Wuhoo Timaru - Find Free Fun! - From Whitcoulls Wealth to the Free Ground: The Story of Flora May Mullins

By Roselyn Fauth

I’m so grateful to everyone who has supported the new monument for those who rest in Free Ground and unmarked graves. A few people have sent in information about people who rest there, and the story of Flora Mullin is really interesting... How did she come to rest in an unmarked grave? The answer led me from privilege to poverty, from printing presses to pauper’s ground — and from the marble glow of Timaru’s Basilica to a bare patch of earth with no name.

Bascilica Windows Timaru 6

The six lower windows in the nave of this church were donated by the late Michael Mullin as a memorial to himself and his wife Mary Mullin. Pray for them. Michael Mullin was a land agent, a farmer and a hotelier. The six lower windows, made by James Watson & Son, Youghhal, Ireland c. 1939, in the nave of Sacred Heart Basilica, Timaru were donated by the late Michael Mullin as a memorial to himself and his wife Mary Mullin. Michael Mullin and his first wife Mary Sullivan are buried at the Timaru Cemetery and his second wife Flora in the free ground. There are 20 more stained glass windows that were donated. https://scant.scgenealogy.nz/sacred_heart.htm

If her husband could afford to give these windows, how did Flora end up not being able to afford her own grave?

Well, to work that out I had to do a bit of a history hunt, and make a timeline. So here is my deep dive into a woman who is listed in row 0, the pauper grave section — also known as Free Ground — at the Timaru Cemetery. An area for people who needed the assistance of the government to inter them to the ground, with the deal that they couldn’t erect a headstone.

It started with a comment on one of my Facebook posts. Someone kindly shared information about Flora as an example of a person who rests there. There was a fantastic link to research done by genealogists on the history of stained glass windows and the Roman Catholic Basilica on Craigie Avenue in Timaru.

But that wasn’t Flora’s world....

The Clue in the Glass

Inside the Sacred Heart Basilica in Timaru, six lower stained glass windows glow in the nave, donated by Michael Mullin as a memorial to himself and his first wife, Mary Mullin.

Made by James Watson & Son of Youghal, Ireland, around 1939, they depict saints like St Michael, St Therese, and St Vincent de Paul. The donation reflected Michael’s deep Catholic faith and his success in life.

Michael Mullin was a land agent, farmer, and hotelier — best known as proprietor of the Dominion Hotel on Stafford Street, which overlooked Caroline Bay. He and his first wife, Mary Sullivan, were both pillars of the Catholic community. Their names remain etched in brass inside the city’s grandest church.

Yet his second wife, Flora, lies in the Free Ground of the Timaru Cemetery — a public burial area for those who could not afford a private plot or headstone.

If her husband could afford to gift magnificent stained glass windows, how did she end up with no stone at all?

From Printing Presses to Paupers’ Ground

To understand that, I had to trace Flora’s story back to its beginning.

She was born Flora May Tombs in Christchurch in 1876, the daughter of George Tombs (1836–1904) and Rosa Ann Tombs (née Hedgman, 1845–1909).

Her father was a pioneering printer and publisher, co-founder of Whitcombe & Tombs, the company that later became Whitcoulls, one of New Zealand’s most iconic booksellers and stationers. Her mother, Rosa Ann, was born in London and emigrated to Canterbury as a young woman, marrying George in Lyttelton in 1861 and raising eleven children in Christchurch.

Together they built a prosperous, education-focused household shaped by literature, art, and enterprise — a world of words and opportunity that stood in poignant contrast to Flora’s final resting place in the Free Ground at Timaru Cemetery.

Flora was one of those eleven children — a lively and talented Christchurch family that included Harry Hugo Tombs, founder of Art in New Zealand and Music in New Zealand, and others who helped shape the cultural landscape of the young colony.

Yet, as was common then, the family’s business legacy and wealth passed mostly to the sons. The women, though educated and capable, rarely inherited or controlled the means to secure their own futures.

Two Marriages, Two Worlds

Flora first married Neville Innes Speechly in 1901, son of early settler Edward Speechly of Geraldine. Neville died in 1916, aged just 37, and is buried in the Timaru Cemetery under a headstone Flora arranged. They appear to have had no children.

Neville Innes Speechly grave Timaru Cemetery

Two years later, in 1918, she married again — this time to Michael Mullin, a widower more than twenty years her senior. He had been a successful businessman, owning hotels and farmland, and was deeply involved in the Catholic Church.

When Michael died in January 1936, aged 83, his estate was valued at around £35,000 (equivalent to several million dollars today). His will provided £200, an annuity of £250 during widowhood, and the use of his home and furniture to Flora. But the remainder — the vast bulk of his fortune — was left to his nieces, nephews, and the Catholic Church.

Flora later took the estate to the Court of Appeal, seeking further provision. She won, but even with that judgment, her financial stability seemed to erode over time.

By the time she died in 1957, aged 81, there was little left.

Resting in the Free Ground

When I looked her up in the Timaru Cemetery records, her name appeared in Row 0 — the Free Ground.

This was where those without means were buried — the assisted section for people whose interment was paid for by the government, on the understanding that no headstone could be placed.

It’s easy to walk past this area without realising how many stories lie beneath the grass. Stillborn babies, widows, workers, travellers — people who shaped the same town as those in the grand family plots, but were laid to rest without a marker.

Flora rests among them. No marble, no monument — just her name written once in the ledger and now, rediscovered, in our remembrance.

Free Ground Area at Timaru Cememtery 2025

Between Light and Earth

It’s hard not to think of the contrast.
Inside the Basilica, the stained glass windows still glow with colour, the light filtering across the pews where Michael once prayed. Those windows honour another woman — Mary Mullin, his first wife — while Flora lies across town in unmarked ground.

Two women linked by one man.
One immortalised in stained glass.
The other remembered in silence.

Remembering Flora

I had a hunt and couldn’t find any evidence that Flora had children. If that was the case, perhaps this is why her final resting place went unmarked — she may have simply left no direct descendants to remember her, no one to commission a headstone or tell her story.

It’s a quiet kind of forgetting that happened to many women of her time. They lived good, ordinary lives, often supporting others, yet when their stories stopped being told, their names faded from view.

Flora’s story isn’t one of tragedy — it’s a reflection of how fortunes shift, and how easily the record of a woman’s life can slip between the lines of history.

She began her life in privilege, lived with grace through change, and now rests among the forgotten.
And yet — she’s not forgotten anymore.

Her story has surfaced again — from a Facebook comment, to a thread of research, to a quiet walk through the cemetery with her name in mind. Perhaps that’s her real memorial: a moment of recognition, a quiet remembering, and the light that still touches her story when someone takes the time to look.