Discover Waikumete Cemetery: 1918 Influenza Epidemic

The influenza pandemic of 1918 took the lives of over 20 million people world wide. This was more than had perished in the Great War. A war that killed 16,500 New Zealanders in four years, when in just a few short weeks influenza claimed the lives of 8,573 at a time that the country’s population was a little over a million. 2,160 of these deaths were Maori who were 7 times more likely to succumb to the virus than Europeans. At the height of New Zealand’s epidemic 1/3 – 1/2 of the population suffered from what was referred to as the Spanish flu or ‘the great flu’. It was indeed the greatest natural disaster to have ever effected the country.

While there are public memorials to those who lost their lives during WW1 in most New Zealand towns, public memorials to victims of New Zealand’s influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 are scarce. There is little to remind us that as New Zealand soldiers were invalided home from overseas service, sick and wounded by the horrors of war, they returned to be confronted by the deadly scourge sweeping the globe now invading the refuge of their own communities and homes in which essential supplies were short due to shipping being halted, public life was at a standstill with shops, theatres, banks and schools closed, and friends and family were sick, dying or had been lost to this stealthy enemy.

The Enemy In Our Homes.Influenza and Its Doings.
Observer, Volume XXXIX, Issue 13, 30 November 1918

Although this potent strain of influenza attacked people of all ages, healthy men between 20 and 40 years of age were more likely to succumb to it. Symptoms came on suddenly were severe and varied, they could include a headache, coughing, back pain, muscle and joint pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea which were always accompanied by a fever. Pneumonia would set in for some almost as quickly as the flu symptoms began and for others the pneumonia would arrive as they were recovering. It was a common complication of the viral respiratory tract infection with cyanosis occurring when oxygen was restricted to cells in the body due to inflammation in the lungs damaging the lung membranes which filled the air spaces with blood and fluid. This turned the skin a dusky purple, and once a person began to change colour it was inevitable that they would expire within hours or days asphyxiating in their own body fluids. This discolouration could appear quite dark gaining the disease the descriptive label ‘the black death’.

The great flu erupted all over Auckland at the end of October 1918 and spread throughout the country after the arrival of the mail steamer The Niagara which had 130 cases of influenza on board during its journey from Vancouver with 254 crew and 313 passengers including New Zealand’s Prime Minister William Massey and his deputy Sir Joseph Ward. 100 of the crew members were confined to bed and there were 12 serious cases in the ships hospital. The Niagara entered Auckland harbour on Saturday 12^th November the bosun’s mate Thomas Albert Rutherford had died of pneumonia the night before. Auckland Health Board records indicate that he was buried at sea however cemetery records show that he is interred in Waikumete Cemetery. Newspapers reported that the influenza on board the Niagara was ordinary and not a pure virulent type, the ship was not quarantined but fumigated and those who had been sick kept on board. The more serious cases were isolated in Auckland hospital where 2 more crew members and a voluntary nurse who had cared for patients on board the ship later died. The Niagara was blamed for bringing influenza to Auckland however there were cases well before the ships arrival and there were medical men of the opinion that the virus could well have arrived by any other ship without being noticed. Geoffrey Rice's research concludes that if the Niagara had been carrying a new strain of influenza that the county’s mortality rate should have peaked much earlier than it did, and available evidence does suggest that the epidemic on the Naiagara was the last of the mild 1st wave of the pandemic and not an explosion of the deadly second wave that was experienced. This virulent wave however may have been a mutation of the mild wave already prevalent throughout New Zealand during September.

Auckland Weekly News 12 December 1918

Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries,

AWNS-19181212-42-3

Auckland hospital quickly became overcrowded and satellite hospitals were established to treat influenza patients at Parnell’s Killbriyde the former residence of Sir John Logan Campbell, Vernon St Catholic Girls School in Ponsonby, and Seddon Memorial Technical College in Wellesley St. St Josephs School in Grey Lynn was set up as a convalescent hospital and there were smaller temporary hospitals in halls and schools throughout the district. A considerable proportion of Medical staff were serving overseas in the war and much of the medical care was undertaken by volunteers.

Meyers Kindergarten was used as a hostel for children whose parents were laid up with influenza and then as children became ill it became a temporary children’s hospital with the YWCA taking in healthy children of stricken parents. The Ellerslie race course stands were also used as a temporary children’s convalescent hospital.

Aucklanders flocked to inhalation chambers around the city provided for the public to breathe in Zinc sulphate vapours in an attempt to prevent the virus from taking hold. This may have helped to quell public panic yet also to spread the virus.

Private vehicles were sought to assist ambulances, and commercial vans repurposed to collect bodies from homes and deliver them to local undertakers. The public morgue was unable to cope and Victoria park was set up as a temporary open air morgue. Rumours were rife with stories told of bodies piled up in large heaps, they were actually wrapped in sheets or canvas bags and laid along the ground in orderly rows.

The epidemic was responsible for creating orphans throughout the country and for changing the structure of families. Although of the 6,415 European children who lost parents only 135 children lost both of their parents and family life as they knew it, thousands of grieving families with one surviving parent faced increased hardship in caring for dependants with reduced incomes as they moved on with their lives.

Suicide is a complex issue frequently linked to mental health. Typically it is a result of several factors such as deprivation, sexual identity issues, or stressful life events. During our research we discovered that newspapers reported at least 2 suicides in Auckland of individuals whose lives had been effected by influenza during the 1918 – 1919 epidemic.

Pregnant woman were susceptible to the virus and it was not uncommon for them to experience miscarriage. Studies have concluded that the impact of influenza for those children who were born to mothers who had contracted influenza while pregnant was significant and effected them for their entire lives. The babies were born smaller meaning that all organs including the brain were effected. As they grew up they didn’t fare as well with their education or employment and their health was effected right into old age.

Auckland suffered the most deaths in the country losing 1,128 citizens, with Maori suffering severely. An order had been issued on the 12th November 1918 by Acting Chief Health Officer Dr Frengley for the immediate burial of influenza victims. Maori were forbidden the traditional burial practice of tangi to prevent the spread of influenza although European funerals were still permitted. Something which strained race relations between Maori and Pakeha.

Waikumete Cemetery accommodated the majority of Auckland’s epidemic interments with a team of a surveyor and 25 men which included volunteers from the Watersiders Union digging graves almost continuously throughout the third week of November, and 2 special trains put on by the Railways department to transport the deceased and mourners. Overworked clergymen of various denominations attended in relays and were often blamed for mix ups of caskets arriving without identity papers which was not their mistake yet complicated their task and upset mourners.
The published number of 1918 influenza epidemic victims interred in Waikumete Cemetery seems to differ slightly depending on the source. The New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17025, 5 December 1918 reports burials for November alone totaling 498 with the highest number of 68 burials occurring on November the 15th. Fatalities began to wane toward the end of the month with only 38 bodies interred in the last week of November. The average number of interments per day for the month was 16.6.

A plan of the cemetery was kept at the town hall for some months following Auckland’s epidemic to assist relatives who had been ill at the time of the burial of their loved ones to locate their graves in various areas of the cemetery. Some were interred in the ‘Potters Field’ area of Anglican Division F where individuals whose families were unable to afford burial costs, were institutionalised or unidentified at the time of burial were interred by the government in unmarked common graves, many of which contain several unrelated individuals in each. The burial records do not indicate one mass grave for all influenza victims as is widely believed.

It is difficult to identify all of those who succumbed to influenza and it’s complications during the 1918 epidemic who are interred here in Waikumete Cemetery due to the inconstancy of information on burial records. We have established a list of Waikumete Cemetery influenza death interments using burial records in conjunction with Auckland Hospital death registers and Auckland Health Board records. And are photographing the final resting places of those who lost their lives in this disaster. By providing images of the known graves of these individuals and discovering some of their stories we will remember them. This project is a high priority for us now that it is approaching one hundred years since this great tragedy.