Originally transcribed as E. A. Buchanan
Biography contributed by Helen Edwards
Elizabeth Harriet Humphrey was born on 10 April 1846, at Heston, Middlesex, England. Her parents were Harriett Jane (née Wild) and George Humphrey, a nurseryman, who married in Hammersmith in 1840. George is reputed to have fathered thirteen daughters and seven sons by his two wives. Elizabeth was the third child and the third daughter. Her mother died in 1858, and George married Irish Ellen Murphey, in 1859. By 1861 George had become the landlord at the Queens Head, St Leonards, Heston and Elizabeth (14) and her sister Martha (16) were living with their uncle William Humphrey, a successful market gardener in Dockwell, Heston.
The family, including eleven children, came to Otago about 1863 and after spending some time in Dunedin headed for the goldfields, living at Tuapeka Mouth and Waipori, where they ran the Prince of Wales Hotel. The youngest daughter, Georgina, was born at Waipori on 12 June 1871, and George died there a week later, on the 19th, at the age of 52. Ellen continued to run the hotel for a few years.
Elizabeth married David Buchanan on 23 May 1878 at the residence of her brother-in-law, Andrew Fulton, in Maori Hill, Dunedin. She was 32 and David 34. David was five when his family immigrated on the Philip Laing in 1848, and grew up on the family farm near Outram, on the Taieri Plain. He relished his time as a Volunteer in the Militia. The Buchanan brothers were all good shots, but David won prizes at a national championship in 1872. They had six children, who were born in Tapanui – four boys and two girls, one of whom died in infancy. By 1890 the family was living in the small Southland town of Kelso, where David was a nurseryman and labourer, and here they stayed. On Otago’s Anniversary Day in 1924 the Otago Daily Times called him a 'hale and hearty' survivor of the Philip Laing, outliving most of his fellow passengers. He died in August 1927, aged 85. Elizabeth, a widow of Waikouaiti, died on 25 October 1929 of cancer. She was 83 years old, and her will provided for her children Constance, Thomas, and Malcolm.
Sources
Ancestry.com
Births, deaths and marriages online
Knox Church marriage registers
Otago Nominal Index
New Zealand electoral rolls
Papers Past