Early residents of Richmond

Arthur William Emmett c1846 - 1948

Arthur Emmett aged 22 years, arrived in New Zealand about 1868 from Cornwall. His first job was on Banks Peninsula clearing cocksfoot and then as a gardener for a Browns’ Road family. After borrowing some money, he and his wife Frances Sarah started a farm about where Medway and Aldersley Streets are now. He sold this farm a little while later and shifted to his new 100 acre farm in Quinns Road.

The Emmett farm supplied the areas of Shirley, Richmond, St Albans and Fendalton with milk, which was delivered in the early morning after the 4am milking. Customers would leave billies on their porches and the person delivering the milk would fill them using a ladle.

In the late 1940s Arthur sold the farm. The land on the right side of Quinns Road was sold to local builder Geoff Walker, and the land on the left hand side was sold to the government for state housing.

Arthur became well known and prosperous, he owned quite a few houses in North Parade and also a small farmlet between Joy and Pagoda Streets.

Henry Bylove Sorensen 1845 - 1923

Henry Sorensen was an auctioneer and his auctioneering business was situated in Lichfield Street.

Born in Denmark in 1845 and educated in Jutland, Henry arrived in New Zealand in 1862. He arrived in Dunedin but moved to Christchurch two years later. Community minded, he was a city councillor off and on for twenty years, Chairman of the Richmond School Committee, and Chairman of the Samaritan Home Committee.

His estate was on the Swanns Road corner and had big iron gates that led to a large house down a sweeping drive. He called his estate Lingard.

Henry Sorensen, his wife Margaret, née Baron, and his daughter Edith Margaret are all buried in the Avonside Anglican Church Cemetery.

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