Charles William (Billy) Mellsop - a charitable heart
Billy Mellsop was one of twin boys born to his parents Charles and Mary at Mr Tom Jolly's home in Hamilton - the same place where they had married. Sadly his brother, James William, lived only three days.
When Billy was 12 months old the family moved to Thames and then Coromandel where his Dad went gold mining. Charles Jnr (Billy) went to school in Coromandel, leaving at age 12 to join the Coromandel Road Board. He spent the first decades of his adult life as a roaming labourer, moving on to Auckland, then gum digging at Pahi, near Paparoa in Northland for three years and then by boat to Hukatere where he continued gum digging while living with old family friends the Liddells near Matakohe.
He was 36 when he gave up gum digging and "settled down" to become a farmer and find a wife.
Billy settled in Blockhouse Bay (then called Avondale South) after time spent in Avondale and Mt Albert. He met and courted Emily Susan McCracken. The couple married in 1908 at her mother's house in Mt Eden and subsequently had five children.
The Blockhouse Bay property had some extra land with it and during the Depression years the family was supported by extra food grown in their mini farmlet. With his growing family Billy developed a team of workers running Herald newspaper deliveries in west Auckland which covered many miles.
When Billy was 12 months old the family moved to Thames and then Coromandel where his Dad went gold mining. Charles Jnr (Billy) went to school in Coromandel, leaving at age 12 to join the Coromandel Road Board. He spent the first decades of his adult life as a roaming labourer, moving on to Auckland, then gum digging at Pahi, near Paparoa in Northland for three years and then by boat to Hukatere where he continued gum digging while living with old family friends the Liddells near Matakohe.
He was 36 when he gave up gum digging and "settled down" to become a farmer and find a wife.
Billy settled in Blockhouse Bay (then called Avondale South) after time spent in Avondale and Mt Albert. He met and courted Emily Susan McCracken. The couple married in 1908 at her mother's house in Mt Eden and subsequently had five children.
The Blockhouse Bay property had some extra land with it and during the Depression years the family was supported by extra food grown in their mini farmlet. With his growing family Billy developed a team of workers running Herald newspaper deliveries in west Auckland which covered many miles.
Billy and Susan were committed supporters of the Green Bay Mission, (now Blockhouse Bay Baptist) and the family offered charitable support and ministry to a number of needy children as well as Irish immigrants.
Billy's home was one of the few with a telephone installed in the early years and according to Billy's niece June Mellsop "many and varied were the errands of mercy" run by Billy and Susan via telephone messages for people in the neighbourhood. Billy and Emily had five children, Hayden William Stuart, Sarah Ellen, Mary Ellen, Ian Hamilton, and the youngest was Harold (Jim) born in November 1920. Their eldest son Hayden became a missionary (was a missionary in China during the Japanese occupation in WWII) and died in Auckland in 1987. Billy's dates: Born 18 Oct 1871 in Hamilton. Died 5 June, 1967, Blockhouse Bay. |