Ellen Burke

Contributed by Clare Cramond, great-great niece of Ellen Burke

Ellen Piper was born in  England in 1861. She was christened on 7 November, 1861 at Sturry in Kent. She was still living there in 1871 when she was nine-years-old with her parents John and Charlotte Piper and her five brothers and sisters.

When Ellen was fourteen years old, she migrated to New Zealand on the Hudson arriving in Hawke’s Bay in February 1876. She was with her parents who travelled with her two youngest siblings while she and her three teenage sisters were in the single women’s quarters. John was a cropping farmer and began hop-growing in the Wairoa area. However, Ellen and her sisters left the Napier Barracks to take paid work – Ellen was assigned to a Mr Irvine in Napier. 

Her movements over the next fourteen years are unknown, but on 3 June 1890, Ellen married Patrick Burke, who was an Irish immigrant. They lived at Puketitiri, inland from Napier in Hawke’s Bay. Ellen and Patrick had twin boys, Ernest Patrick and Alfred Aloysins in 1891, and in 1892 a baby daughter who lived just three days. Daughters Bridget Gertrude, Mary and Nellie were born in 1894, 1896 and 1899.  Mary died early in 1898, aged fifteen months.

Ellen signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition in 1893. Her sisters Annie Hall (Sheet 305) and Esther Piper (Sheet 433) also signed.  

Sometime after 1908, Ellen and Patrick moved to Farndon, nearer Napier as listed in the Electoral Rolls. Ellen died on 22 August 1914 at the age of 51.

Her son Ernest Patrick Burke served in World War One and died of influenza in 1918 while returning to New Zealand on the Tahiti. His father was living in a nursing home in Wellington at the time. That same year, Probate was filed for Ellen on behalf of Patrick with the delay attributed to his lack of knowledge to do so, and his illiteracy.

Ellen Piper Burke was buried with her daughter Mary, at the Old Napier Cemetery.

Sources

England Select Births and Christenings 1538-1975 FHL Film Number 1835743

1871 England Census, Kent, Sturry, Page 23

"New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Passenger Lists, 1839-1973", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FS1Q-4NB : Entry for Ellen Piper, 11 Feb 1876.

Births Deaths and Marriages Online https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/

1899 NZ Electoral Rolls, 1853-2010, Hawke’s Bay, Hawke’s Bay, Page 9

1911 NZ Electoral Rolls, 1853-2010, Hawke’s Bay, Napier, Page 18

Find a Grave, database and images https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/189938906/ellen-burke

Military personnel file
https://collections.archives.govt.nz/en-NZ/web/arena/search#/entity/aims-archive/R21890147

"New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Probate Records, 1843-1998," , FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDTM-T7B : 9 March 2021), Ellen Burke, 1918; citing , Napier probate files [first sequence], 1862-1919, record number 2465, Archives New Zealand, Auckland Regional Office; FamilySearch digital folder 004998572.