Hendrie Street

There is a note in Puke Ariki that tells us Hendrie Street was named after an uncle of Mrs. Carrington. This is not much to go on.

There are a few mentions of the street in old copies of the Taranaki Herald newspaper in connection with land sales involving a section with two frontages, or a house owned by a widow willing to relinquish the property, deemed suitable for subdivision. There is no mention of the elusive Mr. Hendrie.

Similarly, a search of New Zealand births, deaths, and marriages records gives us no joy with records for Hendrie. Mr Hendrie, it appears, did not arrive in New Zealand, was not married here and is not buried in any local cemetery. In fact, we don’t even know his first name.

It seems odd that he is said to be an uncle of Mrs Carrington, who is presumably Frederic’s wife, the former Margaret Gaine.  The uncle Hendrie must then have been the brother of Margaret’s mother.  Again, the existing records do not reveal the identity of Margaret’s parents.

A scant record reveals that Frederic and Margaret were married in 1833 in Middlesex.  A Mary Hendrie was baptised 4 February 1762 at Middlesex, possibly the Mary born 25 January of that year to father James and mother Hannah. Despite extensive searching, our researcher was unable to establish a marriage to the Mr Gaine who would have been Margaret’s father. 

In fact, it is only wishful thinking on the researcher’s part that connects Mary Hendrie at all with Margaret Gaine, and thus with the street named for her uncle.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.