Henry Burling


Henry Burling was a New Zealand mail carrier and farmer. He was born in Stratford, Essex, England on 1 May 1801 to Thomas Burling, a soap maker, and Joanna Pike. He emigrated to New Zealand on the "London" with his wife Mary Worsley,, arriving on 1 May, 1842; one son Charle's died 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 gardner 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 and other Maori in the area.
Burling died at his home of Waikanae, after 5 weeks of suffering from bronchitis and paralytic stroke, survived by three of his thirteen children: Arthur, with whom he was living, Henry, and Sarah Goodin. At the time of his death, he had over 600 living descendants. He was a supercentenarian, having lived to 110, although the term was probably not coined then, he was mentally alert and strong, but was suffering bad eyesight from an earlier accident