Edmund Robert Nevill

Edmund Robert Nevill was the son of Edmund Berry Nevill, and grandson of Jonathan Nevill and his wife Mary Berry.

He was born on the 6th June 1862 in Nottingham, England. His accompanied his father and mother to Australia and then New Zealand but his father died in Akaroa, New Zealand, from TB, in 1875. His uncle, Samuel Tarrant Nevill, Bishop of Dunedin, assumed the guardianship of his nephew.

Edmund returned to England where he attended St Nicholas’s College, Lancing, in Sussex, from September 1878 until August 1882. [source: Register of St Nicholas College https://archive.org/details/registerofsnicho00lancuoft/page/n3/mode/2up?view=theater%5D

He was then at Lincoln College, Oxford, from January 1883 until December 1886. He graduated with a 3rd class BA degree in Theology. He was keen on athletics and a very active member of the College Debating Society.

He married Lilian Ethel Bagley on 2nd October 1901 and they had five children.

In 1915 he emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand, with his wife and family on the Rotorua.

The family arrived in Auckland on 16 March 1915 and then departed for Dunedin on the Victoria. Edmund had a posting at St Paul’s, Dunedin. (Auckland Star 16 March 1916).

The New Zealand Herald of 18 March 1915 noted:

“Genealogy is a subject which has been studied a great deal by the Rev. E. R Nevill, who arrived by the steamer Rotorua on Tuesday, in order to take up the position of vicar of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Dunedin. He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries which has 720 members, and has written seven volumes on the parish history of Dorset. He is also a contributor to the Genealogist, has written a number of family histories, as well as a short history of St. Thomas’s Church, in Salisbury. This is Mr. Nevill’s fifth trip to Australasia. His father came out as a missionary clergyman to Queensland in 1867, bringing Mr. Nevill, then a boy. He was educated at the Dunedin High School and Christ’s College, Christchurch, and finished his education in England. For the last two years he has been vicar of Hanney, Berkshire.”

The claim about writing 7 volumes on the history of Dorset was not correct (newspapers got things wrong then as they do today!); in fact he edited Vol 7 of a seven-volume set in the Philimore series on the marriage registers of Dorset. He also worked on Vol 5 of the series on Wiltshire parish records lists, which was published in England in 1914.