I’ve previously mentioned that I had only one blood relative at Oxford Cemetery – John Phillips. However it turns out there is another: David Bell.

David was the second cousin of my great-great-grandmother – a distant relationship, to be sure. Many people – families, and singles – left Ireland to seek a new life in the colonies. David was one of the latter; first coming to New Zealand in 1907 to work in coal mining at Westport, before switching careers and becoming a Canterbury farmer in partnership with other Irish relatives who emigrated after him.