Unfortunately his father William, and especially his mother Margery, succumbed to alcoholism under the conditions of life in early New Zealand, and both died in 1827 after an extended bout of drinking following the marriage of their daughter, after they had returned to Sydney. William Gilbert Puckey joined the CMS mission in his own right in 1821, and after accompanying his father back to Sydney in 1826, returned to New Zealand in 1827, and stayed here for the rest of his life.