Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert.
Elizabeth Ann Wilson was born 28 July 1867 in Mahurangi, one of the 10 children of Nathaniel and Florence Wilson. Nathaniel was the founder of Wilson Portland Cement Company in Northland.
Her future husband Alexander James Stewart Warin was born 8 January 1863 in Matakana.
In 1891 he purchased an existing blacksmithing business in Mahurangi. In September that year Elizabeth was honoured by the Warkworth Prebyterian Church “in recognition of her faithful and efficient services as organist, in anticipation of her approaching marriage to Mr. Alexander Warin” and given a handsome family Bible.
Five children were born in Mahurangi: Florence Carson 1892, Garfield Alexander Napier 1894, Hilda Isabel 1896, Wilfred Selwyn 1897 and Myrtle Kathleen 1899. Their eldest son Garfield was killed in action in 1917 in Flanders, Belgium.
Alexander was civic minded and served on the Warkworth School Board and Town Board and as a Justice of the Peace.
In 1938 Alexander and Elizabeth retired and moved into Auckland.
Alexander died in Paptoetoe in 1939 and was taken back to Warkworth Presbyterian Cemetery where an imposing monument was erected. Elizabeth continued to live in Auckland, both in Paptoetoe and on Auckland’s North Shore where she died 14 February 1956, aged 88 years. She too was buried in Warkworth Cemetery.
Elizabeth’s will was made four years before she died, and the executors were her married daughter Florence and sister Susannah. She made special mention of having her death details added to her husband’s monument in Warkworth Cemetery. She specifically left her iron cash box and chiming clock to her son Wilfred, then everything was to be shared amongst her three surviving children.
Sources
Papers Past
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
Community contributions