Mrs J Hardley

Biography contributed by Rose Webber

Mary Hardley, born 18 August 1868 in New Zealand, was the only child and daughter of James and Mary Elizabeth Pooley (nee Mills) who had married in Victoria, Australia in 1866. James died just a few months later on 7 December 1868 and Mary was 14 months old when in October 1869 her mother married Charles Woodhead, a Hotelkeeper in Charleston. By 1882 Mary had four siblings, half-brothers Charles and William and half-sisters Sarah and Annie.

In 1891 Mary married John Victor Hardley in Charleston where they had both grown up, John having arrived there as a 9-year-old with his family in 1873. The Hardley and Woodhead families were close and in 1903 when her sister Annie Woodhead married, the bridesmaids were cousins from within the Hardley family. John had a successful career in the Hardley family business focused on domestic and industrial plumbing, including supplying the dairy and gold-mining industries. He had worked in Australia before marriage and spent some time in South Africa around 1896 and later became involved in local body politics in Auckland.

By the time Mary signed the petition she was already mother to Irene (1892) and in 1895 her second daughter Hilda was born. By 1896 the family had moved north to Hawera where John (1897), Russell (1902) and Ethel (1905) were born. The family had moved to Parnell, Auckland by 1911 where Mary’s last child Phyllis was born in 1914.

Mary died 23 May 1941 aged 72 years, husband John died 10 years later in 1951. Daughter Phyllis had died in 1939 aged 29 years. All are buried in a family plot at the Hillsborough Cemetery in Auckland.

Image