Sidney Morris Cornelius
A colourised photo of Sidney
Sidney was born in Chard, a small village near Crewkerne, Somerset, England and baptised on 29 September 1858. His father was also named Sidney Morris Cornelius and was an auctioneer/surveyor.
The family moved to London shortly afterwards, and somewhere between 1871 and 1881 moved to Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. Sidney (Jnr) was supposed to have married in England, but his wife died after 4 years – she “lost her reason” and Sidney decided to come to New Zealand.[1]
I doubt this part of the story as Sidney was in Macetown in 1881, working as a miner. He was also supposed to have worked his passage from England to Dunedin, travelled around Canterbury and Westland, and then came to Wānaka for a few months in 1880 before going to Wakatipu, Lumsden, Mossburn and other parts of Southland for “a few years” before returning to Wānaka, where he lived for close on twenty years. Bearing in mind Sidney died in 1904, the years do not add up – he would have had to be married at 16 or 17 years of age, which is unlikely. A Cornelius family researcher has found no record of Sidney ever marrying and he was a known as a bachelor in Wānaka.
We can for certain, say he was in New Zealand in 1881, and possibly he lived in Wānaka permanently from about 1894.
Sidney taught himself the carpentry trade and gained a good reputation for his work. He was apparently well-liked, and he ended up serving the community in a number of ways. It was stated that he had a good education and was in much request from public bodies. He was Chairman of the School Committee, Treasurer of the tennis and various sports clubs, an Anglican Church officer, undertaker and the census officer. Just before his death, he had studied ambulance work, “and procured all the appliances, also an expensive edition of one of the latest Encyclopaedias, which will give him a clear bent to his ideas. He lived in Wānaka so long because the climate agreed with the asthma which formerly gave him a lot of trouble.”
On the day that Sidney suddenly died, he had been out at Hāwea and upon returning had met Mr Allan(?) Bremner and asked him “come to his house and help him balance the cash book in connection with the St Patrick’s Day sports.” Mr Bremner arrived at Sidney’s home 30 minutes later to find Sidney dead on his bed. The “sports balance sheet was on his table and the writing left off in the middle of a word with a big scratch down the page made by the pen.” It appeared he fell ill suddenly and went to lay on his bed.
An Inquest was immediately arranged but had to be postponed until Friday when Doctor Morris arrived from Cromwell to conduct a post-mortem. This was finished shortly before midnight - the Jury was waiting at Mrs Russell’s hotel to hear Doctor Morris’s evidence and (as quoted) “finish their labours”.
Sidney’s funeral took place the next afternoon at the Anglican Church. It was apparently the first funeral at that Church.
After his sudden death Sidney was described as a “man of many parts, and of sterling worth.” His home was a “tidy little cottage with workroom attached” near to the corner of Lakeside Road and Tramore Street.
As an aside, the research disclosed that Sidney’s siblings also had the name Sidney and Morris included as part of their names. It seems to be a family tradition. And who was the Sydney Mildred Grace Cornelius b. 1898 in Wellington? Too much of a coincidence not to be related somehow.
[1] “the Country – Lake Wānaka” (Otago Witness, 13 April 1904.
