Rountree Street in the suburb of Upper Riccarton, Christchurch

Rountree Street – Named after Albert William Rountree (1876?-1931). Rountree is listed as a farmer of 47 Ilam Road in street directories of 1930. This was on the corner of Carleton Road (later Kirkwood Avenue) and Ilam Road, where Rountree Street was later formed. First appears in street directories in 1960.A small amount of information from the library website. You would think that it would have been easy to find information about this man but it wasn’t. Papers Past had very little information. I managed to find a bit of information on Ancestry website but this wasn’t easy as there was at least three or four people with the same name. Found information from grave – Albert William Rountree died 16/09/1931 aged 55 also Elizabeth his wife died 06/02/1950 and they are buried at St Peters in Upper Riccarton. Several family trees has his DOB as 30/03/1873 but I can’t guarantee that they have the correct Albert Rountree. The various family trees has his wife as a Elizabeth Coleman born in Ireland in 1892 but this doesn’t feel right. They haven’t backed it up with proof. They possibly had a son also called Albert but then it looked the family in North Canterbury also had a son with the same name. I do have both Albert and Elizabeth living at 47 Ilam Rd in 1928 and then I have Elizabeth at this address in 1935 and 1938. She is described as a widow. Elizabeth died in 1950 and this would fit in with the subdivision as most houses were built in the 1950s and 1960s with a couple being built in the 1990s. Mostly brick houses here and a few family homes but suspect that many are rented out to students. The Ilam Rd end has a dairy and a fish & chip shop and there is parallel car parking this end of the street. The road is narrowed in several places to slow down the traffic but when I walked the street yesterday this wasn’t working. None of the houses stood out for me and they were very ordinary.