William Burk was born to John and Mary Burk on 4 September 1822 and is my great great grandfather.  He was baptised at St Paul’s Church in Deptford, Kent in England.

St Paul’s Church is one of London’s finest Baroque parish churches, opened in 1730, which was then a settlement in Kent but is now part of South East London.

The family immigrated to Hobart, Tasmania in Australia.  There William Burke met Annie Rose and they married 19 Feb 1852 when he was 29 and she was 17.  They had two children in Australia – William John (1856-1936) and Letitia (1858-1938).  The family immigrated again this time to Invercargill, New Zealand from Tasmania in about 1862 and they had three more children – Richard (1863-1940), Sarah (1865-1932) and Helen Rose (1867-1923), before they shifted again, this time to Leith St in Dunedin.  There they completed their family with Thomas (1869-1934), Albert (1873-1948) and my great grandfather James Osborne (1876-1955).

When the family lived in Invercargill, in the mid 1860’s, William captained the schooner “Why Not” which ran between the ports of Invercargill and Bluff.  On the family’s arrival into Dunedin he bought the ketch “Defiance” and sailed this along the coastline between Oamaru and Dunedin for the majority of the 1870’s.  His regular cargo was Oamaru stone, machinery, wool or wheat, and was capable of weights up to 30 tons.

Unfortunately in 1878 William Burk was unable to meet his financial commitments and became insolvent.  This forced the sale of his ketch to assist in clearing his debts.

The family move to Hyde St and on 23 November 1883 ‘Captain’ William Burk passed away at the age of 61.  He is buried in the Northern Cemetery.  Annie raised the family and in her later years lived with her oldest daughter Letitia Lindsay, and her husband George, at 18 Beta St in Roslyn, Dunedin.  She passed away on 26 March 1908, at the age of 75, and is buried with William and their daughter Sarah (who never married).