Henry Burling (5 October 1807 – 17 September 1911) was an English-born New Zealand centenarian who was a mail carrier and farmer. He and his family claimed that he was born on 1 May 1801, making him 110 years of age at death, but subsequent research has debunked this.

Biography

He was born in Stratford, Essex (now East London), England, United Kingdom on 5 October 1807 to Thomas Burling, a soap maker, and Joanna Pike. He

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

to New Zealand on the ship called ''London'' with his wife Mary Worsley (whom he had married on 27 January 1839 in Marylebone, Middlesex), arriving on 1 May 1842; one son, Charles, died aged 3 on the journey. He had four children at the time he married his wife and they would have another four. She died in 1864. Burling worked as a silk and satin printer and gardener and purchased land, before joining the mail service, where he carried mail by foot between Wellington and Wanganui, unarmed, during the New Zealand Wars, usually in what was a physical strenuous activity, where he swam rivers with the mail with the clothes attached to his back. As a result, he earned the trust of

Te Rangihaeata Te Rangihaeata ( 1780s – 18 November 1855), was a Ngāti Toa chief, nephew of Te Rauparaha. He had a leading part in the Wairau Affray and the Hutt Valley Campaign. Early life A member of the Ngāti Toa, he was born at Kawhia around 1780. Hi ...

and other

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

in the area. Burling died at his home of

Waikanae Waikanae (, ) is a town on the Kapiti Coast, 60 kilometres north of the Wellington CBD. The name is a Māori word meaning "waters" (''wai'') "of the grey mullet". The town lies between Paraparaumu, eight kilometres to the southwest, and Ōtak ...

, after 5 weeks of suffering from bronchitis and a paralytic stroke, survived by three of his thirteen children: Arthur (73), with whom he was living, Henry (86) and Sarah Goodin (69). At the time of his death Burling had over 600 living descendants. At the time he was incorrectly said to have been a supercentenarian, allegedly having lived to 110, although the term was probably not coined then, in his later years he was mentally still alert and strong, but suffering bad eyesight from an earlier accident.

References

1807 births 1911 deaths 20th-century New Zealand people British emigrants to New Zealand Men centenarians New Zealand centenarians 19th-century New Zealand farmers {{NewZealand-bio-stub