that Allen was born. It is not clear if any of the Darlingtons attended – perhaps their father was still mobile and gold mining in the district which is why early school records show the children boarded out in Dunedin.
[ix] Frederick’s school record at Blacks shows he was in the care of William Foster while attending school and had left the district after his last day on 16 December 1890. All school records are taken from the NZSG CD KiwiCollection v2, 2015.
[x] Archives New Zealand (Dunedin Branch) DAAC D140 268/ Rec22355963 Supreme Court – Lunacy Case File, No. L44 – Carolina Christina Darlington, wife of Josiah Darlington
[xi] ‘Mount Ida Chronicle’ 4 June 1891
[xii] Ibid
[xiii] Ibid. The case was heard by two visiting justices referred to as ‘the Bench’.
[xiv] ‘Otago Daily Times’ 3 June 1896
[xv] The ‘Dunstan Times’ 31 July 1896 reported ‘probably palpitation of the heart’ as Josiah’s cause of death. There was no inquest as he ‘had been in indifferent health and under the doctor’s care for some time past’, never having ‘properly recovered from an accident he met with at the Serpentine some few months ago’.
[xvi] Electoral rolls for 1900, 1905/06, 1911
[xvii] Allen’s membership of the Lodge of Otago seems to have ceased in the middle of 1909 according to a record on Ancestry.
[xviii] ‘Manawatu Standard’ 18 August 1914
[xix] ‘Police Gazette’ 1914, page 756 (Nov 25)
[xx] ‘New Zealand Herald’ 1 December 1914.
[xxi] Letter signed by Constable Horan dated 27 May 1917 on Army file of Peter Allen Darlington
[xxii] Army file of Peter Allen Darlington on Archway, Archives New Zealand. Some ‘Police Gazette’ entries, for example 1914, page 756 give Allen Darlington’s height as 5’ 5 ¾”, his birth year as 1878 or 1880, his complexion as either fresh or sallow and his nose as medium or large, but carrying over information from previous entries might explain this as might a failure to take and record fresh observations on the spot.
[xxiii] ‘Manawatu Standard’ 10 October 1918
[xxiv] Ibid
[ii] Their marriage record gives their names as ‘Joseph’ Darlington and ‘Caroline’ Erickson.
[iii] Frederick was registered ‘Frederick Thomas’ but by the time he was called up for military service, he went by the name of ‘Frederick William’. His father’s will made in 1894 refers to him as ‘Thomas Frederick’. Their sister used the name ‘Caroline Christina’ when she married Thomas McGinn in 1903 and was known on her Kaikorai, Dunedin school record as ‘Christina’. There she boarded with Mrs McIntosh of Nevada having also attended the Normal School in George Street, Dunedin.
[iv] The connections between the families was close evidenced by Josiah appointing Peter Allen as his executor in the will he made on 29 January 1894 and by Frederick William Darlington, still connected with the Ida Valley in 1901, providing the affidavit of death when Peter Allen, intestate, committed suicide on 5/6 November that year. The Coroner’s Report into this death shows that Caroline Christina Darlington, Allen’s sister, was housekeeping for Peter Allen when he died.
[v] The Ida Valley is a wide flat valley about 40 miles long between the Manuherikia Valley and the Maniototo plains; the largest settlement in the now sparsely populated valley is Oturehua, a small village at the northern end. Alexandra is its closest larger settlement today.
[vi] ‘Dunstan Times’ 31 July 1896
[vii] Early school records use the spelling ‘Allan’ and link him to Mt Ida so we can be confident that the record is highly likely to be that of Peter Allen Darlington.
[viii] A school was established in the Ida Valley and named that in 1880 the same year that Allen was born. It is not clear if any of the Darlingtons attended – perhaps their father was still mobile and gold mining in the district which is why early school records show the children boarded out in Dunedin.
[ix] Frederick’s school record at Blacks shows he was in the care of William Foster while attending school and had left the district after his last day on 16 December 1890. All school records are taken from the NZSG CD KiwiCollection v2, 2015.
[x] Archives New Zealand (Dunedin Branch) DAAC D140 268/ Rec22355963 Supreme Court – Lunacy Case File, No. L44 – Carolina Christina Darlington, wife of Josiah Darlington
[xi] ‘Mount Ida Chronicle’ 4 June 1891
[xii] Ibid
[xiii] Ibid. The case was heard by two visiting justices referred to as ‘the Bench’.
[xiv] ‘Otago Daily Times’ 3 June 1896
[xv] The ‘Dunstan Times’ 31 July 1896 reported ‘probably palpitation of the heart’ as Josiah’s cause of death. There was no inquest as he ‘had been in indifferent health and under the doctor’s care for some time past’, never having ‘properly recovered from an accident he met with at the Serpentine some few months ago’.
[xvi] Electoral rolls for 1900, 1905/06, 1911
[xvii] Allen’s membership of the Lodge of Otago seems to have ceased in the middle of 1909 according to a record on Ancestry.
[xviii] ‘Manawatu Standard’ 18 August 1914
[xix] ‘Police Gazette’ 1914, page 756 (Nov 25)
[xx] ‘New Zealand Herald’ 1 December 1914.
[xxi] Letter signed by Constable Horan dated 27 May 1917 on Army file of Peter Allen Darlington
[xxii] Army file of Peter Allen Darlington on Archway, Archives New Zealand. Some ‘Police Gazette’ entries, for example 1914, page 756 give Allen Darlington’s height as 5’ 5 ¾”, his birth year as 1878 or 1880, his complexion as either fresh or sallow and his nose as medium or large, but carrying over information from previous entries might explain this as might a failure to take and record fresh observations on the spot.
[xxiii] ‘Manawatu Standard’ 10 October 1918
[xxiv] Ibid