Edith Minchin

Biography

Edith was born in 1853. She is the daughter of Alfred Fennell.

India Births and Baptisms Name Edith Fennell Gender Female Christening Date 20 Feb 1853 Christening Place Madras, Madras, India Birth Date 03 Feb 1852 Father's Name Alfred Fennell Mother's Name Lavinia

Edith's sister Lavinia had married Henry Minchin from New Zealand, and when Edith met Henry's brother Charles, she fell in love.

Charles contracted malaria badly and decided to return to New Zealand where he found some land in the busy settlement of Kohukohu up the Hokianga River in the North Island. He built a hut and corresponded for over ten years with Edith. Edith eventually travelled to New Zealand and they were married in a friend's home in Auckland in 1887.

Edith bore up under the trek north and the boat ride up the river to their new home. Charles feared there would be floods of tears when his new bride saw the hut that was to be their home, but instead she laughed merrily. Years later she recalled "the contrast when I was first married, between a gay life in India and the life real and earnest, sowing corn and looking for hen's eggs etc was very delightful". Like other Minchin women, Edith held mother's meetings for the women in the district, most of them Maori. Endless patience made Edith a truly remarkable woman.

Charles and Edith had 3 children;

Alfred William (b. 1888), Ada Edith Constance Minchin (b. 1894 - d. 1939) and Alice Ethel Minchin (b. 1889)

Charles died on 20 December 1900 at age 66 when their children were only still quite young; 12, 11 and 10.

Edith died in 1933 at the age of 80 and is buried in Te Awamutu.