Henry Sealy  Henry John Sealy (1838 – 6 June 1925) was a New Zealand surveyor and farmer. Sealy was baptised in 1838 in Coity, Glamorgan, Wales. Forebears had become rich in Barbados as plantation owners. His paternal grandparents died young and his father and aunt were brought up by relatives in England. Henry Sealy became an orphan when his father, the author Thomas Henry Sealy, died in 1848. Henry and his younger brother Edward (born 1839) were brought up by their aunt Maria Sealy. The brothers emigrated to New Zealand on the "Clontarf", which arrived in Lyttelton on 5 January 1859. John Acland, a Canterbury high country runholder, was also on this ship. The brothers' intention was to proceed to Hawke's Bay but the ship lay in Lyttelton Port for a month as much of the crew had deserted. In mid-February, they set off from Wellington on the "Emily Allison" to meet up with their relative Henry Bowman Sealy, who lived at Patoka, inland from Napier. The family connection is uncertain, but sources assume that he was their uncle. The brothers stayed with their relative and worked on his farm, learning the basics of farming. They also helped out land survey parties that worked in the district and during 1861, both of them worked as surveyors. Henry left for Otago on 30 August 1861 to join the Otago Gold Rush at Gabriel's Gully. But within a week, he sold his digging implements and worked for a storekeeper in Dunedin for the rest of the year. In early 1862, he joined a survey party in Tuapeka. After two months, he went to Napier and joined a survey team with his brother. There, he experienced the February 1863 Hawke's Bay earthquake. Soon after, his brother encouraged him to come to Canterbury to work on the West Coast, but he ended up in Geraldine in South Canterbury instead to survey that town. He worked for a telegraph company during most of 1865 and on the weekends, he worked in the Land office in Timaru. He spent Christmas 1865 with the Studholme family; they were wealthy runholders, with brothers Michael and John as heads of family. From 1866 until February 1868, he stayed with fellow surveyor Sam Hewlings when in Timaru. He fell out with Hewlings, possibly over having become interested in his daughter Fanny, and afterwards boarded at the Royal Hotel instead.