Henry Burling

Henry Burling (1 May 1801 – 17 September 1911)[1] was an English-born New Zealand supercentenarian, who was a mail carrier and farmer.

Henry Burling
A photograph of Henry Burling c. 1901
Born1 May 1801
Stratford, Essex, (now East London) England, United Kingdom
Died17 September 1911 (aged 110)
Waikanae, New Zealand
OccupationMail carrier, farmer

Biography

He was born in Stratford, Essex (now East London) England on 1 May 1801 to Thomas Burling, a soap maker, and Joanna Pike. He emigrated to New Zealand on the "London" with his wife Mary Worsley, (whom he had married in 27 January 1839 in Marylebone, Middlesex), arriving on 1 May 1842; one son Charle's died on the journey, he had four children at the time he married his wife and they would have another four, she died in 1864.

Burling worked as a silk and satin printer and gardner and purchased land, before joining the mail service, where he carried mail by foot between Wellington and Wanganui, unarmed, during the New Zealand Wars, usually in what was a physical strenuous activity, where he swam rivers with the mail with the clothes attached to his back. As a result, he earned the trust of Te Rangihaeata and other Maori in the area.[2][3]

Burling died at his home of Waikanae, after 5 weeks of suffering from bronchitis and paralytic stroke, survived by three of his thirteen children: Arthur (73), with whom he was living, Henry (86), and Sarah Goodin (69). At the time of his death, he had over 600 living descendants. He was a supercentenarian, having lived to 110, although the term was probably not coined then, he was mentally alert and strong, but was suffering bad eyesight from an earlier accident[3][4]

References
  1. "Burling, Henry".
  2. "New Zealand's Oldest Inhabitant: Mr. Henry Burling". The Globe. 31 May 1911. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  3. "Death of a Centenarian – Henry Burling, aged 110". Manawatu Herald. XXXIII (1045). New Zealand. 19 September 1911. Retrieved 16 July 2019 – via Papers Past.
  4. "Five score and ten – A centenarian's death". New Zealand Herald. XLVIII (14789). Press Association. 19 September 1911. Retrieved 16 July 2019 – via Papers Past.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.