Lovells Flat in South Otago is named after John Lovell, an early settler who was born in London in 1810 to George and Mary Lovell. He married Elizabeth Ingram on 4 June 1839 and they had three daughters and one son together: John, Eleanor, Blanch, and Clara. The young family, along with John’s parents, emigrated to Otago on the Tasmania in 1853.
John bought some land in Sawyers Bay before purchasing a sheep station in 1854 at Kaitangata, land which included Lovells Flat. The family home was a wattle-and-daub house with four rooms, roofed with snow-grass tussocks. John bought some sheep and employed several Maori shepherds and boundary riders, all of whom thought highly of him. His only son, John, was the first man to discover coal in the area. He brought the first bag of coal to Dunedin and presented it to Captain Cargill. This son drowned shortly after, while attempting to cross the Molyneux River (now Clutha River) when he was 16.
In 1862 the Lovells returned to England, buying an estate in Sussex, but they soon travelled back to Otago, taking up residence at Waverley in 1864. John’s wife Elizabeth died in 1894 aged 73, and John in 1897, aged 77.
Mr John Lovell