ER 1876 1877
class: steerage
from GENI
First marriage to Eliza Innes 7th Feb 1840, in Saltash, Cornwall, England. she died in November 1840. He sailed on the Amelia Thompson to New Plymouth in March 1841. His second marriage to Elizabeth Naomi Pilcher was on 23rd Sept. 1844 in New Plymouth. She was only 15 (born 1829).
Extract from "Establishment of the New Plymouth Settlement" by J. Rutherford and W.H. Skinner (about the 1840s): The only draught horse in the settlement at this time was Lightfoot, the property of William Richards, but Dalby's bullock, Redmond, who would suffer himself to be harnessed into a cart with shafts, assisted in performing the little cartage at that time required.
Henry lived in Devon Street, New Plymouth, where, as noted above, he worked first as a carter. The 1852 New Plymouth census records H.A. Dalby as a carter living with two female children (possibly daughters though never mentioned again) both under 7 years of age. He was also farming 2 acres of which 1 1/2 acres were under grass and half an acre was garden. By then Henry also had one horse, replacing his bullock.No mention of his wife, and by 1852 none of the Pilcher family remained in New Plymouth.
An advertisement in the Taranaki Herald for 9th October 1858 (and again on 23rd October with a much shorter list of items for sale) notes Henry's intention to return to England in December of that year - though he changed his mind and actually stayed on in New Plymouth.
On 7th September 1861 Henry Augustus Dalby. with many other settlers of New Plymouth, signed a letter addressed to the Governor General Mr. Gore Brown, who was leaving New Zealand - they were expressing their appreciation for the "good work" and the way "he dealt with the natives of the district at that time" (i.e. during the Maori land wars).
He continued to run his General Store on Devon Street, next door to the White Hart hotel. Henry's shop survives to this day, though is now an annex to the hotel (see pictures, below), which itself is closed and decaying. When the hotel, shop and an adjoining house were sold in 1868, it was recorded in the Taranaki Herald (20 Oct 1868) that Henry Dalby was paying rent of £13 per year.
Henry died on 8th July 1876, aged 62 years. and was buried in the Te Henui Cemetery, New Plymouth, on 11th July. He left no will, and after his death the shop fittings and stock, and all of his personal property, were auctioned. After the 1852 census there is no mention of wife or children.
PPA
Taranaki Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 628, 13 August 1864, Page 3
Thursday, August 11. His Honor the Chief Justice took his seat on the bench at 10 a.m. Henry Hales, a boy exactly 10 years of age, was indicted for breaking into the house of Henry Dalby, see full article.
He was born in about 1813 (we haven't yet found a christening record, but in view of his father's Royal Navy service it could have been a number of different places!). His father Augustus Dalby, born in Howden, east Yorkshire, in 1779, was a Master in the Royal Navy, serving from 1801 to 1818, and we have a copy of his full service record. He became independently wealthy on prize money gained from captured ships plus his naval pension at half-pay, as well as a number of subsequent posts - head of customs at Dartmouth, a position in the Irish coastguard service, commissioner of pilotage at St Ives, Cornwall, and also as managing agent for a tin mine in Cornwall.
Henry Augustus is listed as a 'draper and grocer' in Robsons directory for Saltash in 1839. He married Eliza Innes, youngest daughter of a naval officer Lieut. George Innes, in January 1840 (copy of marriage licence attached). But she died of tunberculosis in October the same year. Saltash is a small town on the Cornwall bank of the Tamar estuary, opposite the Plymouth naval dockyard.
I attach also the 1843 marriage record for Henry Augustus and Elizabeth Naomi. She is described as 'full age' which was quite clearly untrue! It looks like Henry Augustus is described as a 'Publican' so maybe he was managing the White Hart - if it had been established by then - or otherwise serving drink in his shop. STHE. Henry Augustus Dalby had person sources.
6 He was a Draper in 1841.
1 He immigrated to ENG to NZ on the Amelia Thompson arriving New Plymouth NZ 2/8/1841 on 25 March 1841.
1