Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert
Ellen Soares was born in 1871 in Auckland, the second of ten children of Portuguese Captain Emanuel Ignacious Soares and Englishwoman, Martha nee Mayall. The Captain, for many years, ran cutters to the Great Barrier Island where the Baileys farmed.
In 1892, at St Matthew’s Church, Ellen married John Bailey. He was born in 1860 in County Down, Ireland to Robert and Eliza Jane. His family immigrated to NZ when he was very young and farmed at Tryphena, Great Barrier Island.
After marrying in Auckland, John and Ellen settled on the Barrier and lived there about ten years. In 1893 John was part of a group of ten prospectors working a silver mine on the Great Barrier Island. They had found a strong reef of ore and proposed sending five or six tons out of it. John was also on the school committee at Tryphena for the school his father Robert Bailey had donated the land for.
They had seven children:
- Robert Manuel (1893–1918)
- Albert William Haselden (1895–1967)
- Evelyn Ellen Irene (1897–1974)
- Doris Winifred Maud (1901–1920)
- Royston Wulfran (1903–1963)
- James Harold Been (1906–1977)
- Leslie Wilbert (1909–1988)
After 1905, John and Ellen lived at various addresses around Grey Lynn and then Mt Eden and Jon worked as a labourer and waterside worker. Their eldest son, Robert Manuel (named for both grandfathers) was killed in France in 1918 in WW1. And their daughter Doris died at 19 years in 1920.
John was assaulted by a ‘friend’ outside Thames Hotel, Customs Street, Auckland, on 27 December 1924 and died in Auckland Hospital nearly a month later from his head injuries. The assailant was found guilty of common assault and put on probation for two years. He was buried at the Waikumete Cemetery. His probate left all his property to wife Ellen until her demise or remarriage, then it was to be divided amongst living children, worth 500 pounds.
Ellen lived on another 35 years, without remarrying and died in 1960, aged 89, and was buried with her husband at Waikumete.
Ellen is the daughter-in-law of #380 Eliza Jane Bailey, Tryphena, Great Barrier Island
Sources
PAPERS PAST Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 23, 28 January 1892, Page 8
PAPERS PAST Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 21, 26 January 1925, Page 8
PAPERS PAST New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9186, 28 April 1893, Page 6
PAPERS PAST Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 64, 17 March 1893, Page 3
Historical BDMs
Electoral Rolls (ancestry.com)
Archway probate John