ROBYN PARKES
It took great resolve and courage to leave your homeland to face the challenges of the unknown and unsettled land called New Zealand, but this is what many did, including the Suttons, led by George and his wife Hannah.
The little village of East Meon was in the small hamlet of Frogmore where Thomas and Martha Sutton lived with their family. The couple had four boys – Thomas, John, William and George.
Youngest son George married Jane Hibbard in 1822 who already had one son. In 1824, daughter Dinah was born. Jane died in 1828 and, needing a mother for his children, George married the widow Hannah Beams, nee Stillwell, in October 1830.
Hannah had three young children to care for after her first husband had died around 1828. George and Hannah went on to have another four children.
As a mere labourer George had little prospect of owning land himself, so when the opportunity came to forge out a new life in New Zealand George and Hannah accepted the challenge.
In October 1841 they left their homeland to sail 12,000 miles to a new life on board the ship Bolton. With them were children Dinah, 17, Matilda, 15, (Hannah’s daughter by her first marriage), John, 11, William, 9, Henry, 7, and Harriet, 4. Another child James was born on the voyage.
They arrived in Nelson on 15 March, 1842, and their first night in Nelson was spent sleeping under the stars.
Dinah later married George Parkes and the Parkes family still live in Eighty Eight Valley.
George selected to live in the Maitai Valley as a squatter, joining the Eyles and Tidd families who were from the same villages in England. By 1852 George and family had left the Maitai and moved to Richmond where they set out to establish themselves as landowner farmers.
George was a healthy, strong man and cultivated and grew fields of crops and raised stock to both feed his family and to gain an income from his labours.
Against the foothills of Richmond, George, along with his son John, farmed the family property that became known as ‘Selbourne”, with the homestead being built on the upper side of the street on what became known as 171 Hill St.
In time George’s other sons also acquired land which extended from Champion to Harts Rds, taking in blocks of land both above and below Hill St. At the time of retirement George and Hannah lived at what became known as at 133 Queen St.
George was known as a loving husband and a kindly man and was also a key supporter of the Methodist Church in Richmond.
In May 1891 George celebrated his 91st birthday but sadly just six weeks later his beloved Hannah died. Hannah was buried in the Richmond cemetery where George joined her the following year on the 1 August 1892.
The Sutton family celebrated their ancestors at the Easter weekend at Teapot Valley Christian Camp with a book launch about the Sutton family.
