Help Restore Our Pioneer Families' Grave at St Bride's Historic Church, Mauku

In the 1840s and 50s, our Wheeler, Good, and Mellsop ancestors left a settled, comfortable life in rural England and Ireland - some of them landed gentry - for a long voyage into uncertainty and hardship on the other side of the world.

William and Catherine (née Good), their adult sons Thomas, John and Allen, daughter Catherine, and William's brother Edward Wheeler, along with John's wife Anna (née Mellsop), helped build the settlers' church of St Bride's*, the first in the Franklin area.

They arrived to find that much of what had been promised didn't exist. They created new lives regardless.

Many are here in this small country churchyard, generations of them, right through to a couple interred in 2016.

Earlier this year, a storm damaged the ironwork fence around their grave. Looking closer, the site badly needs attention: the fence is rusted and collapsing, the concrete is cracked, and the headstone's inscription is now partly unreadable.

With expert advice, we've planned a sympathetic restoration.

We're hoping to complete the work later this year, followed by a family gathering and a service of reconsecration. Every contribution gets us closer and is appreciated.

*(St Bride's is a historic kauri and totara Selwyn church - a Heritage New Zealand Category 1 building, completed in 1861. It has a stained-glass window, added in the 1960s from London's Whitefriars chapel, marking the link to St Bride's, Fleet Street - one of the first settlers had worshipped there.)