New Zealand Knights

January 2, 2013

Day 4: Wellington, The Knights from Cornwall, early Settlers of New Zealand.

Dr. Elaine Bolitho, a researcher and writer employed by the Knight Family Heritage Society in New Zealand, made contact with Jerry in March 2010 after finding Jerry on Ancestry.com. Jerry’s ggg-grandmother Nancy Ann Knight was the sister of William Knight, a pioneer settler of New Zealand. Jerry and Dr. Bolitho have been exchanging information via email for the last two years.

Dr. Bolitho was updating the stories of the descendants of William and Mary Ann Knight who emigrated to New Zealand from Cornwall, England on the Duke of Roxburgh in 1839, landing in Wellington in February, 1840. She has written a book “Knights from Cornwall,” published in 2011 by the Knight Heritage Society.

As part of her research, Dr. Bolitho was interested in William’s siblings descendants, including Jerry’s ggg-grandmother’s, to be able to compare what other Knight lines have done in other countries with what the Knights have done in New Zealand.




The house at Woon, Cornwall, UK where William Knight and Jerry's ggg-grandmother, Nancy, grew up. Sadly, it has been demolished, but this is a copy of the painting made from a photograph and completed on the day of its demolition.

Nancy Ann Knight and her son and Jerry’s gg-grandfather, John Hooper Daniel, chose to emigrate to the US rather than follow William Knight to New Zealand. The Knights were among the many Cornwall miners who left England during the 1840’s & 50’s due to a dramatic closure of Cornwall mines. It is estimated that three thousand miners a year emigrated during this period to seek a better future for their families in America, Australia and New Zealand.




John Hooper Daniel ca 1875, son of Nancy Ann Knight and Jerry's gg-grandfather.

John Hooper Daniel emigrated to the US in 1849 and worked in mines in Morris, New Jersey, Platteville, Wisconsin and Clear Creek, Colorado. He died in Idaho Springs, Colorado, on Oct 18, 1909. Nancy Ann Knight emigrated to Galena, IL with her second husband, Thomas Jane, and died there on 14 Jan 1879.

William and Mary Ann Knight and five children came to New Zealand along with 436 other settlers on five sailing ships from Cornwall, UK. William and Mary were to have eight more children after settling in New Zealand. They were among the pioneers of the New Zealand Company's plan for an agricultural colony settlement.

The lack of suitable land around Wellington caused the failure of their agricultural utopia. By 1848, only 85 of the original 436 settlers from the UK remained, including William, Mary Ann and their children. What saved the settlement was their shift from raising crops to raising sheep.

When William and Mary Ann Knight emigrated, there were only about 2,000 immigrants total in New Zealand; by 1852 there were about 28,000. The decisive event for the large influx was the Treaty of Waitangi in February 1840, the same month that the Knights arrived.

The treaty, between the British Crown and various Maori chiefs, gave British immigrants legal rights as citizens. This treaty is considered the founding document of New Zealand as a nation.
Knight descendants meet in the city of Taupo each year. The next big Knight event coming up is in mid-February 2015. It is the celebration in Petone (Wellington) of 175 years since William and Mary Ann Knight landed in New Zealand after leaving Cornwall, England.

Go to the link http://knightfamilyofnz.net for info on the Knights Family Heritage Society.



On January 2nd, we walked from our hotel to the train station and took the 9:02 am Wellington-Johnsonville Matangi train to Box Hill, a suburb of Wellington, where Elaine and her husband, Ian Bolitho, have a hillside home with a garden. It was a pleasant ride through tunnels, bush and suburbs with very friendly conductors.




Karen Laing, left, with Elaine and Ian

Ian and Elaine met us at the train station and we walked the 200 yards to their home. Meeting us there was Lyn Derbyshire, a fourth-generation descendant of William and Mary Knight.




Lyn Derbyshire with Jerry and Nancy

Lyn drove us to visit places of special significance to William and Mary Ann Knight, including Petone where the pioneers landed, Lower Hutt where they lived, the streets which are named after them, their grave site, a tree to the entrance to their farm still standing after 165+ years, and the site of the Knight family home.





Knights Road is marked on the earliest maps of the area as Knights Lane, the route that led from the Knight farm to Hutt Village, the original pioneer’s settlement.




Norfolk pine tree was planted by 1850 at the entrance to the 79 acre original Knight farm.








Penrose at 60 Penrose Street in Lower Hutt was built by James Penrose Knight (1833-1904), oldest son of the pioneer in 1872. The earlier homestead which stood next to this, and where James had been raised by his parents, was then used as stables. James, his second wife Jane Heaynes and their nine children, lived here, with Stannard (1876-1932), the youngest son, being the last named Knight to do so.

The Penrose house is now owned by Karen and Darren Laing who we found to be very friendly and accommodating. They let us inside to see the house and told of us some of its history since the Knights. They also showed us several photos of the place which appeared to be over 100 years old.







Bridge Street Cemetery is on the site of the First Methodist Church in the area of Lower Hutt and originally had its own burial ground where a number of settlers were buried, including James Penrose Knight’s first wife Mary Ann and three of their children. They all died of TB. There were no further burials after 1901. The church relocated and the site became a heritage site with the names of all buried there recorded on one large memorial plaque.






St. James Churchyard was the main Anglican burial ground in Lower Hutt, and is where Samuel Knight, the sixth child of the pioneers, was buried when he died at the age of 23 in 1862. Five years later pioneer William was buried there too, then pioneer Mary Ann in 1871.








Plaque honoring pioneers was placed in 1990 marking 150 years since the pioneers’ arrival in New Zealand.










Various documents photographed in the Petone Settlers Museum.























We are posting this Blog in Nelson, New Zealand on January 3. It is January 2 in Flagstaff, Arizona and the arrival day of Leo Thomas DeStefano.

Here is the proud father of Leo with Leo's beaming "Il Nonno".



CONGRATULATIONS JESS AND BRYANT!