Liz Amoore’s stories of the people buried in the Raglan cemetery start with the tale of an intrepid and entrepreneurial couple, Margaret and William Baker.
Margaret Eleanor Leonard was born in Tipperary, Ireland in 1862. Margaret and her sister, Catherine, arrived in New Zealand on 24 March 1876, as assisted immigrants, aboard the Brodick Castle.
Their ages were listed as 21 and 20, but Liz’s research suggests that they were only 14 and 13. “Apparently, they left home to escape a predatory stepfather. An uncle helped them organize their departure as assisted immigrants, as well as burning the stepfather’s clothes to prevent him from pursuing the girls to the ship.”
Theirs was a long and arduous journey, as the Brodick Castle “encountered storms, being becalmed, mutiny by some sailors and having to return to Falmouth and on to Plymouth where the passengers were lodged for nine weeks“before sailing on to New Zealand.
It is thought that Catherine worked as a maid in Auckland, until she married William Benjamin Joseph Baker on 1 October 1879 in Parnell. Margaret was listed as a minor, being only 17 years old at the time.
They had 6 children: Benjamin, Margaret, Gertrude, Wilhelmina, William and Vincent.
The couple farmed at Wade on the Waitemata harbour. Given their distance from civilization, as the birth of each of their children was imminent, Margaret would travel to the mouth of the Wade River and catch a ferry to Auckland to await the arrival of the baby at her sister Catherine’s house. Given the vagaries of the tides, Liz comments that things did not always go according to plan. “Once…she was stuck on a sandbar overnight, pregnant and with her other children in the boat. Family story has it that her hair turned white overnight after this incident”.
Their occupations changed when Margaret and William decided to enter the hospitality trade by managing the Bridge Hotel at Kaukapakapa, in 1898. In 1900 they moved to the Harbour View Hotel in Raglan. In 1901, the Nathans purchased the Harbour View, whilst William stayed on as the publican.
At the end of 1901, the hotel was totally destroyed by a fire of unknown provenance. The entire Baker family escaped unscathed, apart from William being “singed about the face” as he attempted to rescue his papers and cash from the safe. They were well supported by the community and remained in Raglan, albeit with different occupations, once again!
William operated the Opotoru and Te Akau ferries and Margaret opened a general store, named after her. This was next to the post office, Fuller’s tea rooms and a barber’s shop.
Tragedy struck in 1917, when their son, Vincent Walter Lionel Baker, was killed at the battle of Ypres, in WW1.
Sadly, William was not able to support Margaret through this loss, as he died on 24 April, 1908. A report of his death appeared in the Waikato Argus on 28 April: “It is with extreme regret that I have to chronicle the death of Mr. William Baker, on April 24th, from an internal malady at the end of a year’s illness. The deceased was 53 years of age, and died as he had lived, apparently without a single enemy, everyone coming into contact with him appreciating his kindly, obliging disposition”.
In 1922, at the unveiling of the Raglan cenotaph, one would imagine that Margaret would have been happy to have her son’s name recorded for posterity. The family believe that this pleasure was somewhat marred by the fact that his name was recorded as “W.L.W. Baker, and not V.W.L. Baker as he is registered on his birth certificate or W.L.V. Baker as the order of his Christian names Walter used when he enlisted in the army”.
Margaret died shortly after this, on 1 February 1923. It seems that none of her family members had an interest in running a General Store, as an auction notice in the Waikato Times of October 1923 advertises a “piece of land containing 1 rood, section 2a, block 11, Raglan. This is next to the Post Office and has three shops and a dwelling, all let”.
Margaret and William’s daughter-in-law, Evelyn (married to Bill Baker) and their son, Len, are also buried in Raglan cemetery.
