Carved House Nuku Apiapi & William Naylor JENKINS

See "Mystery Rotorua Photograph" in the April 2020 Famnet newsletter.

William sent a photograph of the Edwin Bainbridge Memorial back to Mrs Jenkins in Taranaki - probably his sister-in-law Mercy Jenkins (nee Drake), who was unwell and died in July 1906 at New Plymouth. Edwin Bainbridge was believed to be relative of Mercy. A genealogical link between the Drake family and Edwin's has yet to be found.

On learning that Edwin Bainbridge was the missing English tourist, John Percival McArthur, Hon Granville George Waldegrave and Actaeon Edward Courtney Forrest, travelled together from Auckland to Rotorua. All three had met Bainbridge in Auckland just before he travelled south.

Five members of the Haszard family were lost - Charles Albert Haszard, his three youngest children and his wife's nephew - Charles Sutherland Haszard, b 1881,  son of William Cundall Haszard and Janette nee White.

Edwin Bainbridge, the English tourist, was buried under McRae's hotel verandah.

Stephen Thomas Brent, who opened the Rotorua Temperance Hotel in March 1885, was also born at Prince Edward Island, Canada. He came to New Zealand with his parents, William Brent and Elizabeth nee Giles, arriving at Nelson in 1856 on the ship "Lady Gray."

William Brent went to England with William Jenkins and the Maori Chiefs in 1863. It would therefore be likely that Agnes Fortescue nee Jenkins stayed at the Rotorua Temperance Hotel when she visited Rotorua in 1885 with her husband Percival Trosse Fortescue.