Holland-Hayward Family

Florence Emma Smith, nee Hayward

(Gertrude's younger sister)

This is the only certain photo of Florence, although she is probably one of the three unnamed 'Hayward sisters' in a photo of three of them that Gertrude had. Other family photos and papers were lost in a fire in Florence's son's home many decades ago. The child is one of the older two of her three granddaughters, Jean Agatha or Sylvia May, as Florence died before the birth of the third granddaughter.

Florence was born in Peasenhall in about 1864, and was the fourth daughter (and child) of Samuel and Naomi Hayward. The 1881 Census finds "Florence E. Hayward", as a 17-year-old "pupil school teacher" living with her widower father in Peasenhall. This indicates that she was training to become a school teacher. 

In 1890 (it is presently believed) Gertrude's husband worked his passage to England on a steamship - probably his only way of ever getting to see his family again, and also the closest Gertrude would ever get to 'seeing' her family again. In the diary of his trip is found the address: "Miss Florence Hayward, Hackney Road, Peasenhall, Suffolk." 

Florence married Wesley Smith, a grocer, also of Peasenhall, at the Parish church in the Parish of St. Paul's, Kingston Hall, Surrey, England, on 10 May 1892. Both were then aged 28 years. At the time, Florence lived at Willoughby Road, while Wesley lived at Hawkes Road. His father was James Smith, a wheelwright who by then was deceased. Florence's father, Samuel Hayward, was described as a carpenter. Their witnesses were Frederick Hayward and Agatha Hayward - Florence's sisters.

The couple had one child, a son named Frederick Smith. He in turn married Dorothy Jessup on 26 December 1925 at Belton, Suffolk, England. The couple had four children, Raymond, Jean Agatha, Sylvia May and Shirley Eileen, and it was Shirley who managed to trace the New Zealand connection and thereby inspire the creation of this website.

Florence had worked as a governess and her son recalled that when they lived in London when he was a small boy, she taught French. She when blind at some stage, and this was recorded on her entry in the 1901 Census. She died in the early 1930s.

Frederick and Dorothy Smith, and their oldest child, Jean Agatha Smith, now of Perth, Western Australia.