Topic: Mary Dobie's Grave - 1880
Topic type:
Armed Constabulary Cemetery, Park Place, Opunake
Mary Dobie's Grave
Photograph: October 2015
(For the 'Taranaki Story' see Web links below)
Inscription
IN MEMORY OF
MARY BEATRIX
DAUGHTER OF
MAJOR H. M. DOBIE
LATE MADRAS ARMY
AND
ELLEN DOBIE
BORN 22ND DEC 1850
DIED 25TH NOV 1880
THIS MEMORIAL WAS ERECTED BY THE
NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS & MEN OF
THE ARMED CONSTABULARY STATIONED
AT OPUNAKE AND CAPE EGMONT
DECEMBER 1880
A portion of the cross which originally topped the monument has been re-set on a plinth in front.
(Mary Dobie's brother Herbert - who spelled his name with two 'b's (Dobbie) - produced, in 1880-81, a now-rare book on New Zealand ferns. They are known as the 'blue books' because they had 'nature-printed' white silhouettes of fronds on a blue background. Dobbie later, in 1921, produced a regular book on ferns using photographs . It subsequently went through several editions.) (See Web link & Documents below)
Further Reading
The Many Deaths of Mary Dobie: Murder, Politics and Revenge
in Nineteeth-Century New Zealand
David Hastings, 2015
The Voyage of the May Queen - 1992
From the Diary of Bertha & Mary Dobie
October 1877 - January 1878
Margaret Drake Brockman - Ed
( An account of the voyage from Gravesend to
Auckland in 1877-78 written and illustrated by Bertha and Mary Dobie)
