Timeline

Notes:

---

11/2/2012 - visit to Lewes Records Office confirmed christening details. Father was a labourer of Birchden, Eridge Green. Ceremony performed by John J. Burton, vicar. Had a message from Lin Baldock, second cousin, granddaughter of Alice Peat nee Avis, to say that she had phoned her cousin who lives in Cambridge. Her Mother is the living Aunt, 97 years old, that married her Uncle Frank Peat, son of Alice. According to her Aunt one of Alices sisters went to America or New Zealand. I then did a search on ancestry.co.uk, and found the following. 25/4/1912 a Nellie Avis, a domestic aged about 25, embarked on a steamship called Tainui from London to Wellington New Zealand. It stopped at Plymouth where it left 27/4/1912 for Wellington, on a journey to last approximately 70 days. I cannot trace her in New Zealand, so I have emailed the New Zealand National Archives to ask for advice. The attached photo, which was unnamed but in the old family album, was taken in a studio in Brompton Road, London. Brompton Road leads on to the Fulham Road, and the photography studio was there at the time Nellie was working at the infirmary, so it is believed to be a photograph of Nellie. The transcription for the 1911 census had her down as Hetty Avis, but if you blow the page up it definitely looks like Nelly, and being in London in 1911 she would be in the area to embark on a trip to New Zealand from there the following year. It just has question marks instead of her place of birth, but as the other staff seemed to come from London, I believe that the enumerator was not familiar with where Nellie was born so did not put it down. I now believe that Nellie did not travel in 1912 on the Tanui, as her name, along with someone I believe was her intended companion, has been crossed off the embarkation list, along with other names, and the total at the bottom of the sheet is the total number of names which are not crossed off. The person I believe was her intended companion, I think had a surname of Diprose, or something like, and in the 1901 census there was a Matilda Diprose staying with William and Harriet Avis, the parents of Nellie. I can't find out any more about this person. I sent off for a marriage certificate for a Nellie Avis to a Charles Thornley in Fulham in 1917, but her father was called Thomas Avis, a carpenter, so that was not her, and she was also the wrong age. The New Zealand Archives could only point me to the embarkation lists, so have not given me any further help. So I do not currently know what happened to Nellie post 1911.

Photos:

---

Nellie Avis - 1885-05-24

List Individuals	Help	Map