Maker: Dianne Barnden

Panel number: 150

Petition Sheet Number: 182

Person honouring: Elizabeth Taylor

Relationship to makers: Great-great-grandmother

Elizabeth Sarah Taylor (nee Harden/Harding) was born 8 December 1843, at Minster, Isle of Sheppey, Kent. Eldest daughter of John Harding and Sarah Craddick -  both of Sheerness, Kent. 

Sarah married Edmund Taylor, 22 May 1864, at Minster Sheerness, Isle of Sheppey, Kent.Edmund and Sarah were 27 years and 21 years respectively. Edmund was at the time of their marriage, employed in ‘His Majesty’s Royal Navy’ as a steward. He later worked as a gardener at Kew Gardens. 

Edmund and Elizabeth, who went by her middle name Sarah, and their young family of four, Herbert, the eldest; Henry known as Harry, born in Marine Town, Sheerness; William known as ‘Bill’; and Alfred, along with Elizabeth’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harden/Harding left Gravesend, Kent on May 2nd 1873 on the vessel ‘Punjaub’ bound for Lyttelton, New Zealand. The following day an epidemic of measles broke out and when the equator was reached Asiatic cholera broke out and a few weeks later typhoid fever made its appearance. On the passage out forty-three passengers died, including Edmund and Elizabeth’s youngest son. Alfred Taylor died on the 20th July from acute diarrhoea and enteritis, aged 2 years. Alfred was then sewn in canvas and ‘confined to the deep’ Lat: 26.5S and 31.14W. Edmund was known as a lay preacher and it is believed that he carried out the committal to the sea of his son Alfred.

The S.S Punjaub arrived in Lyttelton on the 20th September 1873 but was immediately ordered into quarantine at Ripapa Island. Finally, on the 29th September all remaining passengers disembarked to begin their new lives in Christchurch. On arrival they went by train to the old station at Hillsborough, then walked across to the Heathcote River at Garlands Road where they were conveyed across the river on the ferry punted by Mr. Garland. 

Sarah and Edmund had five more children. Edmund and Elizabeth along with Elizabeth’s parents and Mr. E Reed were the first to form a congregation of Bible Christians in the suburb of Woolston with the first meetings being held in their home. With the exception of two years spent in Gloucester street, they lived continuously in Woolston where they were one of the longest residing and best-known residents of the Woolston district.

Edmund Benjamin died 21st November 1924, Sarah died on 15th October 1934 in Christchurch at the age of 90, and is buried alongside Edmund in Bromley Cemetery.

Panel materials: Two hardanger tray clothes that I purchased at a Salvation Army Shop. Tea dyed lace.  The flags I printed onto organza as well as the cross and bible, the cross and bible I then stitched through.