Makers: 22 descendants of Mary Anne Carver

Panel number: 407

Petition sheet number: 496

Person honouring: M. A. [Mary Ann] Carver

Relationship to makers: Maternal ancestor

Mary Ann Nicholas was born in Eastbourne, Sussex in June 1835. She was the eldest daughter of Thomas and Charlotte Nicholas’ seven children.

She left Southampton in September 1854 aboard the Queen of England on an assisted passage to Sydney, then sailed three weeks later for New Zealand in the schooner Cheetah. Mary Ann arrived in Wellington in March 1855 – to a city with fallen buildings and people living in tents following the 1855 earthquake. 

Mary Ann married Robert William Jud Carver, who was born in Melnottum, Madras, India in October 1838 and had arrived in New Zealand with his mother on the Duke of Portland in February 1854. Mary Ann and Robert married in April 1863 at St Paul’s, Thorndon, Wellington.

They had 11 children, the first three infants died but eight survived. Mary Ann signed the petition in Bulls.

Robert was awarded the New Zealand medal for his part in the ‘Māori Wars’.

In 1889 the family moved to Sunday (now Raoul) Island in the Kermadecs to grow produce – at the New Zealand Government’s encouragement. They remained there until 1902. On return to New Zealand they settled at Ohingaiti, then Rangiwhahia where Robert died in 1907.

Mary Ann, a loving wife, mother, and grandmother died 17 October 1911, exactly 56 years and seven months after she arrived in New Zealand.

Panel materials: Donated cotton fabric and thread.