Topic: Charles Eyre
Topic type:
Charles and Elizabeth Eyre and their children arrived at Te Arai in 1859, settling on the coast at what is now called Eyre's point and farming land now belonging to Auckland Council and Te Arai Coastal Lands Trust.
Charles Eyre, a grocer from Sheffield, Yorkshire with seven children, left Liverpool on the Mermaid for Auckland in April 1859, arriving three months later in Auckland and then at Te Arai in November. Charles chartered a boat to get to Te Arai, but it was too rough to get to the Mangawhai Wharf so the family landed on the beach in the surf at low tide. Many of their possessions were lost to the incoming tide.
Crown grants of land were given to European settlers, around 40 acres for each adult and 10 for each child. The Eyre’s were granted 189 acres that the family eventually extended to 772 acres. Charles Eyre also leased land in Mangawhai as these early letters attest to.
Their Te Arai home Hillsboro and was positioned on the coast at Eyre’s Point, which is now an Auckland Council reserve and the remnants of a quarry. Further lands of the Eyre’s were inundated with sand and now form part of the adjacent pine plantations.
After thirty three years at Te Arai Charles Eyre died in 1882 in Auckland. He met his end at the Auckland Lunatic Asylum on December 28 after having been there nine days. His condition was described as “feeble and greatly emaciated” and he was buried at Grafton Cemetery in Auckland.
Elizabeth died three years later in 1885, and is buried in the Te Arai Public Cemetery, Cemetery Rd, Te Arai. Elizabeth is buried with her son Charles.
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For more information on the Eyre family, see The Eyres of Te Arai, Being a history of the family in New Zealand,by Barbara Metcalf, 1995. Hard copy available at the Mangawhai Museum.
