Maker: Marilyn Porteous

Panel number: 80

Petition Sheet Number: 82

Person honouring: Mrs R Pilling Junior

Relationship to makers: Great-grandmother

Christiana Johns was born in St Arnaud, Victoria, Australia, but as a small child, she returned to England with her family, to live in Cornwall. In the 1870s, she traveled with her parents to the Tuapeka goldfields in Otago and lived in Blue Spur, which was the township for Gabriel’s Gully goldfield. 

In 1885, Christiana married Richard Pilling Junior and they lived in Irvine Street, Lawrence, Otago which is about fifteen kilometres from Gabriel’s Gully. Richard, together with his brother Thomas, owned and ran the ‘Tuapeka Times’, in Lawrence.

Christiana and Thomas Pilling had a family of five daughters and three sons, although one son died just six weeks after birth and another son died at the age of nineteen. Christiana attended the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Lawrence. In 1909, she moved to Wellington, in order to give her daughters greater opportunities in life. She lived at 316 Adelaide Road, Newtown and her husband worked as an accountant. 

Christiana died in 1940 and is buried in the Karori, Cemetery.

Panel materials: Huckaback table runner which had been embroidered by my mother. Small pieces of fabric from Vinnies Resew, felt and ribbon plus materials that I already had.