Arthur Ellis and Agnes Mellor, Wedding Day

25 December, 1894

Kind permission of Owaka Museum

Unpublished

Arthur Ellis arrived in New Zealand in 1874 at the age of five, a survivor of the ship-wreck of the Surat off the Catlins coast. In 1877 a textile manufacturing business was established by the family in Kaikorai Valley, which was later to become Arthur Ellis and Co. On 25 December 1894 Ellis married Agnes, Mellor’s sister. Arthur and Agnes had two daughters and four sons, who were the prime recipients of the letters and cartoons that make up Uncle Joe’s Nonsense. One of Arthur and Agnes’ grandsons, Murray Ellis, was part of Sir Edmund Hillary’s New Zealand team of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1957-58.