By Roselyn Fauth
As you move along the rows of stones at the cemetery you'll notice just how many people lie here with no marker at all. It was while trying to understand that idea of unmarked resting places that I found myself circling back to the very beginning of the cemetery. The first recorded burials tell a story that says more about memory and visibility than any polished marble ever could.
At first glance the cemetery looks like neat rows of stones. Look closer and you notice the gaps, not because there are no graves, but because some people never received a marker at all. I never noticed that before. Once you’ve seen it, though, you can’t unsee it.
Before roads and bridges, overland travel was slow and difficult, so the sea was a vital link to the rest of the country and the world for transport and trade. Many ships were wrecked and salvaged before the construction of Timaru’s first breakwater began in 1878. Many men risked their lives to rush to the rescue, saving lives, ships, and cargo.
Before the harbour was constructed, ships had to anchor offshore, and smaller vessels ferried people and cargo between ship and land. Violent swells and storms could arrive with little warning. Ships often could not raise sail and tack into deeper water in time, dragging or losing their anchors and drifting to danger.
Several rescue services formed in response: the Deal Boatmen, the Alexandra Lifeboat Crew, and the Rocket Brigade.
The purpose-built 1862 Alexandra lifeboat arrived in 1863 from the United Kingdom as Timaru's purpose-built rescue vessel. It was stored beside “Cain’s Landing Place” at the foot of Strathallan Street. The Government leased the service out in 1864 and purchased it in 1867.
Anderson Jubilie history shows the Landing Site at the foot of Strathallan Street.
It was stored beside “Cain’s Landing Place” at the foot of Strathallan Street. The Government leased the service in 1864 and purchased it in 1867.
The Coronation Procession Timaru. Heroes of the Wrecks. Unused picture postcard featuring the lifeboat Alexandra entitled "The Coronation Procession Timaru. Heroes of the Wrecks", dated 22 June 1911. Features the lifeboat being drawn by a four-horse team on Craigie Avenue, Timaru, turning onto North Street. WF No3 South Canterbury Museum timdc.pastperfectonline.com/852999445251
There was a fatal 1869 capsize of the earlier lifeboat cast a shadow over the its successes, Duncan Cameron died and is buried in Row 0, Free Ground at the Timaru Cemetery. His death marked the lifeboats reputation as “evil and unused”. The vessel needed careful management and specialised handling, so the Harbour Board trained and paid the crew, keeping them on standby through the 1870s.
As its service returned to volunteering, the Lifeboat Lodge was formed in support, and women began holding fundraising events. The Rocket Brigade became the primary rescue service by 1877 and was able to rush to the rescue over 100 times. The lifeboat wasn’t required for many years, until Black Sunday, May 14, 1882.
A violent sea struck on a windless day under a blue sky. The Benvenue Ship's ballast shifted and caused it to list. The crew made it to City of Perth before the Benvenue snapped from its anchors and drifted across Caroline Bay. It wrecked at the cliff, now named after it.
A whaleboat, ship's gig and ship's lifeboat rowed out to try and save the City of Perth, but they were unable to, and it drifted towards the wrecked Benvenue. It was while they were rowing back to safety that the 3 boats capsized in 18-foot heaving seas. What followed became one of Timaru's most significant maritime events. 10 men died from the disaster, including: 5 in the initial boat failures, 2 during the Alexandra’s 4th capsize, Capt. Alexander Mills from exhaustion back on shore, and 2 men who died later from injuries. The Benvenue Memorial on the corner of Perth and Sophia Streets was built in 1883–85 and funded by the public to honour the heroes, survivors and lives lost. Many who died in this and other sea tragedies rest in unmarked graves and in Timaru’s cemetery.
The 1862 Alexandra was paraded through the streets and later displayed as an act of remembrance. It is one of only three of its type left in the world. Today it is displayed back at Caroline Bay, and holds the stories of the sea rescues it once carried out and the lives it helped save, an important part of Timaru’s maritime story.
Wreck of the City of Perth and Benvenue, Timaru, 1882-05-14. A heavily retouched photograph of the wreck of the sailing ships the City of Perth and Benvenue at Timaru on May 14, 1882. The City of Perth (left) and the Benvenue (right) ashore in Caroline Bay. The Benvenue became a total wreck, but the City of Perth was later refloated and became well-known as the Turakina, owned by the New Zealand Shipping Company. White Wings Vol I. Fifty Years Of Sail In The New Zealand Trade, 1850 to 1900, Henry Brett, 1924, page 302. Please acknowledge Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 5-2553. No known copyright
The wrecks at Timaru, New Zealand: Lifeboats rescuing sailors in heavy surf, one life boat named City of Perth. . Wood engraving by Ashton, Julian Rossi, 1851-1942 slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_ROSETTAIE670476
View of Timaru and District by Adolf Fischer circa 1890 views Harbour north from George Street South Canterbury Museum 3868. You can see the Miles Archer & Co building that was later purchased by David Turnbull, for D.C. Turnbull & Co. This is the foot of Strathallan Street, where Cain, LeCren and Strongwork Morrison worked at the Landing Services that was later acquired by the government. (Note this is not the Landing Services Building that we see in Timaru today, that was created after locals created another landing service to compete with the government run one.)
The First Recorded Burials at Timaru Cemetery
So that is the back story to Timaru's early colonial coastal shipping and rescues. The first recorded burials at Timaru Cemetery link back to the Deal Boatmen who died during a rescue attempt. On the night of 5 October 1860 an autumn gale struck the coast. Offshore, the schooner Wellington struggled in heavy seas. On the beach were two Deal boatmen, Morris Clayson Cory and a man named Robert Boubius, keeping watch as the conditions worsened. They had come from England to work Timaru’s surfboats and were experienced enough to recognise danger building in the dark.
Earlier that year Timaru had obtained its very first lifeboat from Sydney. It is important to note that this was not the Alexandra lifeboat that the Provincial Government ordered for Timaru in 1862. That later vessel was built to proper RNLI standards and was a completely different calibre of craft. The Sydney lifeboat, on the other hand, sounds like it was badly built and almost useless. It barely floated, it was stored in the wrong place and you could not even launch it where it sat. To use it you had to drag it along the beach. Cory and Boubius, as experienced Boatmen who had arrived to Timaru from Deal, had observed all of this for months. By the time the Wellington Ship appeared to be drifting towards the coast at dawn, they knew exactly how unsafe their official equipment was.
By the mid-1850s, Timaru needed professional surf-boat crews to unload ships safely. Before their arrival, unloading was done by: Māori boatmen from Arowhenua (skilled whaleboat crews) and a small number of Europeans with mixed experience, including former Timaru whaler Samuel Williams, who worked for Rhodes to manage the shore station in Timaru for the Levels Estate.
Yet shipmasters complained that labour was unreliable, inconsistent, and sometimes insufficient for bad weather conditions
1856–58: Robert Heaton Rhodes and Henry Le Cren initiated plans for a professional landing service. Henry Le Cren sent Captain Henry Cain to establish it. Cain struggled, and famously wrote back to Le Cren that he needed reliable surf boatmen from Deal. In 1859 a group of professional Deal boatmen accepted the offer and emigrated to Timaru.
Strongwork (Strong Work) Morrison, John Pezet, Richard Morgan, William Andrews, Richard Bowbyes, Morris Cory (drowned 1860), Robert Bowbyes (drowned 1860), John Wilds, and William Wilds. They were descendants of the Deal families, experienced sailors who settled in town, and were men trained by the first generation of Deal surf-boat specialists. Timaru was still an open beach, not a port, and losing two trained Deal men was a major blow.
Jarvis Foster joined the Deal Boten crew after the death of Cory and Bowbyes.
Here you can see the passenger landing service sheds with signal station on the cliff above at Timaru - Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1691-114 This area was at the foot of Strathallan Street. Henry Le Cren and Capt Henry Cain operated a landing service here. It was purcased by the government. Two other private enterprise operated further down the shore at the foot of George Street. The George St Landing Services were mainly managing the coal imports. And then Henry Cain was involved with the landing services that operated infront of the building now known as the Timaru Landing Services Building.
Government landing terrace at Timaru, 1860s. Shows buildings by the waterfront. Photographer unidentified. - https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.366331
A rescue attempt had to be made. The two men made the only decision they believed offered even the smallest chance.
They left the lifeboat behind and pushed a small two oared surfboat into the breakers of a mountainous Pacific Oceans edge. They must have known the odds were terrible. A single wave overturned the boat. Both men drowned. Their bodies washed ashore later and they became the first recorded burials in the Timaru Cemetery. As a sad twist, the Wellington survived the storm and sailed away safely. Two men put their lives on the line for nothing.
To the rescue. A lifeboat crew rowing to rescue shipwrecked sailors. New Zealand Graphic; Wright, Henry Charles Seppings, 1849-1937. 1893-02-11. NZ Graphic Collection NZG-18930211-0121-01. Published In The New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal, 11 February 1893, p.121. Please acknowledge Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-18930211-0121-01. No known copyright restrictions. NZG_18930211_0121_01.jpg kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/111552
Once I learnt their story I found myself wondering about the details.
Who actually paid to bury these men. Timaru was hardly more than a scattering of buildings in 1860. There was no council in the modern sense, no trustees with a budget to draw on. Cory and Boubius had been here only a short time and their families were still in England. So who stepped forward. Was it Longden and Le Cren who had arranged for the Deal boatmen to come out. Was it Henry Cain who was effectively running the landing service. Or was it simply the locals doing what communities often do, taking care of what needs to be done.
And then there is the matter of the headstone.
Cory has one. Boubius does not. I do not know whether Cory’s stone went up straight away or if it was added later once someone had the money or the emotional space to arrange it. Early settlers often had to wait before they could afford a monument. It is entirely possible that both men lay unmarked at first. Boubius, for reasons we will never quite know, never received one at all.
Boubius’s unmarked grave was probably not part of any formal system. The cemetery was new and everything was still informal wiuth the church overseeing the area The official idea of free ground did not exist yet. That came later with the burial legislation of the 1870s and 1880s when councils had to create designated areas for people who could not afford a plot.
Sections filled over time with working families, stillborn babies, newcomers without kin, and people who simply slipped through the gaps of circumstance. In a way Boubius sits just outside that official history. His grave feels like a quiet beginning to it, a hint of how easily someone can disappear if no one speaks their name. He is our first recorded un marked grave at Timaru's cemetery.
Age at Death 30. Date of Death: 6 Oct 1860, Date of Interment: 16 Oct 1860. Timaru Cemetery, Section General, Row 27, Plot 17. His wife is also buried here. Elizabeth Thompson Cory. Age at Death: 85. Date of Death 20 Mar 1913. Date of Interment 22 Mar 1913. Timaru Cemetery Section General. Row 27, Plot 17
I stood there, looking at Cory’s stone and then at the bare patch beside it, which is now part of a path, a rose garden and a berm for ashes. Two men, same boat, same night, same courage. One stone. One none. It shapes how each man is remembered over 165 years later. https://www.timaru.govt.nz/community/community-and-culture/cemeteries/cemetery-search?BurialId=2374
Robert William Bowbyes Burial Date Oct 16, 1860. Age 33. Plot No15, Row No26
I searched for those who were buried in Row 0, free ground area. And put the burials into order by date. One of the first 10 to be buried in free ground, sponored by the government was Cameron, Duncan 39 Years 24 May 1869, he died while the 1862 Alexandra lifeboat was being launched for another sea rescue mission. He worked on the Timaru beach in the surf-boat environment, with the remaining Māori boatmen and the Deal boatmen who arrived from 1859 onwards. His death links us to the maritime risk on Timaru’s open roadstead.
This why the new monument matters to me. It is for the Roberts of this world. For everyone who rests in free ground or in the wider cemetery without a marker. For those who worked, loved, raised families, lived briefly, or simply ran out of time, family or money to leave any trace behind. The cemetery holds their stories whether there is a stone or not, I worry that without good information and sharing their stories, they could fade faster.
When we unveil the monument I know exactly who I will be thinking of. A man named Robert Boubius, who gave his life trying to save strangers on a wild October morning and whose resting place would be invisible if not for a small entry on a digital map. He deserves to be brought back into view. They all do.
Register of Deaths, Saint Mary's Church Timaru Parish records of deaths. Ann appears to be listed as number 12, November 18, 1860, 36 years. Photography by Roselyn Cloake with permission of the South Canterbury Museum 2025. The group included John Wilds, Morris Corey, Robert Boubius, Henry Clayson, William John Roberts and John J. Bowles. Boat handling was a perilous occupation and Henry Clayson also drowned shortly after arriving. He was replaced by Phillip Foster, another boatman from Deal.
Later the Benvenue disaster that become known as Black Sunday claimed the lives of 10. Many of these men rest in unmarked graves at Timaru's cemetery. I suspect the money that would usually go towards their headstones, went to a public monument in town on Sophia Street instead.
14/05/1932 Memorial service, 50th anniversary of the Benvenue wreck, 1932. Crowds assembled around the Benvenue Memorial, in Sophia Street Timaru, for a service marking the the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the Benvenue, dated 14th May 1932. In the left background the lifeboat Alexandra is visible. South Canterbury Musuem 1456. https://timdc.pastperfectonline.com/photo/D49F9CEB-DDDB-41F5-938D-879831741057
Plaques on the monument
The Timaru Landing Service area at the foot of George Street in 1875.
George St and Stafford St Intersection ca1871 -1878. South Canterbury Museum
Captain Mills grave where he rests with family
Unmarked Graves of people who died in the Benvenue Disaster
Grave of Strongwork Morrison who worked with the Deal Boatmen and was the Beach Master. He had a successful career, acumulated land, and built a large hotel. His home was on Le Cren Terrace overlooking the harbour.
A page from the Jubilee History of South Canterbury, published in 1916, shows a photo of Strongwork Morrison. Right the grave where he rests at Timaru's Cemetery. - Photo Roselyn Fauth
Phillip Jarvis Foster
Captain Clarkson
Captain Henry Cain
Timaru Cemetery
Benvenue Disaster 50th Jubilee, 1932. A portrait of three surviving crew members of the lifeboats involved in the Benvenue wreck, taken on the occasion of the fiftieth jubilee, 14 May 1932. Depicts the three men as (from left to right) as Isaac James Bradley, Carl George Vogeler, and Philip Bradley. South Canterbury Museum. 14/05/1932 CN 1457. https://timdc.pastperfectonline.com/photo/06F405BF-F04D-4339-A7A7-381944387269
Vogeler, Carl George, 1860-1934, Bradley, Philip, 1853-1936, Bradley, Isaac James, 1860-1936.