Biography contributed by Clare Cramond
Nellie (Nelly, Ellen) Eliza Torr nee Stacey was born at Frasertown in February 1871, the younger daughter of Elizabeth and Stephen Stacey. Nellie married Walter Torr, the same year she and her mother Elizabeth signed the Petition. She was registered on the 1893 Electoral Roll. Walter’s sister Emily Couper also signed Sheet 305.
Ellen and Walter’s family included Eva (born in 1893 or 1894), Dorothy (1895), Lila (1897) Cecil (1901) and Maveney (1902). In 1906, the papers reported that Maveney (referred to as Warena) the three-year-old daughter of Constable Torr, was playing on the riverbank when she fell in and drowned. Ellen and Walter lived their entire lives in Hawkes Bay, mostly in the Wairoa area.
The obituary in the Gisborne Herald, 27 December 1935 says: 'The death occurred suddenly in the Napier Hospital on Christmas Day of another of the pioneer settlers of the Wairoa district in the person of Mrs Ellen Elisa(sic) Torr of Hastings aged 64 years. She was the wife of Mr Walter Torr of Hastings, formerly a police constable stationed in this district for many years.' Walter died in 1941.
Sources
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH19060428.2.12 Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10648, 28 April 1906, Page 2
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH19351227.2.163 Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18898, 27 December 1935, Page 14
Births Deaths and Marriages Online https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Probate Records, 1843-1998," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9T3-G4W4-S?cc=1865481&wc=4BVZ-DVF%3A1045248401%2C1579541601 : 21 February 2019), Wellington Court > Probate records 1936 P57901/35-P57968/35 > image 826 of 839; Archives New Zealand, Auckland Regional Office.