McWha, Dupree William (Pree)

Private

No. 6/3394, Canterbury Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF)

Killed in action on Thursday 18 April 1918 (aged 25)

Buried:

Sucrerie Military Cemetery, France (Grave IV. E. 3)  

Commemorated:

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Loyal Mataki Lodge, Murchison, New Zealand

BIOGRAPHY

The McWha family farmed in the townland of Ballyrolly, Carrowdore and Dupree William McWha was a son of Francis (Frank) and Alice Annie Ellen McWha (nee Parsons) who lived in Murchison, Nelson in the South Island, New Zealand.

Francis (Frank) McWha moved to New Zealand in 1887 (aged 24 – born 9 August 1863) where he worked as a miner.  Alice Annie Ellen Parsons was born in Motueka, New Zealand around 1870 and she worked as a domestic servant.  On 17 November 1888 they were granted a certificate of intention to marry in St Matthew’s Church Lyell.

Francis and Alice Annie Ellen McWha (nee Parsons) had five children, all of whom were born in Murchison:

Francis Robert (born 2 February 1889; died 20 December 1962)

Dupree William (born 16 November 1892; killed in action 18 April 1918)

Robert John (Bob, born 9 October 1895; served with the Canterbury Mounted Rifles during the Great War; contracted an illness while on active service – hepatic cirrhosis/chronic diarrhoea; discharged 10 January 1919; died 1 April 1936)

David Leslie (born 2 November 1910; died 14 September 1984)

Roberta Elizabeth (Bobbie, born 22 July 1920; died 1982)

Their father, Francis McWha, died on 25 December 1926 at Murchison (aged 63), and was buried in Murchison Cemetery (Row 7 Left, Grave 82).

Their mother, Alice Annie Ellen McWha (nee Parsons), died on 21 September 1943 at Murchison (aged 72), and was buried alongside her late husband.

Dupree William McWha was wounded in action in 1916 and was killed in action on 18 April 1918.

One year later his cousins, Isabel McWha and Isabel Finlay, placed an Our Heroes – In Memoriam notice in the 19 April 1919 edition of the Newtownards Chronicle.

Isabel McWha’s father, James McWha, and her uncle, Dupree McWha, were both farmers in Ballyrolly, Carrowdore.