hello diane,

Isabella's parents were William HOWITT (1840-1920, Maori War Veteran) & Isabella MacKAY (1840-1911 of Inverness)
they had 10 children, 3 in Okato & 7 in Patea

Thank you ngairedith. My grandparents took me to Patea when I was a child. I did not know Isabella's surname was Mackay. Thank you again. I am now looking for her parents. The Howitts from the UK. Are you a relative of mine?

hello diane,
no I am not related to this family but have a journal on this site for
William HOWITT + Isabella MacKAY - Patea

Isabella Alphina Howitt married Charles Robert George 'Bob' Charteris on 11 August 1897 and they had at least 3 children. Isabella Alphina died 29 March 1917 aged 49 & is buried Plot 4, Block 14 Patea General Presbyterian

Dear Ngairedith, I thank you, I appreciated the information you have shared with me. Would you by any chance have any information on Mary (nee Botham) Howitt the author of the spider and the fly. I cannot fit in where her and her husband fit in the family line.I remember my grandmother telling me about my grandad Gordon Howitt Charteris' uncle: Arthur Howitt. The gentleman that found the bodies of Burke and Wills in Australia last century. Thanking you kindly. Diane Jordan (nee Charteris).

Mary Howitt nee Botham (12 March 1799 ? 30 January 1888) was an English poet, and author of the famous poem The Spider and the Fly.

She was born Mary Botham at Coleford, in Gloucestershire, the temporary residence of her parents, while her father, Samuel Botham, a prosperous Quaker of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, was looking after some mining property. Samuel had married his wife Ann in South Wales in 1796 when he was 38 and she was 32. They had four children Anna, Mary, Emma and Charles.
Their Queen Anne house is now known as Howitt Place.

On 16 April 1821 she was married to William Howitt, and began a career of joint authorship with her husband. They lived initially in Heanor in Derbyshire where William was a pharmacist. It was not until 1823, when they were living in Nottingham, that William decided to give up his business with his brother Richard Howitt and concentrate with Mary on writing.

Their literary productions at first consisted chiefly of poetical and other contributions to annuals and periodicals

William and Mary mixed with many of the important literary figures of the day including Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

In 1837 they went on a tour of the north and stayed with William and Dorothy Wordsworth. Their work was well regarded, as can be seen from the minister George Byng's present in 1839 from Queen Victoria. She gave him a copy of Mary's book Hymns and Fireside Verses.
In the same year, her brother-in-law Godfrey Howitt set out with his wife and her family to emigrate to Australia, arriving at Port Phillip in April 1840.

The life of Mary Howitt was completely bound up with that of her husband; she was separated only from him during the period of his Australian journey (1851-1854).

On removing to Esher in 1837 she commenced writing her well-known tales for children, a long series of books which met with signal success. They moved to London in 1843, and following a second move in 1844 they counted Tennyson amongst their neighbours

Mary Botham was educated at home, and read widely; she commenced writing verses at a very early age. Together with her husband she wrote over 180 books

In 1851, her husband and her two sons travelled to Australia in the hope of finding their fortune, but they returned a number of years later; William wrote a number of books describing the flora and fauna of Australia.

Her son, Alfred William Howitt (1830-1908), was to be renowned as an Australian explorer, anthropologist and naturalist and the discoverer of the remains of the explorers Burke and Wills, which he brought to Melbourne for burial.

Her children included:
* Alfred William Howitt, stayed in Australia and became a prominent traveller and geologist
* Herbert Charlton Howitt, (1838-1863) who was drowned while engineering a road in New Zealand
* Anna Mary Howitt, wife of Alfred Alaric Watts, the biographer of her father, and author of An Art-Student in Munich, who died on a visit to her mother in Tirol in 1884
* Margaret Howitt, the writer of the Life of Fredrika Bremer and of the memoir of her own mother

Mary Howitt was away from her residence in Merano/Meran in Tyrol, northern Italy, spending the winter in Rome when she died of bronchitis on 30 January 1888

The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt, 1829
The story tells of a cunning Spider who ensnares a naive Fly through the use of seduction and flattery. The poem is a cautionary tale against those who use flattery and charm as a front for potential evil

?Will you walk into my parlour?? said the Spider to the Fly,
'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I've a many curious things to shew when you are there.?

?Oh no, no,? said the little Fly, ?to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair
-can ne'er come down again.?

Among the works written, independently of her husband, were:
1. Sketches of Natural History (1834)
2. Wood Leighton, or a Year in the Country (1836)
3. Birds and Flowers and other Country Things (1838)
4. Hymns and Fireside Verses (1839)
5. Hope on, Hope ever, a Tale (1840)
6. Strive and Thrive (1840)
7. Sowing and Reaping, or What will come of it (1841)
8. Work and Wages, or Life in Service (1842)
9. Which is the Wiser? or People Abroad (1842)
10. Little Coin, Much Care (1842)
11. No Sense like Common Sense (1843)
12. Love and Money (1843)
13. My Uncle the Clockmaker (1844)
14. The Two Apprentices (1844)
15. My own Story, or the Autobiography of a Child (1845)
16. Fireside Verses (1845)
17. Ballads and other Poems (1847)
18. The Children's Year (1847)
19. The Childhood of Mary Leeson (1848)
20. Our Cousins in Ohio (1849)
21. The Heir of Wast-Waylan (1851)
22. The Dial of Love (1853)
23. Birds and Flowers and other Country Things (1855)
24. The Picture Book for the Young (1855)
25. M. Howitt's Illustrated Library for the Young (1856; two series)
26. Lillieslea, or Lost and Found (1861)
27. Little Arthur's Letters to his Sister Mary (1861)
28. The Poet's Children (1863)
29. The Story of Little Cristal (1863)
30. Mr. Rudd's Grandchildren (1864)
31. Tales in Prose for Young People (1864)
32. M. Howitt's Sketches of Natural History (1864)
33. Tales in Verse for Young People (1865)
34. Our Four-footed Friends (1867)
35. John Oriel's Start in Life (1868)
36. Pictures from Nature (1869)
37. Vignettes of American History (1869)
38. A Pleasant Life (1871)
39. Birds and their Nests (1872)
40. Natural History Stories (1875)
41. Tales for all Seasons (1881)
42. Tales of English Life, including Middleton and the Middletons (1881)[1]


photo of William & Mary Howitt
photo of a younger Mary Howitt