Mary Bumby

In 1838, her brother Reverend John Hewgill Bumby (1808–1840) was appointed as superintendent missionary for the Māngungu Mission in New Zealand.

[1] They travelled from England via Hobart[2] and it was there that Mary acquired two honeybee skep hives.

The book “Mary Bumby’s Bees,1839-1841, Myth Fact Mystery” tells the detailed story.

[5] After her brother drowned in the Firth of Thames on 24 June 1840,[6] she accepted the proposal of Reverend Gideon Smales and married him in December 1840.

In 1856, after Gideon refused to relocate to a mission in Australia, they moved to East Tāmaki, where they established a successful farming enterprise, naming it Hampton Park.