Edmund Berry Nevill was the third child of Jonathan Nevill and Mary Berry. His younger brother was Samuel Tarratt Nevill, who went on to become Primate of New Zealand. Edmund himself was to become a clergyman in Australia and New Zealand. His father was in the lace trade, as a hosier, centred on the Lace Market in central Nottingham. Lace Market was not a market as such, but the area around which lace making was centred, and it is still an interesting heritage area today.
Edmund was born on 27 September 1835 in Nottingham, England, and baptised at St Mary’s in that city on 28th October. He was educated at Mr Herbert’s School in Nottingham.
- Children of Jonathan Nevill and Mary Berry:
- Charles Henry, born 1831, died 1852
- John Benjamin, born 1833, died 1909, remained in England
- Edmund Berry, born 1835, died 1875, came to New Zealand
- Samuel Tarratt, born 1837, died 1921, Bishop of Dunedin and Primate of New Zealand
- Emily Mary, born 1839, died 1861, remained in England
- Nevill George, born 1841, died 20 January 1867, lost overboard en route to New Zealand on the Coleroon.
He entered his father’s lace trade, in partnership with his brothers Nevill George and John Benjamin, but gave up his interest in the business in 1865 by having himself declared a bankrupt, along with his brother Nevill. Both Nevill and Edmund gave up all their assets to their brother John Benjamin who remained, with a man called George Bridgett, in the lace making business in Nottingham (1)
In 1861 Edmund married Mary Louisa Linton, who was a daughter of the Rev Henry Linton of Magdalen College, Oxford. They had a son, Edmund Robert, born in 1862. See more on him below. In January 1867 he participated in a curate’s evening at the Working Men’s Hall at Bunker’s Hill, Nottingham, where he read from The Saxon and the Gael, a work by the woman author Christian Isobel Johnstone. It was an evening of readings and musical entertainments. (2,3)
Edmund joined the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and he and Mary and son Robert sailed to Australia, probably late in 1867, where he was a missioner at Toowoomba in Queensland and then Curate or Minister at St Matthew’s parish church in nearby Drayton. (Mary’s brother Sydney Linton was also in Australia and also in the Church: he became the Bishop of Riverina in New South Wales in 1883.) On 30th May 1870 Edmund he presided at a funeral for a popular resident Toowoomba resident, Spencer Roberts, at St James Church.
He left the incumbency of St Matthew’s, Drayton, in January 1872, receiving a warm send off from his parishioners who praised his “ability as a preacher and zeal for the truth”, and Mrs Nevill, “whose amiability of disposition has endeared her to all those who were favored with her acquaintance”. (4)
With that endorsement ringing in their ears, on 4th February 1872 Edmund and Mary made the crossing to Auckland, and on to Wanganui, where Edmund had been appointed Vicar of the parish of Christ Church, a position he took up in early March. He was known for his robust views and the vigour with which he expressed them. In April 1873 he became dangerously unwell and sold up his possessions with the intention of moving to a better climate in June. He must have recovered – and hopefully cancelled the auction – as he remained in Wanganui until 28 May 1874 when he and Mary sailed to Wellington and stayed a few days there, visiting the Colonial Museum, before making their way on to Akaroa.
He died in Akaroa on a Sunday evening, 31 January 1875, aged just 39 years. His death is believed to have been caused by tuberculosis. His brother, Bishop Samuel Nevill, insisted that Edmund should be buried in the churchyard of St Peter’s, Akaroa, much to the consternation of some of the local parishioners. They considered that he should be buried in the public cemetery on the hill on the south side of town like everyone else. The Bishop got his way, however, but the debate over this burial in the churchyard continued to rage even 55 years later, in an edition of the Akaroa Mail for 5 August 1930.
Edmund and Mary had a son, Edmund Robert Nevill, born in Nottingham in June 1862. He also entered the Ministry and moved between England and New Zealand, where he died, in Dunedin, on 19 March 1933. On the death of his father he was cared for by his uncle Samuel.
Edmund senior’s older brother was John Benjamin Nevill, also in the lace and hosiery trade, whose daughter Ellen Florence married William Henry Hornibrook. William was the older brother of my great grandmother, Alice Hornibrook who married Edward Burt.
References:
- London Gazette, 30 May 1865
2. Matsui, Yuko. “The Transnational Exchange of National Tales: C.I. Johnstone’s Irish Connections and the Location of Gaelic Culture.” Journal of Irish Studies, vol. 26, 2011, pp. 7–23. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23033173. Accessed 15 Apr. 2021.
3. Nottinghamshire Guardian, 18 January 1867
4. Darling Downs Gazette and General Advertiser, 17 Jan 1872
Lives of my ancestors 
[…] entered the lace trade, in partnership with his brothers Edmund and John Benjamin, but gave up his interest in the business in 1865 by having himself declared a […]