Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert
Alice Partridge was the youngest daughter of William and Elizabeth Sara nee Lester. She was born in 1872 in Port Albert. Her parents and two older siblings had emigrated to Auckland with other Albertlanders on board the Matilda Wattenbach in 1862. They settled in Port Albert, north of Auckland, on a government grant of land.
On 30 December 1894 Alice married in her father’s house to James William McPike. James was born in 1855 in Onehunga, Auckland, one of the twelve children of James and Catherine, who arrived in 1847 with the Fencibles, being originally from Belfast Ireland.
James William was a millhand who had worked in Port Albert for three years when they married, and their first child was born there.
- James William (1895–1952)
- Rose Ileen (1899–1935)
- Josephine (1901–1901) stillborn
- Frank Alexander Walter (1903–1940)
- Maybee Lucy (1907–1909)
Around 1900 James and Alice moved to Onehunga where James continued work as a millhand. His parents had died there, and he still had family living in the area. They had a house in Church Street, Onehunga and Alice used it as a private hospital, known as Nurse McPike’s Nursing Home, for maternity patients.
James died in 1918 aged 63. He was buried in the Waikaraka Cemetery, Onehunga. In his will, worth 500 pounds, he left his real and personal estate to his dear wife Alice.
In 1924 Alice was fined for 'having used her house as a private hospital without a license’. The Health Department official said that there was grave risk of infection when more than one patient was kept at the one time. 'Her premises were clean. enough, but were not suitable for a hospital, as there was no hot water service.' Alice had references from local doctors, who said she had over 20 years experience as a maternity nurse and ‘had had over 100 cases at her house, and there had never been a single case of sepsis, or a single death.' She was fined a small amount and became certified under the Private Hospitals Act 1925.
Alice died 21 January 1938 aged 66 in Onehunga and was buried in Waikaraka Cemetery with her husband and infant children. Her probate worth 3000 pounds left property at George Street Onehunga to her son James William, property at Church Street Onehunga, to her son Frank Alexander, and the piano to granddaughter Marie Pascoe, with the rest to be split three ways between all the children.
Alice is the sister of 23 Annie PARTRIDGE and 24 Jane LITTEN
Sources
PAPERS PAST New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22943, 22 January 1938, Page 1
PAPERS PAST Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 157, 4 July 1924, Page 4
Historical BDMs
Electoral Rolls (ancestry.com)