Lydia Etheldreda Birch

Ethel Birch ( Lydia Etheldreda Larden, 1853 – 23 February 1927) was a British born New Zealand settler and the first European woman to climb Mount Ruapehu. She donated watercolours by her mother Lydia Larden to the Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui.

Biography Birch was the youngest daughter of Lydia Larden (née Bucknill) and Rev George Edge Larden of Arkel Rectory, Shropshire. Birch had emigrated to New Zealand in 1860 and with his brother Azim established a large sheep station on the Oruamatua-Kaimanawa Block near Moawhango, in the Inland Patea area between Napier and Taihape. The block was later called Erewhon. but adopted William and Azim's nephew William Caccia in the early 1890s; Caccia changed his name by deed poll to William Charles Caccia Birch. She penned a letter to the Hawkes Bay Herald in 1886 regarding her observations of steam and clouds around Ruapehu.

In 1922 Birch donated watercolours by her mother Lydia Larden to the Sarjeant Gallery.