Baker family in early Canterbury

Emma and Charles, with their 5 children, arrived at Lyttelton in the middle of a winter storm on 6 June 1851.  It was definitely not as sunny as when the first immigrants arrived in the previous summer:

 There is very little that can be found on the Duke of Bronte.  No pictures seem to exist.  She had a short lived career.  After an immigrant trip to Adelaide and then another in 1851 to Lyttelton, she appears to have floundered off the coast of Africa and lost.  

After a short period of time in the immigration barracks at Lyttelton, the Baker family went over the Bridle Path to Christchurch.  At this point, it wasn't very developed. They lived in a tent on Hagley Park, probably not dissimilar to Studding Sail Hall.  It was likely a miserable time. Canterbury in winter is not the time to be living in a tent.

 In September 1851, they lost their eldest and youngest daughters to a "low fever".  Both were buried in Barbadoes Street Cemetery, in unmarked plots. 

Soon after, they returned to Lyttelton where they built their lives in New Zealand.  Charles went into dairy, along with his son George.

 Charles landed livestock at what was then known as Baker's Bay outside Lyttelton.  It was renamed Magazine Bay when they put a Magazine (in the military sense) there. 

Charles was killed when he fell from his horse in 1868.  He left Emma comfortably well off.  Their son George continued the family dairying business.

Emma, her son George and grandchildren were very lucky not to be burnt out by the Lyttelton fire in 1870.  Their property was at the other end of London Street and not affected.  They would have been affected by the shops and storehouses that were burnt to the ground when the central block of Lyttelton was destroyed.

George would later have his house destroyed by fire, but fortunately no one was hurt and he was insured.

Emma, her son George and grandchildren were very lucky not to be burnt out by the Lyttelton fire in 1870.  Their property was at the other end of London Street and not affected.  They would have been affected by the shops and storehouses that were burnt to the ground when the central block of Lyttelton was destroyed.

George would later have his house destroyed by fire, but fortunately no one was hurt and he was insured.

In late 1879, Emma moved to Christchurch.  Both her surviving daughters were living there.  She moved to Baker's Lane, which her eldest son Frederick had originally purchased and then sold to his mother before moving to Australia.

Christchurch had become significantly more developed since 1851!

Emma died in 1889 at her daughter Emma Harriet Haines Bowie's house.  She was survived by 4 of her 8 children and a large number of grandchildren.

An interesting source of information for Cantabrians is the GR Macdonald Dictionary of Canterbury Biography. Here we have the entries for Charles and his sons-in-law David Broom Bowie (husband of Emma Harriet Haines Baker) and Jasper Pyne O'Callaghan (husband of Winifred Alice Baker).