Raiha & Adam Dickey's Headstone Restoration Fund

Raiha & Adam Dickey's Headstone Restoration Fund

Project 2023-12-26 16:28:55 +1300

Adam James Dickey came out from Ireland to New Zealand, arriving first in Melbourne in 1851 where he spent a month as a mounted police cadet, before moving on to NZ by the end of that year. He was 17. He married Raiha Penaina of Ngati Mahanga in 1862 in the home of the Rev Thomas Buddle, even though by then they already had several children. Raiha was known as Eliza in European circles and her name on documents is variously recorded as Raiha Tiki (a back-formation into Maori of Eliza Dickey), Eliza Penaina or Eliza Dickey. Eliza & Adam lived in Parnell Auckland throughout the Waikato War after which Adam entered the Colonial Office as a clerk, later rising to Registrar of the Native Lands Office and later a JP in his retirement. Eliza evidently held mana within Ngati Mahanga, as a significant land transfer in 1864 from Ngati Mahanga to the NZ Govt was held up awaiting her signature. Eliza and Adam are buried next to the St James Church in Mangere Bridge, just along from their residence. Anyone visiting their graves in recent years will have seen that their shared headstone, and that of their son Edward's family, was black with mould with much of the lead lettering missing and that a large chunk of marble was smashed off Adam & Eliza's stone.

When I asked the minister at St James Church about restoring the headstones, he told me that coincidentally he'd had a similar inquiry from someone who turned out to be my second cousin, Jillian Barrow. To honour the memory of our G-G-Grandparents we've gone ahead and had the headstones cleaned & missing text replaced ("Phase one"). The costs have been...

Cleaning - $250
Text repair - $800
Pledgeme fee - $50

If you'd like to chip-in to the cause, hit the 'make a pledge' button in the upper right  corner of this page. No money is taken unless the campaign achieves its target before the cutoff date. (please excuse and ignore the 'no reward' box. It is baked into the Pledgeme platform and cannot be edited or deleted).

With our thanks and appreciation... Jonathan & Jillian

(If it eventuates, I feel that adding Raiha's Maori name (by way of a plaque), and the repair of the broken section of headstone, can wait for a second round of funding.  We'll let you know should "Phase two" look likely ).

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