Keith Street in Wigram – Named after Ian Herbert Neill Keith (1898- 1978).Keith was a student from Napier. He graduated from the Canterbury Flying School on 12 April 1918. In the Wigram Aerodrome subdivision by Ngāi Tahu Property Ltd where the street names are either of aircraft or taken from the list of the first 100 students at the Flight School established by Sir Henry Wigram in 1917. Named in 2012 – Great Britain, Royal Aero Club Aviators’ Certificates, 1910‐1950 as found on www.ancestry.com The Canterbury (NZ) Aviation Co. Ltd: the first one hundred pilots Wigram Skies.
A reasonable amount of information from the library website and the information on new and old library information is exactly the same. The Royal Aero Club certificate said that he qualified in a Caudron Biplane on 12th April 1918. The certificate said that his occupation was student but other records give his occupation as clerk. A few articles on Papers Past and all mention him as being a flying instructor in New Plymouth. I was a little bit surprised that there wasn’t more information as he was married in 1933 but divorced in 1951. It was usual for divorces to be in newspapers those days. The online cenotaph only mentions his World War One service but ancestry and Papers Past has him as a Flight Lieutenant in World War Two. I found both 1978 and 1977 for his year of death. Some of the family trees have 1978 and others have 1977. The cemetery records have his year of death as 1977 and he is buried with his parents. I couldn’t read the year of his death on the photo of his gravestone. When I eventually get to New Plymouth for family tree research I will be visiting this cemetery as my mysterious grandmother is buried in the same cemetery.
The houses on this street were all built in 2014 and 2015 and no photos as none of them stood out for me. Even the gardens were boring with just lawns and not much else.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 