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Topic: Alice Heron Maxwell (1860-1949)
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For sixty years Alice Heron Maxwell worked tirelessly to preserve The Elms and its contents, a place that has become a true treasure and historical icon of Tauranga.
Alice Heron Maxwell was born in Kilmore, Victoria, Australia on 9 October 1860. Her father was Reverend Andrew Maxwell and his wife Euphemia Ballingall (nee Johnston) who married in Old Machar in Aberdeen, Scotland on 10 November 1852. Andrew died in 1865 and Euphemia moved with her children to New Zealand. Her sister Christina had married Archdeacon Alfred Nesbit Brown in 1860 and Alice visited the couple at the the Tauranga Mission House
The names of Edith and Alice Maxwell are associated with Tauranga Mission House, known after Archdeacon Brown acquired it for his own use after retirement as The Elms. The property passed to the Maxwell family in 1887 when Christina died. Euphemia and her daughters moved from Wellington to Tauranga to live in the property. When Euphemia died in 1919 Alice inherited The Elms.
For over sixty years (1887-1949) Alice worked tirelessly to preserve The Elms. She and her sister Edith maintained the property, and its contents, and conducted visitors through the home. Edith died in April 1930 and Alice carried on her work alone.
Alice died on 24 July 1949, having spent 60 years living at The Elms which was inherited by her nephew Duff Heron Maxwell. She was buried in Tauranga Mission Cemetery.
Sources:
Ancestry.com
Biographical Sketches of The Centennial Mural (1982) by Ernest Edward Bush.
Rorke, Jinty (1996). Alice Heron Maxwell. Retrieved from http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/3m48/maxwell-alice-heron (Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, last updated: 2012).
Alice Heron Maxwell, custodian of Te Papa missi...
