E. A Hanson

Elizabeth Ann was the eldest of ten children born to Jane Charleton and Richard Nazer. This couple were married at the Mission Station at Kawhia but had moved to Raglan by the time Elizabeth was born on 19 Jul 1862. The family had business interests in Onehunga, Auckland, a store in Mackay Street, Thames and Richard became a vestry man at Christ Church in Coromandel in 1879. With sister Evaline being born in 1874 on Norfolk Island, Elizabeth enjoyed living in a number of different locations during her childhood.

On 23 August 1882, in Beresford Street, Auckland, she married Alfred Hanson. The youngest son of William Hanson, this family had arrived in Auckland in the late 1850s from Sunderland Durham. Alfred was an established builder who had a new five-roomed cottage available for sale in Day Street for £310 in 1880. Alfred sold a house in Norfolk Street, Ponsonby in April 1884, most likely the one identified as a town section valued at  £110 in the Freeholders Return two years earlier. Over the next 2-3 decades the family lived first in Victoria Avenue, Mt Eden but then moved to the Brixton Ave area off  Dominion Road where a number houses were built and sold. Their new family home in 1902 spoke of prosperity as Mrs. A. Hanson employed a girl to assist with housework and a smart boy was required ‘to be useful about house and garden’. 

On 26 August 1910, probaby this property was advertised for auction. Described as a Gentleman’s Residence and splendidly finished, it had eight “large and lofty rooms”, bay windows, tiled grates, a bathroom with califont, Orion range in kitchen, a pantry, scullery and dairy with numerous cupboards etc. Outbuildings on the four acres included a large stable with stall and loose box, two coach-houses, a loft and a man's room. The beautifully laid out grounds comprised a garden, surrounded by elegant hedge, paths tarred and shelled' with a well grassed lawn area and flowering shrubs. Having sold they moved a few metres down the road to the corner of Dominion Road and Paice Avenue to a large traditional bungalow with an imposing verandah at the front. This house is still standing. After WWI they had moved to the North Shore but by 1946 they were back in the Mt. Eden area at 54 Mountain Road, Epsom. Elizabeth died on 4 January, 1949 and Alfred eighteen months later (24). 

Elizabeth and Alfred produced three sons: Arnold (1883), Percy (Percival 1885) and Victor (1887). All were initially involved in the building industry in Auckland, but Percy later took up farming near Morrinsville and Victor set up a pet shop in Queen Street, in opposition to Johnny Walker. Their daughter Myrtle (1893) and her husband Norman Jones lived next door to their Mountain Road residence after WWII. The children attended Mt Eden School and for many years they either attended the Dominion Road or the Mt. Eden Methodist Church.

Biography contributed by Margaret Jenkin

Sources

• PapersPast newspaper articles
• BDM Indexes
• Return of the Freeholders of New Zealand  1882 
• NZ Electoral Rolls

Image

Alfred Hanson and Elizabeth Hanson (nee Nazer)