GIBSON, Sydney Barnes
Born 1884; died 3 December 1918; buried 5 December 1918; age 34
Sydney Barnes GIBSON was the son of a grocer in Nottingham, England. Sydney’s parents were Arthur Barnes Gibson (born 1860) and Harriett PACKER (born 1862), and Sydney was their oldest child. He had a sister Winifred, who was two years younger, and a brother, Cullen, four years younger. The family lived in sufficiently comfortable circumstances to employ a domestic servant and, by 1901, to live in one of the nicer streets of Nottingham – No. 1, Corporation Oaks [1].
By the time of the national census in 1901 Sydney was 17 years old, and apprenticed to his father. However, this seems not to have been enough of a job or security to keep Sydney in the UK, and in 1908 he left home and family and set off to the other side of the world, boarding the SS Oruba in London, and arriving in Brisbane on 5 August 1908. Sydney had contracted to land at Port Chalmers and was possibly travelling with George Sheppard, aged 33, whose shipping record shows his connection with the seed trade.
The first solid evidence we have of Sydney Barnes Gibson in New Zealand comes from a report in the New Zealand Truth of 22 July 1911 at which time Sydney was living in Dunedin where he had met Ruby COGLE, a barmaid at the Excelsior Hotel (known to locals as McKenzies). They had travelled by steamer together to Christchurch and at her suggestion Sydney had handed over to Ruby £32 for her safe-keeping. When Ruby abruptly returned to Dunedin with Sydney’s money (described as ‘boodle’ or ill-gotten gains in the New Zealand Truth), he reported the matter to the police who brought charges. However, by the time of the court hearing at which Ruby pleaded not guilty, Sydney decided against giving evidence for the prosecution as he ‘had made her a promise that he would not proceed further’. Without it, the police were obliged to withdraw the case within 5 minutes of the hearing commencing. The report informs readers that Ruby was ‘a nice looking girl’ who appeared in court ‘nicely dressed in a green knitted coat, blue skirt, glace patent shoes’ with ‘stockings … dainty creations with violet and rose coloured flowers’. Her hat ‘was a large flowery creation in pink with dark trimmings… worn well down over the forehead.’ The New Zealand Truth did not speculate on the reasons for Sydney’s change of heart but we can hope his money was returned to his own safe-keeping.
Sydney then appears on the Dunedin electoral roll in 1914 living at 2 Manor Place with the occupation of ‘labourer’. In March 1916 Sydney married Rubina (Robena) Edith KELMAN from an Otago family. She had been born in Alexandra, Central Otago in 1893 to Matilda Ann and James Kelman [2]. The marriage took place 2 days after Sydney and Rubina’s daughter Winifred Rubina was born in Dunedin on 12 March 1916. The couple lived at 30 Stewart (sic) [3] Street and Sydney worked at Speight’s Brewery.
Six months after his daughter’s birth and the subsequent marriage Sydney signed up, in Dunedin, in September 1916, and was sent initially to Trentham Camp where he completed his attestation form for military service (giving the date of his marriage as 12 March 1914 – 2 years prior).
Sydney’s army file recorded him being 5ft 5 inches tall, with blue eyes, a fair complexion, and light brown hair. He was declared to be fit for service. Initially he served as an officer’s orderly at Trentham but in February 1917 he was sent to Featherston Camp and began to serve among the ‘Grooms and Orderlies’. In July 1917, however, a medical board hearing recommended his discharge from the Expeditionary Force in view of nervous tremors associated with a cocaine and morphine habit of some 7 or 8 years duration.
After discharge from the army, Sydney joined his family at 11 Belfast Street, Mount Cook (Wellington) and Sydney again obtained brewery employment to sustain them.
A second daughter, Jessie Nora Gertrude Gibson, was born to Rubina and Sydney in Wellington in December 1917.
When he got sick with influenza in late 1918, his death, early on the morning of 3 December, was sudden. A newspaper report reveals…
A returned soldier, Sydney Barnes Gibson, aged 32, died suddenly at his residence, 11 Belfast-street at 6.15 o’clock this morning. He returned from the front some considerable time ago suffering from shell shock, and advised that his heart was affected. Recently he suffered from an attack of influenza. This morning his wife discovered him lying half out of bed, and put him into bed again. He expired almost immediately. A doctor’s certificate was obtained that death was due to heart trouble and the after effects of influenza. Gibson leaves two children
(Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 134, 3 December 1918)
There may not have been much time to check details before the press went to print, especially with so many people dying from the flu, but the claim of overseas service is not supported by Sydney’s army file available on Archway at Archives New Zealand. As a soldier however, the War Relief Association met his £10 burial cost paying the Wilson funeral home promptly on 13 January 1919.
Sydney was buried in the Anglican section at Karori Cemetery later on the day he died and the plaque on his grave is inscribed:
In Loving Memory Of Sydney Barnes Delawar [4] GIBSON d 3 Dec 1918 a 34 yrs
Rubina was 24 when Sydney died and had suddenly become the solo mother of two small daughters. She returned to Dunedin to live with her older sister who was married to the manager of the National Bank in George Street, Port Chalmers [5]. Rubina was able to pay for the purchase of Sydney’s cemetery plot in Karori on 8 August 1919.
In 1921 Rubina and Reginald Gaul FRASER married in Dunedin. They had a son (in 1922), and two daughters (in 1924 and 1931). They lived at various addresses in Dunedin until Rubina died, aged 72, in November 1966, and was buried in Anderson’s Bay Cemetery, where Reginald joined her after his death the following year.
Researched by Beverley Hamlin and Jenny Robertson and written by Jenny Robertson
Grave Information:
Section: CH ENG2
Plot: 175 E
[1] Corporation Oaks is part of the green corridor stretching round the north and east of the City Centre from the Arboretum to St Anns Well Road, built around the 1870s.
[2] Dunedin City Council cemetery records state she had lived in NZ for 68 years and was a native of Australia. This seems not to be correct, however, as her birth was registered in New Zealand in 1893.
[3] Address from army file but more likely to be Stuart Street, Dunedin.
[4] This is the only reference to “Delawar” as one of Sydney’s names.
[5] Jessie Matilda Kelman, born 1884, married Eric William George TEWSLEY in 1911.
Born 1884; died 3 December 1918; buried 5 December 1918; age 34
Sydney Barnes GIBSON was the son of a grocer in Nottingham, England. Sydney’s parents were Arthur Barnes Gibson (born 1860) and Harriett PACKER (born 1862), and Sydney was their oldest child. He had a sister Winifred, who was two years younger, and a brother, Cullen, four years younger. The family lived in sufficiently comfortable circumstances to employ a domestic servant and, by 1901, to live in one of the nicer streets of Nottingham – No. 1, Corporation Oaks [1].
By the time of the national census in 1901 Sydney was 17 years old, and apprenticed to his father. However, this seems not to have been enough of a job or security to keep Sydney in the UK, and in 1908 he left home and family and set off to the other side of the world, boarding the SS Oruba in London, and arriving in Brisbane on 5 August 1908. Sydney had contracted to land at Port Chalmers and was possibly travelling with George Sheppard, aged 33, whose shipping record shows his connection with the seed trade.
The first solid evidence we have of Sydney Barnes Gibson in New Zealand comes from a report in the New Zealand Truth of 22 July 1911 at which time Sydney was living in Dunedin where he had met Ruby COGLE, a barmaid at the Excelsior Hotel (known to locals as McKenzies). They had travelled by steamer together to Christchurch and at her suggestion Sydney had handed over to Ruby £32 for her safe-keeping. When Ruby abruptly returned to Dunedin with Sydney’s money (described as ‘boodle’ or ill-gotten gains in the New Zealand Truth), he reported the matter to the police who brought charges. However, by the time of the court hearing at which Ruby pleaded not guilty, Sydney decided against giving evidence for the prosecution as he ‘had made her a promise that he would not proceed further’. Without it, the police were obliged to withdraw the case within 5 minutes of the hearing commencing. The report informs readers that Ruby was ‘a nice looking girl’ who appeared in court ‘nicely dressed in a green knitted coat, blue skirt, glace patent shoes’ with ‘stockings … dainty creations with violet and rose coloured flowers’. Her hat ‘was a large flowery creation in pink with dark trimmings… worn well down over the forehead.’ The New Zealand Truth did not speculate on the reasons for Sydney’s change of heart but we can hope his money was returned to his own safe-keeping.
Sydney then appears on the Dunedin electoral roll in 1914 living at 2 Manor Place with the occupation of ‘labourer’. In March 1916 Sydney married Rubina (Robena) Edith KELMAN from an Otago family. She had been born in Alexandra, Central Otago in 1893 to Matilda Ann and James Kelman [2]. The marriage took place 2 days after Sydney and Rubina’s daughter Winifred Rubina was born in Dunedin on 12 March 1916. The couple lived at 30 Stewart (sic) [3] Street and Sydney worked at Speight’s Brewery.
Six months after his daughter’s birth and the subsequent marriage Sydney signed up, in Dunedin, in September 1916, and was sent initially to Trentham Camp where he completed his attestation form for military service (giving the date of his marriage as 12 March 1914 – 2 years prior).
Sydney’s army file recorded him being 5ft 5 inches tall, with blue eyes, a fair complexion, and light brown hair. He was declared to be fit for service. Initially he served as an officer’s orderly at Trentham but in February 1917 he was sent to Featherston Camp and began to serve among the ‘Grooms and Orderlies’. In July 1917, however, a medical board hearing recommended his discharge from the Expeditionary Force in view of nervous tremors associated with a cocaine and morphine habit of some 7 or 8 years duration.
After discharge from the army, Sydney joined his family at 11 Belfast Street, Mount Cook (Wellington) and Sydney again obtained brewery employment to sustain them.
A second daughter, Jessie Nora Gertrude Gibson, was born to Rubina and Sydney in Wellington in December 1917.
When he got sick with influenza in late 1918, his death, early on the morning of 3 December, was sudden. A newspaper report reveals…
A returned soldier, Sydney Barnes Gibson, aged 32, died suddenly at his residence, 11 Belfast-street at 6.15 o’clock this morning. He returned from the front some considerable time ago suffering from shell shock, and advised that his heart was affected. Recently he suffered from an attack of influenza. This morning his wife discovered him lying half out of bed, and put him into bed again. He expired almost immediately. A doctor’s certificate was obtained that death was due to heart trouble and the after effects of influenza. Gibson leaves two children
(Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 134, 3 December 1918)
There may not have been much time to check details before the press went to print, especially with so many people dying from the flu, but the claim of overseas service is not supported by Sydney’s army file available on Archway at Archives New Zealand. As a soldier however, the War Relief Association met his £10 burial cost paying the Wilson funeral home promptly on 13 January 1919.
Sydney was buried in the Anglican section at Karori Cemetery later on the day he died and the plaque on his grave is inscribed:
In Loving Memory Of Sydney Barnes Delawar [4] GIBSON d 3 Dec 1918 a 34 yrs
Rubina was 24 when Sydney died and had suddenly become the solo mother of two small daughters. She returned to Dunedin to live with her older sister who was married to the manager of the National Bank in George Street, Port Chalmers [5]. Rubina was able to pay for the purchase of Sydney’s cemetery plot in Karori on 8 August 1919.
In 1921 Rubina and Reginald Gaul FRASER married in Dunedin. They had a son (in 1922), and two daughters (in 1924 and 1931). They lived at various addresses in Dunedin until Rubina died, aged 72, in November 1966, and was buried in Anderson’s Bay Cemetery, where Reginald joined her after his death the following year.
Researched by Beverley Hamlin and Jenny Robertson and written by Jenny Robertson
Grave Information:
Section: CH ENG2
Plot: 175 E
[1] Corporation Oaks is part of the green corridor stretching round the north and east of the City Centre from the Arboretum to St Anns Well Road, built around the 1870s.
[2] Dunedin City Council cemetery records state she had lived in NZ for 68 years and was a native of Australia. This seems not to be correct, however, as her birth was registered in New Zealand in 1893.
[3] Address from army file but more likely to be Stuart Street, Dunedin.
[4] This is the only reference to “Delawar” as one of Sydney’s names.
[5] Jessie Matilda Kelman, born 1884, married Eric William George TEWSLEY in 1911.