Tracing Edward Betts Hopper (1799-1840) - emigrated to Ne

[willistree]

I am researching my distant cousin, Edward Betts Hopper (www.thewillistree.info/my-family/getperson.php?personID=I10878&tree=wtree1) (born into a Quaker family in Dover in 1799) who in 1839 was a on the board of Directors of the New Zealand Company - which was set up to help colonise the 'new country' and transport tradesmen and farmers from the UK to Wellington to help build new communities.

Although there is a wealth of archive material from around 1839 onwards (newspaper articles and advertisements from both London and Wellington) I have been unable to find anything from his birth onwards. I have been in touch with the National Library of New Zealand who have provided me with a long list of links to NZ archive websites.

The only links to life in England I have been able to find are a number of sketches by Edward of a rather impressive house on Hampstead Heath, dated 1839, and described as his 'family home'. I've been in touch with http://www.hampsteadheath.net whose administrator has put out feelers with the local history societies to see if any links can be found between Edward and the Heath (see http://www.hampsteadheath.net/the-hopper-house-riddle.html)

I've search The Times newspaper but found nothing.

SO, if anyone can suggest places to look, or pass on information you may have already found, I would be very grateful.

[*Sandra*]

You may or may not have this piece.

Edward Betts Hopper (Died 1940)of Dover was first associated with Dr G S Evans in 1832. He was a moving spirit in the South Australia Company and in 1837 E G Wakefield introduced him as the projector of that scheme. He was one of the promoters of the New Zealand Company and was a member of The Church of England Society, of the committee of the first colony and of the provisional committee formed in Wellington after the landing. He arrived in the Oriental (Jan 1840) and entered into partnership with H W Petre and F A Molesworth in a mercantile firm at the Hutt, which established a flour mill and a saw mill and had a mill wright and engineering shop at work in June. Hopper had considerable landed interests in the province and was director of the bank. He was drowned in the Hutt River on 17 September 1840  while working timber for the mill.

Sandra