Sharp-Healy Family

The Story of the first two Generations

Isabella Mary Ann Hann 1857-1892

Isabella Mary Ann Hann was born in on 15 May 1857 at 8 Henry Street, Kensington Lane, in New Cross, London. She was baptised a Roman Catholic at Bethnal Green. Her parents were James Hann, an Engineer, and Theodosia Sarah Field Hann (formerly Linford).

She was ten years younger than her sister Theodosia, and a spinster aged 18, when she married her sister's ex-husband John Edwin Sharp at a Registry Office in Bethnal Green on 11 May 1875. Apparently she had not long left a convent in France when she and John were married.

As recorded on Theodosia's page, there was a big scandal in London over the marriage. Isabella and John were forced to flee England, and according to family sources she received money from her parents until she died.

It is believed that John and Isabella came to New Zealand between 1875 and 1877, but on which ship and to which port is still unknown. They left from London (Gravesend), and probably arrived in Lyttelton, as Eileen remembers that they said they lived in Christchurch for a time in a large home with a carriage and horses, before moving to Dunedin.

Settling in Dunedin

John and Isabella bought property in Carisbrook on the southern road where in time they built three cottages. John Bentley Sharp told Eileen that he and Margaret lived in one of the cottages in their early married days before they bought a business in Castle Street. This was where John and Isabella's younger children were born.

Children

The following are the children of Isabella. All six were born in Dunedin within the space of nine years:

Table - Sharp














However with six young children to care for, plus two stepsons, Isabella's days would have been very busy. Life in Dunedin in the early 1880s was difficult, even though the city was newly connected to Christchurch and Invercargill by railway, was the scene of the first shipment of frozen meat, and was still flourishing from the gold rush era, and the effects of continued immigration.

Death

Headstone - Isabella Sharp

We actually know more about Isabella after her death than her actual life.

Isabella died suddenly on 15 June 1892 aged 35 years, at Caversham, Dunedin. She was buried at the Southern Cemetery on 17 June in Block 19P, Plot 0020. Her death certificate says she had married John Sharp when she was 18, and had been in New Zealand 15 years, which means she must have come to New Zealand in 1877, but dates on some old documents were sometimes inaccurate.

The cause of her death - Verdict of Jury - was 'Sudden failure of the heart'. At that time she had 6 young children - 3 sons: Charles 13, John 6, Edwin 3, and 3 daughters: Isabella, 11, Sarah, 10, and Jessica aged 8.

"Her death was a tragic affair. She had some kind of heart trouble and one day our father, at the age of 7 years, found her dead in the toilet. She left six children, five of them of school age," remembers Eileen. It is also believed that Isabella suffered from epilepsy.

Inquest

A notice in the "Otago Daily Times" on 16 June under Accidents and Fatalities states:

An inquest was held yesterday afternoon on the body of Isabella Mary Ann Sharp, who died suddenly yesterday morning at her husband's residence at Carisbrook. About 7 am yesterday she went into a room where the children were sleeping and as one of them had been ill she inquired as to how it was progressing. She then seemed in her usual health, but an hour afterwards she was discovered dead in an outhouse. Dr Colquhoun was called in and gave it as his opinion that death was due to apoplexy or to sudden failure of the heart's action. Deceased was subject to apoplectic fits, and she had one of these five or six weeks ago.

According to family sources, Isabella received remittance payments from England until she died aged 35 years.

On 21 June 1892, John Sharp applied to the Supreme Court of Otago and Southland District for a "Grant of Probate to him of Will and Codicil of Isabella Mary Ann Hann or Sharp".

On 6 July 1892 an "Affidavit of Death of Isabella Mary Ann Hann or Sharp" was filed in the Supreme Court by Daniel Colquhoun, Medical Practitioner, stating that (1) he "knew the above named Isabella Mary Ann Hann or Sharp when alive", (2) "The said Isabella Mary Ann Hann or Sharp was resident at Caversham within this district", and that (3) "The said Isabella Mary Ann Hann or Sharp died at Caversham aforesaid on or about the fifteenth day of June one thousand eight hundred and ninety two".

Will

Isabella's 3 page will dated 26 June 1891, written a year before her death, gave names and birth details of her six children, and instructed that her estate be liquidated and the funds invested for the future support of her children until they reached the age of 21 years. There were two executors - her husband John Sharp and John Colvin, but this was later revoked, giving sole responsibility for her estate to her husband. When the last child reached 21, the remaining funds were to be distributed.

It must have been a great shock to the family to lose Isabella so young, and been very hard for John to bring up six children alone, especially since they were so far from their native England and the rest of the family. How he coped and what arrangements he made for the children is not known. One imagines he must have had home help while he was working, and the older children, especially the girls, would have had to help around the house and look after their younger brothers. It must have been especially traumatic for the children to lose their mother while they were so young and in such sudden tragic circumstances.

Eileen says: "Grandfather Sharp did not marry again." At the time of his death, he was living with John Bentley and Margaret Sharp at Burke St.

Family Connection

Our family connection starts with John Bentley Sharp, who married Margaret Healy in Dunedin in 1913, aged 28 years.