More Info →Macarther Family - Feilding

Description: This family portrait is believed to be taken by G. W. Shailer, and depicts the Macarthur family of Broxt Cottage in Feilding.

From left to right the people in the photograph are:

Mary Lilius Louise (Hannay) MACARTHUR (1857 Toronto - 1930 Mount Maunganui), arrived in NZ aged 10 with her Father James Montgomery HANNAY in 1866; settled in Takaka where she lived with and was educated by Mrs Tilbey the wife of the local Doctor who ran a Dames School; married at Takaka in 1875 aged 18 (with her Father's permission) to Douglas Hastings MACARTHUR (1839 Edinburgh - 1892 Feilding); re-married at Marton in 1898 to Hugh Lind SHERWILL (1845 India - 1902 Wellington) a land agent and another prominent figure in Feilding Society. This woman (the 2nd Mrs Sherwill) left Feilding about 1918 to accompany my Grandmother and her family when they settled at Mt Maunganui where she died in 1930.

Alice (Macarthur) MYER (1876-1918) who married Frederick Pickering MYER (1874-1955) and had 4 children.

Louisa (McEwen) HANNAY also known as Lucy STUART widow (1836 Edinburgh - 1911 Wellington), married (or re-married) in 1892 Sydney NSW to James Montgomery HANNAY (1832 Belfast - 1898 Palmerston North). Two children (Individuals 1 and 5 listed here). Louisa Hannay / Lucy Stuart was self supporting for most of her life (as a typesetter and matron of various charitable institutions). Capable of re-writing her history to suit the moment, details of her life will be published sometime in 2025 in the Journal of the NZ Genealogists Society "The Irishman's Proposition". The author, Catherine Clarke of Petone, is a direct descendant of Alice (Macarthur) MYER (Individual 2 listed here).

Lily Louise Elizabeth (Macarthur) HALCOMBE (1878 Feilding -1964 Tauranga) married John Cuthbert HALCOMBE (1865 Collingwood - 1922 Tauranga) in Taranaki in 1900 and had 6 children. This woman was my Maternal Grandmother. Her husband was a nephew of Arthur William Follett HALCOMBE who established Feilding as a settlement. Both JC Halcombe and his wife Lily (Macarthur) Halcombe had a common stepfather in Hugh Lind SHERWILL who married two widows (Mrs Harry Halcombe in 1877 in Feilding and, after her death in 1892, Mrs Douglas Macarthur, in Marton in 1898) - a small world and a capacity for confusion for subsequent generations !

Ida Stuart (Hannay) OWEN (1864 Cinncinnatti USA-1948 Feilding) married Frank OWEN (1848-1907) in Feilding in 1883 and lived in Sandliands Street thereafter. This couple had no children.

Youngest child in front: Ida Maud (Macarthur) MORSHEAD (1879 Feilding - 1967 Somerset UK) married Herbert Edward Dillon MORSHEAD (1874-1915) in Feilding in 1901 and had three children. Sometime after 1918 Ida Maud Morshead and her three children re-located to the UK.