by Alfred Ludlam to Sir David in a lengthy private letter dated 8 March 1855. Ludlam was devoted to his wife. Cultured and well read but the possessor of an irreverent sense of humour, Fanny could speak several languages and was an amateur artist and musician of above-average competence. She also liked to garden on a serious scale, providing her husband with vital help in the completion of his various horticultural projects at Newry. Although she was a dozen or so years Ludlam's junior she nonetheless predeceased him, succumbing to a painful "stoppage of the bowel" on 5 March 1877. She and Ludlam happened to be staying in London, at 2 Clifton Terrace, Maida Vale, when she died, and her death notice was duly published in the New Zealand press and The Sydney Morning Herald of 4 May 1877. Final illness, death and burial Following the loss of Fanny, a despondent Ludlam returned to New Zealand. He had developed a chronic kidney ailment, and sensing that his days were now numbered, devoted himself to helping needy people and supporting good causes. Ludlam died at a house in Hobart Street, Wellington, on 8 November 1877 and was buried four days later in Bolton Street Cemetery. His death certificate (registration number 1877/2787) ascribed the cause of his demise to "Bright's disease" (an old-fashioned term for nephritis) and "acute peritonitis". Ludlam was aged 67 when he died. The final phase of his life had been devoted to charitable works, and his death was sincerely mourned by a wide circle of friends, acquaintances and beneficiaries. He was not survived by any children and his grave was destroyed during the 1960s by the construction of the Wellington Urban Motorway. His gravestone was relocated and can be found near the Bolton Street Chapel. An official photograph of him is preserved, however, in the archives of the library of the New Zealand Parliament in Wellington. Ludlam Street in the Wellington suburb of Seatoun and Ludlam Crescent at Lower Hutt perpetuate his name. References Once Upon a Village: A History of Lower Hutt, 1819–1965 by David P. Millar (pages 227–228) (1972, NZUP/LHCC) . The Ancestral Searcher, Volume 19, Number 2 (Canberra, Australia, June 1996 issue), page 73. A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, edited by C.H. Scholefield (Wellington, 1940), pages 505–506, under Ludlam, Alfred. Australian Dictionary of Artists Online (2007), under Gibbes, Fanny. Dictionary of Australian Biography, Volume