Early Life
Merriman was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England, on 18 October 1818. His father was the lawyer Thomas Merriman (1771–1841), and his mother was Mary Clarke (1780 – after 1837). He was their eleventh child out of a total of 14 (nine boys, five girls). He was educated at Winchester. He was admitted to the bar and emigrated to Auckland in New Zealand in 1844.
His brother Nathanial later became Bishop of Grahamstown.
On 4 May 1850, he married Susannah Augusta Atkyns (née Greene) in St. Paul's Church, Auckland. She was the widow of Captain Ringrose Atkyns.
Merriman was a Freemason. He was initiated in the Ara Lodge in 1849 and became their treasurer.
Read more about this topic: Frederick Merriman (politician)
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)