Emma Honour

Emma Sheppard was born in 1845 in London. In 1870, Emma’s father Joseph was a 'bath chair proprietor', later a 'cabman'. Emma’s sister Annie remembered playing with children in the Royal Mews. Emma's mother was Mary Chitson, for several generations her family was associated with the Caslon Printing and Machinery Company. 

Emma married Walter Henry Honour, a widowed shoemaker, in London in 1870 and in 1871 they were living in Kensington with Emma’s sister Annie Shepherd (12) and two-week-old Emma Ann(e).

The family emigrated to America, and Walter Henry was born in 1873 in Syracuse, upstate New York. They found the climate unsuitable, and returned to London in March 1875.

In June 1875 they emigrated to Wellington aboard the clipper Rodney, one of the last sailing ships built for the Colonial passenger trade to Australasia. Carrying 23 saloon and 487 steerage passengers, the voyage took 78 days with six births, ten deaths (mostly children) and a marriage on board.

Emma, Walter and their growing family – Richard Rodney (b & d 1876), George Albert 1877, Lizzie Esther 1881, Frances Annie 1883 and Arthur Edwin (b 1888 d 1891) – lived in a freehold property with entrances on Marjoribanks and Stafford Streets, in Mount Victoria, Wellington. The house was described as a 'four room cottage with two fireplaces and patent w.c.'. Walter worked as a bootmaker from home – in January 1895 the house was for let, advertised as a 'good repairing shop'.

Emma signed both the 1892 and 1893 suffrage petitions. Emma (then 48) and her daughter Emma Ann (22) are both on the Electoral Roll of 1893.

Family information records that Walter 'came under some religious or temperance influence which made him a bigot and he told the sons that if they would not keep his rules of no drink, no cards, and no bright modern music [then] they could get out, which they did.”  (In 1894, 21-year-old Walter Jnr was M.C. at a lively 'Dorothy Quadrille Assembly' with fancy dress, music and dancing.)

Emma, Walter and the younger children moved to Tawa Flat in early 1895. One of their homes there was the old schoolhouse, now a private house.

In July 1895 Walter was arrested for shooting and wounding a neighbours 'vicious' horse that had trespassed onto his Tawa Flat property, worried it could injure his daughters. This was backed up by other settlers, and the case was dismissed.

Emma died at Tawa Flat in October 1910  aged 65 and is buried in Porirua Cemetery.

Emma’s children’s occupations included a dressmaker, plumbing inspector, bootmaker and teacher. Descendents include the Honour, Janes, Riddick, and Nichols families.

Biography contributed by Kate Riddick

Sources

• My Heritage,  Emma Honour (born Sheppard) https://www.myheritage.com/search-records?action=person&siteId=272922691&indId=1000156&origin=profile
• https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/00392296-caslon-chitson-company-limited
• Joyce Neill, [1980s?] The Honour Story (notes held by Riddick family; sources include the Honour family Bible, birth & death certificates, Census returns, family anecdotes)
• UK 1871 Census via Ancestry.com
• Jock Phillips, 8 February 2005, History of immigration - The great migration: 1871 to 1885, Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/history-of-immigration/page-8
• Archives New Zealand, 30 November 2016, Passenger Lists, 1839-1973, FamilySearch  
• Wikipedia, Rodney (clipper) 
• White Wings Vol II. Founding of the Provinces and Old-Time Shipping. Passenger Ships from 1840 To 1885 - The Rodney 
• New Zealand Times, 30 August 1875, Shipping – Arrival of the Rodney, Vol 30, Issue 4506 
• Evening Post, 10 July 1891, Deaths 
• Wellington Electoral Rolls, 1880–81
• Evening Post, 3 May 1889, Advertisements - To Let, Vol 37, Issue 104, p. 3 column 5
• New Zealand Times, 2 June 1894, “Dorothy Social"  Vol 56, Issue 2222, Supplement
• Evening Post, 22 July 1895, A vicious horse: the Tawa Flat shooting case dismissed, p.3 
• New Zealand Times, 26 October 1910, Death, p. 6

Image

Emma Honour, 1882 (Kate Riddick)