Brooker Avenue in the suburb of Burwood, Christchurch

Brooker Ave in Burwood- Named after the Brooker family, early settlers in New Brighton. There is a bronze plaque set on a large rock at the entrance to the Brooker Reserve in Brooker Avenue commemorating the family. Stephen Brooker (1819- 1899) supposedly gave New Brighton its name. He was a hansom cabdriver in Christchurch. First appears in street directories in 1993A reasonable amount of information from the library website. I searched Papers Past and ancestry website plus other websites have information about Stephen and Rebecca Brooker. Stephen was born 25th September 1817 at Frant in the Wealden district of East Sussex and died in Christchurch 14th March 1899. Both Stephen and Rebecca are buried at the Addington Cemetery which surprised me and I actually found their grave ages ago after walking the 360 trail. I spotted the plaque to them on Brooker Ave when walking the 360 trail. Stephen married Rebecca Jenner on 13th December 1844 in Auckland and soon afterwards moved to South Australia. Returned to New Zealand in 1851 on the ship Supply. He was a road labourer, guided settlers to their holdings in Christchurch, prospected in the Malvern Hills and was a cabman who had a stand in front of Godley Statue in the Square. Stephen originally came to New Zealand in 1840 on the ship Louisa Campbell but I couldn’t find him on the passenger list. It is possible that he came on that ship from Australia and shipping records don’t always record these passengers. I also couldn’t find a marriage record for Stephen and Rebecca. A few family trees on the ancestry website had two children born to them before they were married. I found reports of bankruptcy for Stephen in 1870 but by 1884 he was working as a cab driver. In 1884 he was granted a license to prospect for minerals other than gold in the Malvern district. Granted same type of license in 1886 for the Hororata and Kowai districts. Papers Past had several articles about a ship called the Osprey and Stephen was a witness to this ship being in New Zealand waters in the 1840s and it related to something called he Tichborne Case. There was also mention of Stephen in 1855 in relationship to him finding the body of the Rev Joseph Twigger. In the 1880s Stephen purchased land in the Hurunui area. The story about Stephen naming New Brighton is that he put a stake in the ground saying it is New Brighton as he was from Brighton in England. A couple of articles say that Stephen was born at Tunbridge Wells but I suspect that there is confusion here. Stephen’s wife Rebecca was born near a place called Tonbridge in Kent. None of the family trees that I found had back up proof or sources for most of their information. This street is in the red zone and there are no longer any houses. It is bordered on one side by Donnell Sports Park. The plaque to them is still there and on Sunday a group were planting native plants in the area. There is also a disc golf course in the area and that was busy on Sunday. Lots of family groups in the park and in the playground. The toilet block at the playground is very colourful. Looking at old google maps it looks like a pleasant street but probably got very busy on sports days.