The school, the pool and the boiler

The close relationship between Stoke’s Nayland Park Pool complex and Nayland College could be said to have started with a chat over a drink in the Nelson City Council Chamber.

Bill Kane, 1968. Nelson Photo News, Issue 97, November 1968, pg. 5.

Nayland’s founding principal, Bill Kane, was elected to the Council in 1968. As former long-time councillor Seddon Marshall recalled, Mr Kane was relaxing with fellow councillors after a meeting one night when the need for a community swimming pool in Stoke was raised.  It was an oft-debated topic and one mentioned during the college’s opening ceremony speeches in February 1966.

The population of young families settling in the suburb of Stoke had grown steadily throughout the 1950s.  In the late ‘50s the Department of Education bought land in Nayland Road on which to develop four schools. By 1968 Nayland Kindergarten, Nayland Primary and Nayland College were operational and Broadgreen Intermediate was set to open in 1971.

Building of the Nayland Primary School pool.Nelson PhotoNews (1962, Feb), 15.

Without a pool of its own, Nayland College made use of Nayland Primary School’s lane pool, which had been built by volunteer labour and opened in 1962. College pupils trooped across the road to ‘swim’ in the waist-deep water of the 18m long pool. When it was time for the college’s annual swimming sports, pupils travelled into town to use the larger Hampden Street School pool.

Jack King standing on the land next to the College pool site. Nelson PhotoNews, 11 Nov 1972

If a pool complex was to be built, the Nayland area was its logical location, having nearly 2,500 children enrolled in schools in the immediate area and more than 6,500 children in the greater Nelson and Richmond area who could make use of it.  It was also surrounded by tracts of orchard land ripe for development, including a 2.25 acre block right next door to the college.

Initial architect plans. Nelson PhotoNews 11 Nov 1972

Such a complex would also fill a gap in Nelson, which was considered to have inadequate, unattractive and inferior water sports and recreation facilities compared with other cities. It would be used not only for recreational swimming but also for swimming instruction, school swimming activities, lifesaving instruction, competitive swimming and specialised water sports, including diving and water polo.

The informal discussion Bill Kane had with city councillors that day in the late 1960s led to the germination of a plan that sealed a win-win deal between the Council and the College.  

Nayland College Princess contest, 1970. Nayland College

With the the land next to the College purchased, it was agreed the Council would use subsidised employment scheme workers to help install the pool, which would then be heated by the college boiler, conveniently situated just over the back fence from where the pool would be built. The community would get the pool it desired and the college would not have to build one of its own.

In 1970 a public meeting established an organising committee consisting of representatives from the Council, City and Stoke swimming interests, Nayland College PTA, the Nayland College board of governors, Broadgreen Intermediate, Stoke-Tahuna Rotary Club, Stoke Jaycee, Stoke Lions Club and the Master Builders Federation. It was agreed that the estimated $600,000 cost of the project would be jointly shared by the community, the City Council and the Government via the Department of Education.

Building of the Nayland Pool complex. Nelson Evening Mail, 31 Oct 1975. Nayland College Collection

Over the next few years major fundraising efforts were held to raise the community’s $200,000 project share. The Nayland College PTA alone raised approximately $12,000 with a variety of fundraisers and projects, and in 1970 college students raised $120 with a Nayland Princess Contest.

Last test fill Nayland College pool, Nelson Evening Mail 5 March 1976. Nayland College collection.

Construction work began in 1975, with a lot of materials, labour and the use of machinery donated by the community. As the pool took shape, a number of senior college pupils helped out, including sweeping the lane pool prior to its filling.

Nayland College swimming sports and Nayland pool 2000s. Nayland College collection

The large Nayland Pool complex, including lane pool, diving pool and boards, toddler pool and teaching pool, was finally opened by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Alan Highet, before a crowd of around 1,000 people on 10 December 1977.  The opening was accompanied by the announcement of a $40,000 Government grant towards the complex, which left a deficit of $100,000 still to be raised.

The pool quickly became a favourite of all ages and water sports, and was the location for many years of police Blue Light discos for youth. It remains a well-used and much loved community asset and the pools’ waters continue to be heated by the Nayland College boiler.

2016

Broadgreen’s Domestic and Ground staff of the 1860s

As was befitting an affluent middle-class family such as the Buxtons of Broadgreen House in Stoke, paid staff looked after domestic and ground work in the 1860s and beyond.  The family may even have brought a female servant or two with them when they emigrated from Lancashire in England in 1851 to start a new life in New Zealand.

Broadgreen about 1890. Nelson Provincial Museum.

Edmund and Martha Buxton completed building Broadgreen on Nayland Road about 1855 and settled there with their family of five daughters, Martha, Adeline, Cordelia, and Everhilda (already adults) and Alice, aged 15 and Matilda 11.

In the 1860s domestic staff remained highly prized amongst new immigrants and were often hard to retain. Many young women were quickly snapped up for marriage in a country with far more men than women, and others were lured away by promises of higher wages or to jobs in hotels or factories. There were never enough servants to meet demand.¹

Mr Buxton. Nelson Provincial Museum, Tyree Studio Collection: 18614

As the wife of Nelson’s first Anglican Bishop, Mary Hobhouse, wrote in 1860: “Girls cannot be found, even in the rawest state, at a moment’s notice”.²

Paid domestic servants, possibly just one or two, a housekeeper and a general maid or maid-of-all, would have looked after most of the day-to-day domestic chores at Broadgreen. As Edmund Buxton owned a merchant company, E. Buxton & Co., which sold everything from firearms to sausage skins, it is to be hoped he provided his own household with some of the labour-saving devices and modern implements he sold. Such things would have helped ease the load of his domestic staff as they undertook the day to day drudgery of domestic cleaning, washing, ironing and cooking.

NZ. High Commission (GB). New Zealand wants domestic servants; good homes, good wages. [ca 1912].  Ref: Eph-A-IMMIGRATION-1912-cover. Alexander Turnbull Library. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22908679

It is likely at least one maid lived in the house, sleeping in the loft above the scullery, accessed by a retractable ladder, but any other staff, such as a housekeeper, gardeners and labourers, are more likely to have been day workers, arriving for work each morning and returning to their own homes around Stoke at night.

Resident domestic staff worked around 12 hours a day, six and a half days a week, for very low wages, plus full board.

Early starts ensured the kitchen fire was lit so breakfast could be made and served to the rising family. Open fires in the dining and drawing rooms, the study and the upstairs bedrooms, would be cleaned, set and lit, and candles, or later, kerosene lamps used to light the house.

Water was hand pumped from outside in the kitchen yard and brought into the house to be heated for cooking and ablutions. Hot water was carried by hand upstairs to the bedrooms for washing and bathing, and also to rinse out chamber pots, which were emptied into lidded slop buckets.  Finally beds would be made and rooms tidied.

Feeding the family was an ongoing responsibility, with menus probably planned in consultation between the housekeeper and the lady of the house, Martha Buxton.  It required strong arms to lift and move the array of heavy cast iron pots and cooking implements, such as a griddle, cauldron and kettle, from the hearth to the fire or into bread oven. The cook also needed intimate knowledge of the intricacies of cooking over an open fire, in and on the range, and in the bread oven or Dutch oven. Out in the cool, cob-walled and tiled-floor dairy, butter would be churned and stored with milk and cream, bacon cured and cheese made.

At night, there would be beds to turn down and in winter, copper bed warmers to fill with hot embers before being placed between the sheets. Only when all the chores had been done and the household settled for the night, would the maid be freed from her duties and able to retire herself. It would have been a tough, thankless life, especially perhaps at Broadgreen, where Edmund Buxton was known to be a stern and short tempered man who fell out with a great many people.³

Each day of the week was likely to have a particular set of chores assigned to it. Monday may have been wash day, possibly the most physically tiring activity in which clothing was boiled in a copper and agitated by hand using an implement known as a Dolly. Delicate items such as lace, were washed by hand. Once the washing had been rinsed, wrung and blued (a blue coloured agent which counteracted the yellowing of ageing fabrics and made them appear whiter), it was hung on long lines, where it could take days to dry, especially during winter.

View of a dining room, thought to be Broadgreen. Nelson Provincial Museum. FN Jones Collection

Next came ironing and starching day. Irons were heated on open fires or on the range, or filled with charcoal and hot embers. Each method carried the risk of burnt fingers and cloth, or the spoiling of freshly laundered items from ash residue from irons not wiped properly before use.  This was also a day in which any mending might be carried out as required.

On Wednesday, the household’s carpets may have been rolled up and taken outside to hang on the clothesline and beaten of every last speck of dust.  Meanwhile all the wooden and tile floors would be swept before the maid got down on her hands and knees to wash the floors with a scrubbing brush and bucket of water. This was often repeated on Saturday, along with the cleaning of different rooms.

Thursday may have seen the kitchen and scullery cleaned from top to toe, including cooking implements, work surfaces and cupboard shelves.  Another job was washing and polishing all silver and copper implements and items.

Friday may have been baking day, where all the tins were filled with sweet and savoury foods ready for the week to come. An ongoing job throughout the year was the preserving of fresh produce, resulting in jars of jams, preserved fruit, pickled nuts, and salted vegetables, as well as the cellar storage of root vegetables such as potatoes and surplus apples and pears. Some of the fruit may also have been made into cider or wine.

Only on Sunday was there a day of rest and, for the live-in maid, half a day off to attend church. Come Monday, it started all over again.

The Buxton’s maid may also have been expected to help care for the oldest daughter, Martha, who was an invalid.

It wasn’t only domestic chores that required paid help.  Broadgreen was 100 acres in size, much of which was crop farmed. It had its own granary and is known to have employed at least one gardener and several farm labourers.⁴

Although Edmund founded Buxton & Co. in 1855, his great love was farming and he was particularly fond of pigs, which he bred and raised at Broadgreen.  Along with a few milking cows, he may also have kept some sheep (he originally ran 2,000 sheep on a 30,000 acre farm in Waiau, North Canterbury), and even some rabbits, bred for fur and meat. Stables behind the house had stalls for four horses, pairs of which pulled the buggy that took him into Nelson on business each day.

Broadgeen House and garden. Nelson City Council

It is likely Edmund had help to plant the many specimen trees around the house, including oaks, English beech and walnuts, some of which still exist today.  Employing a gardener, perhaps formally trained, was expensive and many made do with farm labourers who could turn their attention from farm work to garden work as required. Amongst their tasks would have been digging, fertilising, planting and tending of productive gardens; raising seedlings and cuttings; planting and maintaining windbreaks, shrubberies, ornamental gardens and flowerbeds; maintaining the orchard of stone, pip and citrus fruit trees; tending glasshouse crops; constant weeding of gardens, paths and driveways; and the seeding and maintaining of lawns.⁵

A large lawn took a lot of upkeep and was something only those with money could hope to achieve. English grass seed was expensive but something Edmund Buxton had easy access to in his own shop. Away from the house, grass could be kept low by grazing animals such as horses, cows or sheep, but a house lawn would have been controlled with scythes and rollers.⁶

There was a clear social demarcation between staff and their employers and it would have been a scandal when the Buxton’s second oldest daughter, Adeline, was discovered to be secretly liaising with a gardener employed by the family. Thomas Chisnall was a member of a Stoke orcharding family and in Edmund Buxton’s eyes, a completely inappropriate suitor for his daughter, even though Adeline was 31-years old at the time. 

As the story is recorded,⁷ for months the enraged father locked Adeline in her room each morning before heading off into town for business. He eventually relented and allowed her and Thomas to marry in 1861.  There was to be no church wedding however. The couple was married in the parlour at Broadgreen and Buxton installed them in a cottage built for them at the southern gate of the estate, still standing on Nayland Road and known as Adeline’s Cottage⁸ or Broadgreen Cottage.

It truly was a case of upstairs meeting downstairs.

2016

Post World War II Italian immigration to Nelson

The desire to leave war-torn Europe resulted in a wave of post-World War II Italian immigration to New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s.

Many came to join friends of family already settled in Nelson, including tomato-growing families looking to expand their operations and now in a position to financially assist relatives keen to leave their bankrupted homeland.

Vince Ciminiello in a tomato glasshouse 1962. (Image courtesy Vince Ciminiello)

The majority arriving during the 1950s and into the 1960s were sponsored by relatives already living here, who frequently offered both accommodation and a job. In Nelson several families sponsored the sons of siblings living in Italy. With family to initially stay with and possibly work for, the new arrivals found a ready-made Italian community to help ease their transition.

Despite the claims of the earlier generation of Italian immigrants, that the new immigrants had an easier time when they came to New Zealand, the new arrivals found they still had to work hard to make their own way. The young men brought with them the skills of other trades, including bricklaying and masonry, tailoring, painting, and cobbling but with money to be made in tomatoes, many followed the example of other Italians and became growers.

Cataldo Romano sponsored his brother Frank Romano and nephew Raffaele Buonocore to New Zealand in 1952.  Although both men went into tomato growing, Raffaele initially worked in a shoe shop as a cobbler, the profession he had practised in Italy. However the prospect of making more money growing tomatoes was too good to turn down.

Giuseppe Albano made application in 1950 to sponsor two of his nephews, Pasquale and Giuseppe (Joe) Lagrutta to Nelson. Giuseppe had not seen the sons of his eldest sister Maria Lagrutta, since 1926, when they were very young, Joe only a few months old, but promised authorities that he would pay their way out, provide for them upon arriving and give them employment in his tomato gardens.

Rosalina, Maria and Raffaele Volpicelli on board the Neptuna en route to New Zealand, 1952. (Image courtesy Lagrutta family)

As it turned out, only Joe emigrated, leaving Naples on the Neptunia in February 1952.  Although he didn’t realise it at the time, he met his future wife on board. Liberata (Maria) Volpicelli and her brother Raffaele and sister Rosalina were on their way to meet their father who was living in Wellington. Joe and Maria married in Wellington in 1957 and later established a home in Nelson.

From Sarconi, the Ciminiello brothers, Dominic and Tony, were nephews of Nelson tomato grower Luigi De Cesare. Dominic immigrated to Nelson in 1952 with the sponsorship of his uncle, and worked in various factories and as a truck driver before entering tomato growing. In 1957 he in turn helped arrange a sponsor for his brother Tony, a tailor.

However, when Tony arrived in January 1958, his sponsor wouldn’t employ him in his Bridge Street menswear shop because of his lack of English and Tony got a job at Kirkpatrick’s factory instead. There he said he had to be “like a parrot – listen and repeat”, in order to learn English. In time he was able to return to his trade as a tailor and established his own business, Continental Tailors.

Maria Esposito (nee Pricolo) was called to Nelson from Grumento Nova by her uncle Frank Pricolo and his wife Carmela in 1951 when she was aged 20. In Nelson Maria got a sewing job and met and married Salvatore Esposito, who helped her learn English.

In 1960 Raffaele Buonocore accompanied his cousin Tony Romano on a visit to Italy. While there he met and became engaged to Lisa Esposito. Tony returned home to Nelson but Raffaele stayed on and married Lisa, before returning with her to Nelson in 1961. She was one of several Italian women who married sons of earlier New Zealand Italian immigrants and arrived in New Zealand as young brides, or who were called out by relatives in Nelson and married in New Zealand. Likewise some of Nelson’s young Italian women accompanied family members on holiday to Italy, where they met Italian men whom they eventually followed out to New Zealand and married in Nelson.

Tony Romano and his newly arrived Italian bride Gemma Casa on their wedding day in Nelson,1961. (Image courtesy Romano family)

The strangeness of a remote new country was overwhelming for many.  Some had heard stories that New Zealand was a land full of cannibals and had no sun. With little known about the small island nation at the bottom of the world, fact blended with fiction.

But in Italy Tony De Lorenzo remembered his Nelson-based uncle’s vivid descriptions of New Zealand. “We were fascinated by this big, expansive, beautiful land with luscious green flat paddocks, beautiful hillsides, lovely trees and beautiful seas where we could go out and catch fish.” When Tony arrived in Nelson in May 1952, “there was this perfect little city with me standing on the [ferry] deck saying, ‘what is this paradise?’”

Once here, there were other challenges to be faced, including food. The relatively bland, English-style food was not always to the taste of the new immigrants and securing traditional dried foods like pasta, and growing their own crops of tomatoes, eggplants, capsicums and garlic became very important to the Italian immigrants.

Another noticeable difference was that Nelson was very quiet. Enjoying a movie, playing soccer, going to church and attending Saturday night dances at the Stoke Memorial Hall were about all some of the young male immigrants could find to occupy themselves during weekends.  Attending dances also provided an opportunity to polish their English skills, which many found difficult to learn while living and working with other Italians. As Tony Ciminiello recalled: “I couldn’t dance but I went. It was a bit tough because girls wouldn’t talk to me and I couldn’t talk to them. But slowly it got better.”

Such activities were not so easily accessible to the Italian community’s young women, who were expected to marry Italians. Used to being surrounded by family, they missed the company of their close knit family members. Young female immigrants tended to keep within their own community. Once married, they generally gave up any paid employment they may have found and kept close to home as attempts were made to maintain traditional values and virtues. Some female immigrants of the post-war period never fully learned to speak English, and got by with help from their husbands and children, who did learn the language through wider exposure to English speakers.

Gemma Casa, who in 1961 was the first Italian to come to Nelson from Italy by air, was married to second generation Nelson Italian Tony Romano a month after her arrival. She had no one of her own family in attendance and did not understand the English spoken service, until a guest got up at the reception and sang a song in Italian. “The tears flowed,” she recalled.

Some never managed to settle into their new country and eventually returned to Italy but many adjusted in time to the challenges and truly made Nelson and New Zealand home, leading to new generations of Nelson Italians.

2016

Bridging Nelson City and Tasman District, Saxton Field is a major regional sporting facility, but the land it sits on used to be part of a large farm originally owned by early settler and gentleman farmer, John Waring Saxton (1808-1866) and his family.

John Waring Saxton, The Nelson Provincial Museum, Copy Collection

John and Priscilla Saxton arrived in Nelson from England with other family members, including Priscilla’s mother, Mrs Crumpton, on board the Clifford in May 1842. As was the procedure, prior to leaving England Saxton had purchased three pieces of land in the new colony, all of which would be balloted when the settlers arrived: a town acre, (4,000 sq metres), a 50 acre (20 hectares) accommodation (sometimes referred to as a suburban) block and a 150 acre (60 ha) rural block.  Following the initial ballot they were allocated a town acre in the Brook Valley.

However, on arriving in Nelson, the Saxtons found they were unable to access their town acre due to swamps and an impassable stream, so a lease was signed for another section on Haven Road close to Saltwater Bridge and the prefabricated cottage brought out on the ship with the family was erected on this. When a road was finally constructed in the Brook Valley, the Saxtons moved from the Haven house to Brook Street, where they had a new house, Claremont, built. 

Nelson, Oaklands. Nelson Provincial Museum, Nelson Historical Society Collection

In January 1843 Saxton was allocated a rural section in the Wai-iti Valley, near Belgrove. It is unclear from Saxton’s extensive diaries where exactly his accommodation block was. But by early 1844 he had exchanged the Wai-iti block for something “better and closer.” Again, his diaries do not state what he exchanged it for but in the early years of the colony, absentee owners, incidences of squatting and land exchanges complicated the ownership and identity of some lands.

What is known is that by the end of 1844, John Saxton had acquired, probably through land exchanges, two diagonally adjoining 50 acre accommodation land blocks in Stoke, adjacent to Main Road Stoke, where Saxton Field now is.  By 1851 at least seven 50 acre blocks of adjoining land and a rural block constituted the Oaklands farm. Saxton’s diary describes the farm as “steep, hillish and swampy,” and that the first acre was ploughed in November 1844.

Its name came from the oak trees he grew from acorns brought with him from England.  The homestead area remains surrounded by these tall original oaks.

1849 sketch of Oaklands Homestead by JW Saxton - Raine Collection

In November 1844 John Saxton bought at auction wooden barracks used by the New Zealand Company and situated on Haven Road. The wooden modular buildings were barged around the coast to Stoke, where they were hauled through swamp and marsh up to the farm by bullocks and carts and fitted together in a new configuration to a plan drawn up by John Saxton.

Sketch of Oaklands Farm, showing the homestead 1849 - Raine Collection

Built of 300-year old Baltic pine with a Cornish slate roof, in time the newly reconstructed building grew into the homestead known as Oaklands. While they waited for it to be completed, the family lived in its original prefabricated cottage, which Saxton had transported in January 1845 from Haven Road to the farm and reassembled.  Once they moved into the homestead, the smaller cottage appears to have been used as a farm cottage.  Over the years various additions to the Oaklands homestead have been added and removed but it remains the home of John Saxton’s great great grandson, Richard Raine.  It is recognised as one of the oldest prefabricated dwellings in New Zealand.

John Saxton was no farmer. A gifted watercolour painter and musician, he spoke several classic languages including Hebrew, Latin and Greek, and enjoyed entertaining visitors at Oaklands. He was also deeply involved in civic affairs as the treasurer of the Nelson Institute, a member of the Nelson Provincial Council, and involved with the Anglican Church. His series of Nelson views and the diaries he kept from 1841-1850 (held by Nelson Provincial Museum) give a valuable record of early Nelson life.

Fortunately, his sons enjoyed farming and successfully developed the Oaklands property and another property the Saxton men leased in Tarndale, north Canterbury (now part of the Molesworth Station). Both properties ran sheep and Oaklands also grew small crops.

John Saxton died in 1866 and ownership of the Oaklands farm passed to his children.  Over time however, sections of the farm were sold off, including in 1908, when Saxton’s granddaughter Rosie Saxton sold her inherited block to the Nelson Freezing Company.  This block is now the site of the Saxton Field oval and athletic track.

When Saxton’s son, John Waring junior (known as Waring), died in 1932, Oaklands farm comprised of 2,119 adjoining acres between the Ngawhatu Valley and Richmond’s Queen Street, from the estuary to the top of the Richmond Ranges.

Dick Raine reaping and binding oats at Oaklands - Raine Collection

Upon his death the farm transferred to the Raine family, whom Gwendoline, the daughter of John Saxton’s grandson, George Saxton, had married into. Her husband Richard (Dick) Raine was an English farmer who had emigrated from Cornwall to farm in Albany in Western Australia. While visiting New Zealand on holiday Dick met Gwendoline’s two brothers, who took him home to Oaklands, where he was introduced to their sister. The newly-weds made Oaklands their home.

Oaklands was generally a sheep farm, with flocks on the highland areas, and a small percentage of beef cattle.  It also grew hops and apples and the large flat block that is Saxton Field today produced cereals, including barley, wheat and oats, as feed for the farm’s Clydesdale work horses.

In taking it over, Dick Raine took on responsibility for Oaklands’ assets and liabilities, including compounding death duties incurred by the family over several generations.  The farm needed to be rationalised and, in order to pay off some of the debts and ensure its survival, he leased parts of it and sold others. In 1932 the Nelson Aero Club leased 45 acres for its first terminal and in 1934 aviator Kingsford Smith landed his plane, the Southern Cross, at the airfield. Cook Strait Airways started operations from the aero club.

Oaklands Homestead around 1954 - Raine Collection

One of the sections of lowland farm was bought by the Crown, which leased it to the Kingturner family. It was this block that later provided the bulk of Saxton Field.

The productivity of some of the farm’s lower hill country was increased with ploughing and harrowing and the sowing of more productive grass species, and during the early 1930s dairying was introduced. In 1937 Dick Raine attained official registration as a dairy and Oaklands provided milk to the Stoke area.  In 1944 he became the first chairman of a farmers’ cooperative town milk company the Nelson Milk Treatment Station, when at least two earlier milk co-operatives merged.

In 1960 he divided the farm in two and transferred ownership to his two sons, Glyn and Richard. Revising the split to suit themselves, Richard Raine took control of more of the lowlands and dairy farm (including the original Oaklands farm and homestead), while Glyn Raine took over the hill land.

Over time Richard bought back several blocks his father had sold years before and in time also bought part of his brother Glyn’s farm. (Some of Glyn Raine’s farm remains in his family.) The contemporary Oaklands farm is now around 460 hectares in size and Raine family members continue to live in the original restored Oaklands homestead.  Situated up behind Saxton Field off Suffolk Road, the hard work of a combined eight generations of the Saxton-Raine family have transformed Oaklands into highly workable farmland.

Oaklands Farm today showing Suffolk and Saxton Roads at lower left and part of Saxton Field at lower right - Raine Collection

Oaklands Farm today

The peaceful rural setting of the farm has completely changed and Oaklands is now a working town farm, as urban sprawl from both Nelson City and Tasman District closes in around it. Under the stewardship of Richard Raine’s son Julian (John Waring Saxton’s 3x great grandson), and his son Tom, Oaklands focuses on the dairying his grandfather Dick introduced in the 1930s.  Where Dick was the first chairman of the Nelson Milk Treatment Station, in 1998 Julian was its last chairman before the company was sold as one of the legs of the newly formed Fonterra.

Three generations of Raines - Richard, Julian and Tom. Raine Collection

As at the end of 2016, fresh Oaklands milk is sold direct from refrigerated vending machines situated at the farm gate and at various locations around the city. The farm supplies its milk to 60 restaurants and cafes in the region, offers a home delivery service, and is developing a supermarket milk brand.

Julian Raine at Oaklands overlooking Saxton Field, 2010. Nelson Mail

One section of the original Saxton farm Richard Raine was unable to buy back was the Crown block, and this was eventually sold to the Nelson City Council.  It is this block which forms a large part of the Saxton Field sporting complex. The Nelson City Council set aside this land for the development of a regional sporting complex in the 1970s. Work began on the first sports ground in the early 1980s and Saxton Field, as it was named, was gradually added to and developed over the following 24 years until it is the sporting complex of today.

Jointly owned by Nelson City and Tasman District, Saxton Field provides facilities for a variety of codes including hockey, cricket, softball, netball, football, athletics and cycling, as well as general recreational purposes. Extending from Saxton Road in the north to Champion Road in the south, and bordered on the western boundary by Main Road Stoke, the complex of indoor stadium, sports fields, courts and tracks covers 65ha of recreation reserve.

2016

For more on this story, see:

• Jeremy Cooper (2013) The Oaklands Story – 1844 to present[unpublished][PDF]

This includes further research and copies of original documentation and images.

The work of early nurserymen can be seen in Nelson and all over New Zealand. Their work marks significant milestones  from the Queen’s Jubilee to the commemoration of the lives of public figures. It has also had a major impact on the New Zealand landscape.

The Hale Family
The Hale family was one early settler family that brought with them the skills to change the landscape of New Zealand and provide other settlers with fruit trees and other items from home. William Hale was the first to come to New Zealand, he was then followed by his younger brother, John Hale. John’s sons would later expand the family business from Masterton to Blenheim, with the ideas of free trade and private enterprise. John had a deep involvement within the local community and was one of the main forces behind the development of the Nelson Queen’s Gardens. The Hale Family has contributed significantly to the transformation of the New Zealand landscape through the use of  English land management systems. They were also a significant part of horticulture groups within their regions and part of the New Zealand Nurserymen and Seedsmen’s Association.

Mr. Hale at his nursery. Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, Davis Studio collections REF No. 165310 or 1653/1

When the English and Scottish Nurserymen first landed in New Zealand, they tended to favour Nelson for the establishment of their businesses, probably because of the high sunshine hours of the region. The Hale family was no exception. William Hale (Snr) was the oldest son of his family and departed London on the ‘Bernicia’, which was under the command of Captain Arnold. Captain Arnold was the captain of the ‘Fifeshire’, which was the first immigrant ship to Nelson. William was described as “six feet in height, broad of shoulder and sturdy of limb. Although only 27 years of age, he had a full beard and a heavy, dark mustache.”¹ William was given a large crown grant of around 23 - 64 acres, probably because he was a  nurseryman.  His trade was useful in helping to develop the new country.

When the ‘Bernicia’ arrived into Nelson Harbour on November 5th, 1848, William was fully equipped to start his nursery business, which he set up on Tory and Hardy Street. William’s ideal form of business was to become a grower and exporter of trees and shrubs, so he did not want to move too far away from the port. There is little evidence of what William did during his life, unlike his younger brother John. This could be because William’s sons were early scholars at Nelson College and did not continue in the family line of business. Therefore, there was no one to carry on the family ideas and name. John, however, had three sons who expanded the family business and were well known in their towns and neighbourhoods.

John Hale (Snr) was described as an “indefatigable worker”² and he was a strong believer in private  enterprise and free trade. This belief help to forward  horticulture within Nelson. He was the second of his family to journey to New Zealand. John followed William to Nelson in 1859, where he joined him in business. John, like his brother, was a skilled nurseryman before he reached New Zealand shores. He had completed an apprenticeship in Clapham and was from a long line of experienced nurserymen. Unlike today, when you can have many trades or professions within a family, it was very common for a trade to be passed down so that every son, and sometimes the daughters, had the same job. The Hale family was a prime example of this.

A portrait of Mr John Hale. Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, W.E. Brown Collection REF No. 12374. Taken in April 1875.

The exportation of fresh fruit and vegetables, and hence being a nurseryman, was a hard way to make money in the 1800’s because people grew what they needed to provide for their families.  However, in the 1860’s there was a gold rush on the west coast of New Zealand and the Hale family nursery thrived, with high demand for food to feed the men on the coast, and the family was able to expand their business. John broke away from his brother and bought a piece of land near the Nelson Hospital.  John and William may have gone their separate ways, not just because they had the money to do so. William and John had different skills. William was better within a garden-like nursery and John’s strength was growing things in glasshouses. In later years the brothers had an argument that was publicly displayed in the Nelson Evening Mail.

John named his new nursery, on Waimea Road and the corner of Tekuka Street,  ‘Lark Hall’, which was a reference to the place where he served his apprenticeship. John's business grew in popularity, and a newspaper article was written about the Lark Hall nursery in 1887, which help to highlight the scale that the nursery had grown to. ‘The Garden’³ was the name of the article and helped to portray a well-established nursery that had a broad range of plants and shrubs to offer. The article also displayed the scale of the nursery, as it talked about a tomato house that was 16 feet wide by 60 feet in length (4.88m wide and 18.29m). Nowadays this would be slightly bigger than a standard glasshouse that someone has in their backyard, though back then this would have been considered large, as glass was not something that would have been easily sourced. John Hale and the Lark Hall nursery had a significant impact on the local community, and the corner of Waimea Road and Tekuka Street is still known as Hales Corner, and is the location of the ‘Hale’s Corner Dairy.'

Ebenezer Hale and one of this younger sister, Grace, at Lark Hall. Photo from Sowman. R. & Sowman P.E, (2008), Blue-Eyed, Fair and Stocky – A Sowman Family History, Redwood: Christchurch

Three of John Hale’s (Snr) sons followed in the family line of business and became  nurserymen. John Hale (Jnr) was the first to leave Nelson and expand the Hale enterprise, setting up a business in the new suburb of Springlands in Blenheim in 1884. He probably picked Marlborough because all the trees that had been planted in the Marlborough district, from 1848 to 1884, were grown mostly in Nelson and probably came from his father’s and uncle's nurseries. John (Jnr) and his father chose a section of land in the belief that one day it would be next to the main road of the new town -  the road that was already established led to the flax and concrete mills. Today that road is known as High Street, though it is not the main road it is still a significant road for people travelling into and out of  town. When John (Jnr) decided on this piece of land, the suburb was so new that there were no houses in the neighbourhood, and the land was covered in ten-foot high flax, which he and his father had to clear by hand. John went on to set up a general nursery, which he ran until his death in 1908 aged 48. His three sons then took over the running of the business which they later named ‘John Hale and Sons’. It is significant to the Hale family because this was the last nursery left under their ownership. The nursery probably closed down because of  competition from other companies, such as Berrylands and other nurseries. After the land had been sold a pub was built on the site of the old nursery, which is ironic because John Hale (Jnr) was a teetotaler. 

Ebenezer was another son who left the Nelson region and established a nursery in 1894 -  in Te Ore Ore Road, Lansdowne. Ebenezer was widely known for his involvement within the community, and he would often judge at shows and do talks at local institutes and clubs. He was closely identified with the Wairarapa Horticultural Society and was a foundation member of the New Zealand Nurserymen’s Association.  The Nelson nursery sent plants and shrubs to be sold in Masterton. Though a few sources have said that he was ‘a leading nurseryman’ this may not have been entirely accurate. Ebenezer in his later life handed over the business to his two sons, Archer, and Nelson. The Masterton nursery is still active today, though it is no longer under the ownership of the Hale family.

A portrait of Mr J Hale, Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, W.E. Brown Collection REF No. 14735. Taken in October 1881. (This may or may be John Hale (JNR) though it is most likely due to the time and the age of the man in the photo. John was a very common name within the family)

The Hale Family were very involved within their communities and were well known for donating plants to their local regions. The donations from local nurserymen help to mark
significant and historical milestones in the area's history. One of John Hale (Snr)’s more notable donations to the Nelson district was a Sequoia Sequoiadendron Giganteum, whichwas gifted in memory of Captain Arthur Wakefield. This tree is still standing today, though it is known as ‘Songer’s Tree,' after the man who planted it instead of the man who’s memory it was planted in. In 1897 John Hale (Snr) donated a tree that was described as “a somewhat rare indigenous tree.”⁴ Some newspapers even reported that it was a Metrosideros Fulgens, which is a native New Zealand tree that is so rare that it can only be found in Collingwood, though these reports were never confirmed.
The Sequoia Sequoiadendron Giganteum seemed to be the Hale's family tree; each nursery appeared to have one planted in it, and they were often given as gifts or donated by the family. A prime example of this was  William Hale (Snr)'s gift of five Sequoia Sequoiadendron Giganteum to the Nelson Provincial Buildings in Albion Square in 1857.  Lime Trees were often donated by the Hales to mark Royal milestones, civic  occasions, and urban improvements.

Songer's Tree. Nelson City Council

Queen's Gardens
The Nelson Queen’s Gardens are a monument to the early pioneer nurserymen. In particular, John Hale (Snr), who donated a significant portion of the garden’s plants and had a pivotal role in planning and planting out the gardens. The Gardens were opened to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee of 20 years on the throne in 1842. A ‘Jubilee Tree’, a Sequoia Sequoiadendron Giganteum, donated by John Hale (Snr), was planted at the time. Unfortunately, the tree has seen been removed, along with its bronze plate which is now being kept off-site, for safe keeping. In 1892, John Hale was employed by Councillor Jesse Piper to plant out the whole garden. In August 1892 John Hale (Snr), two of his employees and Piper started the planting. The trees did not have plaques placed with them, instead, bottles were buried within their root system. This however probably means that we will never know key information about these trees, because it is highly unlikely that the bottles will still be intact as the root system will have grown through them. We will only ever know what has been documented about them in newspapers and city documents. Councillor Piper's comments indicate that John Hale (Snr) was given free reign to plant and place plants where ever he liked, though other sources say that he could have followed two plans. A simple plan created by Mr Somerville or a more detailed plan created by Mr Jickell, who was the city surveyor at the time. Even after John (Snr) had finished planting the garden he continued to donate his time, give advice and oversee the development of the Nelson Queen’s Gardens.

Impact on the New Zealand Landscape
When the first settlers arrived in New Zealand, they brought with them many seeds, trees and shrubs to plant in the new country. This, however, has had a significant long-term effect on the New Zealand landscape.The arrival of European settlers, from 1842 onwards, started a “steady biophysical transformation of the New Zealand ecosystem.”⁵ There was also substantial removal of native plants and trees, to create room for houses and farms. Europeans also brought with them a new land management system. The European Land Management introduced things that we see in our landscape today that we just take for granted, such as plantations and orchards. The landscape started to change more significantly between 1860 and 1900 as local nurserymen all over New Zealand donated trees and shrubs to their local councils to mark the opening of new public buildings and the laying of foundations. The introduction of new plants to the New Zealand landscape has had a significant lasting impact because 70% of all plants that are classed as ‘weeds’ today, were once viewed as
garden plants.⁶ A key example of this is wild conifer. Conifers are taking over the New Zealand landscape and are suffocating the native trees. Currently, wild conifers cover more than 1.8 million hectares of the New Zealand landscape, a figure which has increased by about 5 percent every year.⁷

The Professional Association
The Nursery and Garden Industry New Zealand (NGINZ), was set up in 1904 to support the Nurseryman and Seedman of New Zealand. Ebenezer Hale was a foundation member of the Association, and the Hale family has had significant involvement within the union. Meeting Minutes from 1917 show that a large portion of the Hale family was represented at one of the association's earliest meetings. The Association today is still important within the horticultural community. They have around 375 members. Even though the Hale family no longer has a significant involvement within the horticultural community, Ebenezer has left a lasting impact on the industry.

The Hale legacy
A large number of early Nelson plantings have been lost through neglect, weather events and vandalism. Many others were removed prematurely because of changing horticultural fashion, subdivision and urban development. The trees of Nelson are a visual history of some of the earliest milestones in the district. The Hale Family provided a connection to home for the early settlers through the use of plants from all over the world, which they grew in their nurseries and donated for public planting. They contributed to the significant changes in the landscape that we see today and have left a lasting legacy for the horticultural community.

2016 - Runner up for the 2016 Jeff Newport Memorial Prize. Submitted by Nelson College for Girls.

The site currently occupied by Natureland at Tahunanui Beach Reserve is located within an elliptical circle.  You used to be able to drive completely around this circle and it was always referred to as Hounsell's Circle.  Hounsell's Circle was grassed and used for picnicking, before Natureland was built on the site.  Natureland was started in 1966, when the Jaycees established a zoo by initially fencing the circle and laying foundations for buildings.¹

Mr Jesse Hounsell. Nelson Provincial Museum

At the beach coast side of the circle, there is a concrete walled and stepped recess, with a concrete memorial sundial.  This recess used to access the grassed area, but is now fenced off to contain Natureland.  It is now an access to nowhere and is easily missed.

In July 1929 Mr J. E. Hounsell passed away at the age of 71 years.²  The following report appears in The Press of 18 July 1929: 
The death occurred on Sunday of one of Nelson's oldest and most respected residents, Mr Jesse Ernest Hounsell, for many years proprietor of the well-known bookseller's business in Trafalgar street, in which he succeeded his father.  It was only at the end of last month that Mr Hounsell disposed of his business.  His health had not been robust for some time.  Away from business Mr Hounsell's pastimes were angling and bowls.  He was one of the oldest anglers of the Nelson district. and in his day had secured many good bags.  He had been a member of the Maitai Bowling Club since its foundation.³ 

He also held many public and social offices including: Fire Brigade, National Bands, Horticultural Society to name a few.

Hounsell Memorial Sundial. Tahunanui. Ken Wright

And from the Evening Post of 20 July 1929:
A number of public bequests, subject to certain prior interests, are made under the will of the late; Mr J. E. Hounsell, bookseller, who died a few days ago.  Various institutions will benefit, as follows: Nelson Institute, £100, Salvation Army, £100, Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, £100, St Andrew's Orphanage, £100, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals £100, Auckland Point School, £100, Central School, £100, Hampden Street School, £100, Nelson College Governors, £500 for the purpose of founding and establishing a scholarship at Nelson Boys' College, Nelson College Governors, £500 for the purpose of founding and establishing a scholarship at Nelson Girls' College, the residue of the estate is to be divided into two equal parts, one share for the Tahuna Sands Association should it be, in existence at a certain time and the other share for the Trustees of the Nelson Anglican Cathedral Fund.  The Public Trustee, is the executor and sole: trustee.⁴

The Tahuna Sands Association had been formed in 1926 to look after the Tahuna Reserve, which was vested in Nelson City Council.  I have not been able to find evidence of an official unveiling of the monument, but note that the Tahuna Sands Association made considerable improvements to the beach area including Hounsell’s Circle and associated facilities, in the 1930’s.

The brass sundial atop the monument has the following Latin inscription; “Non Numero Horas Nisi Serenas”.  “ I count only the sunny hours”.

On 26th November 1964, a memorial plaque and rose gardens were dedicated to Charles Edward Pethybridge, by G W Johnston Chairman of the Tobacco company W.D & H.O Wills (NZ) Ltd..  Charles had just retired from the company, as the Motueka Branch Manager, and was acknowledged for his 50 years of service, from 1914 to 1964, to W.D & H.O Wills (NZ) Ltd..  In fact he was the very first person to complete 50 years of service for the New Zealand branch of the company.¹

Presentations for 50 years of service. From left Glynne Barnett (now Franklyn), Sue Hunt (now Wood), Charles Pethybridge, Mr G W Johnston and Lillian Pethybridge. Nelson Photo News 12 December 1964

W.D & H.O Wills (NZ) Ltd. store was located between High and Saxon Streets in Motueka.  This large industrial scale building still exists today, as the Masonic Lodge and Funeral Directors facilities.  The company purchased the High Street fronted, residential section adjoining the company land, built and planted the gardens, eventually naming them after Charles, for his outstanding service.  Charles was also presented with a set of crystal glasses and decanter, a silver salver and silver water jug and ice bucket.

The memorial plaque in the rose garden reads:

PETHYBRIDGE ROSE GARDEN
These gardens have been named to perpetuate the outstanding service given by Charles E. Pethybridge Esq.. Over a period of 50 years (1914-1964) to the company of W.D. & H.O. Wills (NZ) Ltd.. On Nov 26th. 1964 the chairman of the company Mr G. W. Johnston opened the rose garden for the use and pleasure of the citizens of and visitors to the District of Motueka.

Pethybridge Rose Garden entrance off High Street Motueka. Ken Wright Photo

The 2,023 m³ residential section was purchased in January 1963 from Mrs Harriet Gordon.  After the purchase, Charles Pethybridge organised the development of the gardens² for the pleasure of the citizens and visitors to Motueka.  On 5 October 1988 the Rose Garden was transferred from the Wills Company to the Motueka Borough Council.  It was further transmitted to Tasman District Council on 13 July 1995.³

Pethybridge Rose Garden memorial plinth. Ken Wright Photo

Charles Edward Pethybridge was born in Kilburnie Wellington, on 21 January 1901.⁴ He was the eldest of five children.  His education was at Kilburnie and Johnsonville schools and he took the Commercial Option at the Wellington Technical College.  In October 1914, he joined the shipping department of W.D & H.O Wills in Wellington, where he worked for eight years.⁵  He initially joined the company, earning 17 shillings and 6 pence a week, by playing truant from school.  He had completed two weeks service, before his parents realised that he was not going to school.⁶  When he first joined the company they employed 14 staff and were involved in manufacturing and packaging.  The Wills parent company originated in Great Britain, however in April 1919, W.D & H.O Wills (New Zealand) Ltd was formally registered.⁷

In 1922 Pethybridge transferred to Christchurch.  He was branch manager at Timaru and advertising manager in Christchurch.  He married his first wife, Marjorie Eileen Mounsey of Riccarton, on 5 June 1929 in Christchurch.⁸  Marjorie passed away on 17 July 1935 in St Albans Christchurch, aged 28 years.⁹

He remarried Lillian Doris Hanham of Riccarton, at Christchurch on the 20 April 1938.  Lillian was a very talented professional soprano¹⁰ and often sang in local concerts and on the radio.  During World War II Charles served in the Shirley Home Guard, as the Company Commander.¹¹

In 1946 Pethybridge came to Motueka to open the branch of W.D & H.O Wills.  Charles and Lillian lived initially on the corner of Tudor and High Streets.  In 1951 they had a large home built on a double section, at 3 Jocelyn Avenue.  This house was designed for Charles by Wellington architects Gordon H Burt Ltd..¹²  Bishop Peter Sutton described this big home as "a gracious centre of hospitality".¹²  Lillian continued her involvement in singing and drama and many entertaining gatherings were hosted at their home in Jocelyn Avenue.¹⁴

The Pethybridge home, built 1951 at 3 Jocelyn Avenue Motueka. Ken Wright Photo

Charles was not only respected for his services to the tobacco growers, but was also active and respected in the community.  He was a very modest and humble man, who knew how to give generously without the slightest touch of patronage.  He was a foundation member and house manager of the Whakarewa Trust and was active in a number of other charitable organisations.  Charles and Lillian became second parents to a number of Motueka youngsters during the 1940s to 1960s, and all remember him fondly.  At the time of his death he was still corresponding frequently with many of the young men who passed through Whakarewa Home.  He took an interest in their businesses and their families and was often invited to weddings and family occasions.¹⁵

He was a foundation member of the Motueka Rotary and, between 1947 and 1982, he played a prominent part in the organisation of the club.  He was club president from 1953 to 1954 and, after that, served on almost every Rotary committee.  Four years after Charles' death the Rotary organised a Pethybridge Youth Trust Fund to assist with travel for young Motueka people to go overseas on youth exchanges and assist families hosting, overseas students coming to Motueka.  This was funded by W.D & H.O Wills and Rotary fund raising events.¹⁶

In their retirement, the Pethybridges' remained in their home at 3 Jocelyn Avenue, as they had both grown fond of Motueka.  Retirement was a new chapter of service to others.  He was active on the Whakarewa committee, in the Anglican church and in Rotary.  Lillian predeceased Charles, on 14 December 1972.¹⁷  In the New Year’s Honours of 1981 he was awarded a QSM for community service.¹⁸ Charles died on 19 February 1982.¹⁹ Lillian and Charles were both given funeral services at St Thomas Anglican Church in Motueka, and were then buried at the Marsden Valley Cemetery Nelson.²⁰ Appropriately their ashes are interred together, in the "Rose Bushes" area.

There is also a Pethybridge Street in Motueka, off Thorpe and Greenwood Streets.  Pethybridge Street is named after Charles Edward Pethybridge QSM.²¹

2016

Public pressure and commonsense saved Nelson Haven

A large part of Nelson Haven might have been ‘a place of sprawling ribbon development’ on reclaimed land at Wakapuaka, if a group of Nelson people hadn’t fought the Nelson City Council in the 1970s.¹

Nelson Haven Mudflats at low tide. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

The ecological and economic values of estuaries, like Nelson Haven, were only just being understood and it had only been a few years since they were recognised as crucial spawning and fishing grounds for many commercial inshore fish species.² Environmental lobby groups were almost unknown at this time,³ but the industrial growth of the post-war economy had begun to put pressure on the environment.⁴ From about 1970, environmental groups around the world began to confront the issues of pollution and the negative impact of industrial development.

Reclamation in Nelson Haven. (1885) Note Trafalgar Park at Maitai River mouth. Nelson Provincial Museum, Misc 1/2 47

 In the mid 1970s, largely untreated effluent poured into Tasman Bay. This included waste from the Stoke and Richmond sewage outfalls, the Apple and Pear Board’s cannery, Nelson Freezing Works, Nelson Pine’s chip mill and two piggeries.  An estimated 14 million litres per day was pouring into the Waimea Estuary in 1976.⁵

Nelson Haven is the estuary of the Maitai River and is  largely enclosed by the 13 km Boulder Bank. The tidal land (about 17,280 h) from Glenduan (The Glen) to Ruby Bay was vested in the Nelson Harbour Board for more than 150 years and the development of the Port encroached on hundreds of hectares over the years.⁶

Nelson City Council Planning map showing reclamation proposal, 1969

In 1967, the Nelson City Empowering Act  saw some of this land handed over to the Nelson City Council. The  Council developed a plan to infill 710 hectares of the remaining 1600 hectares of the Haven’s tidal flats  providing housing for 18,000 people, as well as industrial development.⁷  (include Figure 2, p7 if you can) The scheme to develop a marina-type residential area aimed to meet Nelson’s pressing need for more land to house its growing population.⁸

It wasn’t until Truth newspaper published a contentious article in September 1972 about the murky dealings, between some members of the Nelson City Council and a development consortium regarding the infilling of the Haven for housing, that public opposition began to grow.  There were angry letters to the Nelson Evening Mail⁹ and the Wakapuaka Residents Association voted unanimously to oppose the reclamation.¹⁰

On July 9 1973, more than 400 people crowded into the Nelson School of Music for a public meeting to learn about the campaign to save the Nelson Tidal Flats.¹¹ A resolution was signed at this meeting asking that (at least) the area north of Cemetery Point (by Brooklands Road) was declared a reserve under The Reserves and Domains Act 1957.¹²

Notice for Nelson Haven protest meeting, Nelson Evening Mail, 7 July 1973

Next day, July 10, the editorial in the Nelson Evening Mail described a sudden turn around by Mayor, Roy McLellan, who surprised those at the public meeting when he indicated his support for the resolution and announced that the development would not proceed.  The editorial went on to say that several official reports had urged caution as little was known about the effects of the proposals on the ecology of the Haven and wider Tasman Bay.  It was also noted that Council membership and public attitudes had changed since the scheme was first mooted in 1967.¹³ Mr McLennan’s Wikipedia entry notes that he didn’t have Council support at the time and it took some time for the matter to be finally resolved in the objectors’ favour.¹⁴

Through the 1970s and into the 1980s, the Harbour Board continued to pursue its development plans, reclaiming nearly 15 hectares at the mouth of the Maitai River for a boat harbour and dredging dump - this work was completed in 1984. In 1986, Nelson’s Cawthron Institute published a report recommending that any future reclamations be of sub-tidal, rather than inter-tidal areas.¹⁵

Natural infilling caused by sedimentation (accelerated by clearing bush from the hills to the east of the Haven) has been a long continuing process at the northern head of the Haven, with the area of the Haven reduced by about 1400 h. Between Nelson City and Port Nelson, about 100 h of the Haven has been reclaimed by man-made hard and hydraulic fill.¹⁶

The Friends of Nelson Haven were not able to stop reclamations, but were successful in greatly limiting them.¹⁷ When the society began in 1973, there were minimal controls on the infilling of estuaries and the coastal discharge of effluent. While the environmental regime today is very different, it is thanks to groups like the Friends of Nelson Haven that large parts of the Haven and  Waimea Inlet are undeveloped and retain a large part of their natural character.¹⁸ 

The Friends group became involved in a wide range of issues around threats to water quality and threats of infilling and the loss of estuarine habitat.¹⁹ The group continues to make submissions on a variety of environmental issues throughout the top of the South Island.²⁰

2017

Two scientists learn their Ps and Qs

In the last quarter of the 19^th Century and the first quarter of the 20^th Century, Havelock School was involved in the early education of two stellar minds, who were both involved in far-reaching scientific discoveries in their fields:  Ernest Rutherford and William Pickering.

Havelock School. The 1861 building, now the Rutherford Youth Hostel

Havelock was a goldrush town established as a service centre after the discovery of gold in the Wakamarina Valley in 1864. By the 1870s, thousands of metres of timber were being shipped out of the port, with 22 vessels reported laying off nearby Cullen Point in 1877.

During the years the young Ernest and William roamed the countryside and learned the basics at Havelock School, the settlement of Havelock was beginning to grow and even saw a visit from His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales in 1920.¹

Ernest Rutherford’s early school days
Ernest Rutherford was born at Spring Grove in rural Nelson on 30 August 1871. He was the fourth child of 12, born to James Rutherford and Martha, who had been the schoolteacher at Spring Grove.²

Collie, W :[Rutherford family group at Havelock], [1880-86?], Alexander Turnbull Library, PAColl-0091-2-001.: Alice, Mary Thompson (cousin), Arthur (in front), Ernest (behind), Eve(in front in white), James (in chair) Nell (standing), Ethel (in front in white), Flo (in chair), George (immediately behind), Herbert (at rear), Martha (standing side on), Charles & Jim.

Earning enough to feed the large family was a struggle for James.  In 1882 when Ernest was 11, the family moved to Havelock where James ran a flaxmill at Ruapaka. In 1885, he turned to sawmilling, manufacturing railway sleepers for the Government.³ The young Ernest helped out at his father’s flax and saw mills.⁴

The close-knit family forged a good life with few amenities in the isolated and rugged landscape and Martha ensured that all her children were well prepared for school, with all receiving good educations.⁵

In the years Ernest attended Havelock School, there was one teacher, two ‘pupil teachers’ and 100 students.⁶ When awarded the Nobel Prize in 1908, Dr Rutherford wrote to his former principal Jacob Reynolds thanking him for initiating him ‘into the mysteries of Latin, algebra and Euclid in my youthful days at Havelock, of which I still have a very keen remembrance.”⁷

Ernest distinguished himself at school, coming top in his class in every subject in his final year. But as the family was not wealthy, a scholarship was one of the few options for him to continue his education.⁸

A Nelson College school photograph from 1887 in front of the first school, later destroyed by fire. Scholarship pupil, Ernest Rutherford is pictured in this photograph, ninth from the left in the third from the front row. Nelson College: Images of an Era.

In 1886, when Ernest was 15, tragedy struck. Two of Ernest’s brothers, Herbert and Charles, drowned in the Marlborough Sounds on a fishing adventure. Apparently Ernest was supposed to be on the trip but was running an errand. This tragic accident overshadowed his winning a scholarship to attend Nelson College, which he achieved with high marks on his second attempt. ⁹

Ernest Rutherford left New Zealand in 1895 as a highly skilled 23-year-old, who held three degrees from the University of New Zealand and had a reputation as an outstanding researcher and innovator working at the forefront of electrical technology. In 1908, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for investigations into the disintegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances.

Sir Ernest Rutherford [Herbert photograph studios], Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/2-050243-F http://mp.natlib.govt.nz/ detail/?id=7208 Click image to enlarge

Baron Rutherford of Nelson, as he was eventually known, became the father of nuclear physics. He took up the role of director of Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory in 1919. He was still at the Cavendish when he died of a strangulated hernia, aged 66 in 1937. His ashes are buried in Westminster Abbey in London.¹⁰

The late New Zealand physicist, Sir Paul Callaghan said Lord Rutherford’s work laid the foundation of modern understandings of chemistry and physics. “He is our greatest scientist and one of the greatest scientists who ever lived,” he said.¹

William Pickering’s early school days
William Pickering’s grandfather showed some zest for exploring new frontiers.   In 1885, William Pickering, senior, made history by being the first person to take a four horse team between Blenheim and Nelson.¹² 

William Pickering. NASA

William Hayward Pickering was born in Wellington in 1910. His mother died when he was six and when his father, Albert, took up a Government post as a pharmacist in Samoa, Will was sent to live with his grandparents William and Kate in Havelock.¹³

He soon made an impression at  Havelock Primary School. Well-behaved, quick to learn, curious and equipped with a naturally retentive memory. He liked to pretend to be a teacher at home while his amused grandparents played his classmates.¹⁴

Will excelled at school, particularly in science and arithmetic. His scholastic ability was such that he learned algebra and Latin as well as the regular curriculum of English, composition, history and geography. He won a scholarship to Wellington College where he excelled in maths and science and discovered an intense interest in the (then) new techniques of amateur radio communication.¹⁵

In 1929, William arrived at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where he studied electrical engineering. By the 1930s, there was an impressive array of scientific talent at Caltech, which was visited by Albert Einstein three times in the first half of that decade.¹⁶

Dr. William H. Pickering, (center) JPL Director, presenting Mariner spacecraft model to President John F. Kennedy, (right). NASA Administrator James Webb is standing directly behind the Mariner model.

A seminal figure of the Space Age, William Pickering was internationally known for his significant contributions to the founding of the age, and for the first robotic explorations of the Moon, Venus and Mars.¹⁷  He met U.S president Lyndon Johnson in 1964¹⁸ and was pictured on the cover of Time magazine in 1963.¹⁹

While unable to attend the centennial of his old primary school in 1986, William wrote: “I have very fond memories of my school days in Havelock. In this busy world in which I find myself today, the relaxed life in a little country town in New Zealand seems an impossible distance in the past…..I also remember that in school we learned the discipline of intellectual work.” ²⁰

Sir William returned to Havelock  in 2003 to unveil the memorial in honour of himself and fellow Havelock School alumni, Lord Ernest Rutherford. In that year, he was awarded New Zealand’s highest civic honor, the Order of New Zealand.²¹

When he died in March 2004, aged 93, a NASA spokesman said: ”He brought a vision and a passion to space exploration that was remarkable. His pioneering work is the very foundation we have built upon to explore our solar system and beyond.” ²²

2017

Secondary education for Nelson’s girls took a while

While Nelson’s pioneering fathers (and no doubt mothers) supported the idea of college education for girls, it was to be 27 years after Nelson College was opened in 1856, that the district's girls got their own college.

View of the Nelson College for Girls building. Ernest Wilson. Nelson Provincial Museum 178320

In the early 1870s, the women of the Richmond Atkinson extended family felt strongly about higher education for girls and pressured Nelson College’s governors, who said they had ‘long and ardently entertained a wish…to erect a high school for girls in the province’, but in the end they found the project was ’neither prudent nor legal’.¹

For many years, Nelson College’s Board of Governors maintained there wasn’t enough money to set up a girls’ college without endangering the welfare of the Boys’ College.  Parents of girls in the province made private arrangements or sent their daughters to St Mary’s High School, started by Father Garin, or the privately run Rosebank boarding school.²

St Marys - Select Girls school. View of a large group of girls outside a  two storey building, thought to be St Mary's Orphanage in Manuka Street. 178768. Nelson Provincial Museum

Under her pen name, Femmina, Mary Ann Muller wrote to the Nelson Examiner in May 1871 of her hopes that one day Nelson would ‘enjoy the state of society in which woman’s ‘proper sphere’ shall be simply the very highest that her intellect and energy can attain…..Liberty of choice in the plan of her life will be conceded to her, and Nelson men will be among the first to abandon a ‘protective duty’.   It was to be another 12 years before Mrs Muller’s dream began to become a reality.³

Mary Ann Muller and her grandson, The Nelson Provincial Museum, Print Collection, 299160

In January 1872, The Colonist wrote that the Trust Fund of Nelson province was supposed to promote education for the whole community ‘without distinction of class or sex’. The Colonist proposed that the sum of £3000 should be used to establish a girls college.⁴

In February of the next year, the Nelson Examiner and NZ Chronicle said: “ We venture to hope, that while the College Governors shrink from the entire risk of launching the proposed school, they may well consent to render it some help if undertaken by others. By so doing they will indirectly subserve the interests of the present College; for   unless female education be adequately provided  for here, it is not to be expected that families not absolutely bound to Nelson, and of which there are daughters, will send their boys to our College when they find a superior education provided  for both sexes in adjacent provinces.⁵

A search of Papers Past shows that while there was some debate in local newspapers throughout 1871 until early 1872, discussion on the issue of higher education for girls seems to have completely died out through the rest of the decade and into the ‘80s.

In September 1882, work began on a wooden building to house about 150 girls and 40-50 boarders and staff , with the school unfinished by the time it opened in January 1883.⁶ In an era when English universities were reluctant to take women students, Nelson was very fortunate to gain Kate Edger as the college’s first principal. She was the second woman in the British Empire to gain a Masters degree. Kate and her sister Lillian had been teaching at Christchurch Girls High School before coming to Nelson.⁷

Kate Edger at Nelson College for Girls 1889, The Nelson Provincial Museum, Tyree Studio Collection, part 179045/3

On 4 February 1883, two days after the school opened, Lillian, who was the second mistress at the new college, wrote to another sister:

Dearest Eva,
You see we are safely in our new home, though amid a good deal of confusion. The architect told us again and again that we couldn't get in, but we declared we would and so we did. On Monday the furniture began to come up, and the carts came more and more frequently every day till it became quite ridiculous and the people in the town all remarked on it! There were only four little bedrooms that the workmen were out of, so the furniture had to be put anywhere. There were two other rooms ready, but we wanted hot water upstairs, so they had to be upset again.
On Tuesday we had the desks up, the schoolroom was full of timber and all sorts of things, but when the desks came of course the room had to be cleared.
On Wednesday afternoon we brought our own things, and all came to sleep here. We just managed to get into our rooms….⁸

Nelson College for Girls 1889. Original photo is from the Tyree Collection, Nelson Provincial Museum, 181886/3.

There was no formal opening and when the first contingent of girls arrived they found a large unfinished building surrounded by piles of timber and bricks set in a rough paddock. However 68 girls enrolled on the first day and by December the College had a roll of 118 pupils - compared to 102 at the boys’ college.⁹

The college aimed to provide a broadly based education for girls at a time when education for women was controversial.¹⁰ An early alumni was Constance Barnicoat, daughter of early settler John Barnicoat. Constance attended the college in 1888 and 1889¹¹ and went on to become a foreign correspondent during World War 1, an interpreter, mountaineer and traveller.

The 1880s and early 1890s were a time of economic depression in New Zealand  and were a difficult time to establish a new school which was dependent on fees. By the end of 1888, the school only had 67 pupils.  This saw staff salary cuts and a reduction in staff numbers, however by the end of the century the roll had risen again to 90 pupils.¹²

Things were looking brighter for Nelson College for Girls, but it was still a product of its time. Miss Beatrice Gibson, principal from 1890-1900 wrote: In 1889 “the time had come when educationalists realised that it was not enough to give girls an education quite identical to that given to boys.  It was the life of the woman for which it must prepare; and this was just the stage in the College history when we were trying to bring this ideal into effect; mindful that all sides, the physical, the mental, the spiritual, and all womanly qualities needed guiding.”¹³

 2017

Life was pleasant for the local school master of Tannadice in the quiet countryside around Forfarshire, Scotland in 1840. William Moore and his wife Isobel lived in a two storeyed white washed school house beside the river Esk. Next door was the school where William, the sole charge teacher, was known as Dominie to his pupils. William was also a published poet and his poem The Burning of Kildrummy Castle was taught in schools throughout Scotland at the time. His patron was Lady Mary Ogilvy of Tannadice House, thought to be a relative of William's wife.

Nature and Grace, poems by William Moore. This edition published Marlborough Express Newspaper Co.,1961

William and Isobel had a three year old daughter, Mary Ogilvy Moore and were expecting another baby when along with Mary's older son, Peter Fyffe, the family boarded the Fifeshire. This was to be the first settler ship to arrive in the new colony of Nelson, New Zealand. By the time they disembarked at Nelson on February 1st 1842, the Moores had a newborn son. His name was Walter and his life would be one of adventure, hardship and a violent ending.

The family began life in barracks on the hill where the Cathedral was later built, but soon moved to a cottage in Collingwood Street. A few weeks later a Requisition¹ from eighty immigrants in the town petitioned William to open Nelson's first public school, to be funded by subscription. It opened on September 12th, 1842 and was managed by a Committee of Captain Wakefield, Captain England, Captain Wilson, Dr. MacShane and Messrs. Tuckett, Anderson, Richardson, King, Spence, Barton, McDonald, Domett, Tytler, Jolie, Brown, Cockburn, James and Cautley, some of the key gentlemen of the New Zealand Company.² 

William began teaching the children of Nelson, described at the time as running wild in the bush for want of an education, in the one-room school built on Town Acre 208, at the Eel Pond, now Queen's Gardens. The success of this school came to an abrupt end the following year when several of the principal men of the New Zealand Company, who were also involved in the school,  met their deaths at the Wairau in conflict with Maori over the survey of land. Without these men of influence and financial security, William Moore's school was forced to close.

Portrait of Matthew Campbell, The Nelson Provincial Museum, Tyree Studio Collection, 69466/3

Mathew Campbell and others opened a new school on February 21st, 1844 under the Nelson School Society. William Moore continued teaching under this governing body whilst publishing his poetry in various newspapers, sometimes under his own name and sometimes under his pen name “Sawny”.

William and Isobel moved to Section 145, Waimea West. An early survey map shows the section owner as Ogilvie/Ogilvy suggesting it may have been purchased for the family by Lady Mary or another member of the family. It is known that she sent out bolts of fine Scottish cloth for the family during these early years of colonial hardship.

A culture of cooperation existed between the early families who had endured those early days of settlement in Nelson and the Moores, Cotterells and Kerrs remained closely connected in Waimea West. When the Nelson School Society opened a school there on January 1st, 1846, William was appointed the first teacher. The community celebrated the opening with a tea party prepared by Mrs Moore and Mrs Morris and attended by Captain Blundell.

By 1848 it was found necessary to open a school for the settlers of Riwaka and William was asked to take on the role of first teacher there. Leaving their property at Waimea West in the hands of Isobel's son Peter, now aged eighteen, William and Isobel moved to Riwaka, but sadly this was to be her last home. Isobel died two years later on September 9th, 1851. Peter Fyffe and his younger half brother, Walter Moore, continued as farm labourers in the Waimea district on their father's land and, in February 1859, a notice of the dissolution of the partnership between William Moore and Peter Fyffe was witnessed by William Bell and J. Palmer.³ This may have been because Peter had purchased a property of his own. In the same year, William and Isobel's daughter Mary Ogilvy Moore and her husband Edward Solly left Waimea West with their first two children and took up land in Takaka, where the show grounds are today. Here Edward and Mary Solly grew hops and had another ten children. Their thirteenth child born in 1882 died as a very young baby and was buried on the property.

Riwaka School. Nelson Provincial Museum, Tyree Studio Collection: 179229

Soon after his daughter moved to Golden Bay, William Moore, now a widower, was asked to open a school at Renwick in the Wairau Valley of Marlborough. The school opened in January 1861. Conflict over land once again saw relations between Maori and European deteriorate in the North Island and the settlers of Nelson Province became concerned that the conflict might come south. Several Volunteers Corps were formed and Peter Fyffe joined the No 8 Company, Waimea West. Nothing further is known of Peter except that he farmed in the Motupiko district and died in Nelson in November 1880.

In 1865 Walter Moore, William's half brother, and also a Volunteer, travelled north eventually joining the colonial troops stationed at Ōpōtiki following several Pai Mārire (Hauhau) ‘disturbances’ in the Bay of Plenty in 1865. Some time after these events, when things appeared more peaceful, the military settlers were placed upon land still disputed by Maori. A large majority sold their claims to speculators or to intending settlers, willing to brave the dangers of occupation, provided they could get cheap land. Among those who bought in this way were four settlers Messrs. Livingstone, Beggs, Wilkinson and Walter Moore. In May 1867, Wilkinson and Livingston had built a house on their property near the entrance to the Waioeka gorge. Walter Moore and Beggs, who owned the adjoining property, lived in the same house, on the principle of there being safety in numbers. On the 23rd May, 1867, they were confined to their house by heavy rain and engaged in a game of cribbage when they failed to notice the barking of their dog. The barking continued and Walter Moore got up and looked out of the window. Wilkinson suggested that they were friendly Whakatoheas hunting for their horses but when Walter took a second look, about forty Maori were beginning to silently surround the house. The Maori were in fact Hauhau and well armed. Walter and his friends had rifles but only one of the rifles was loaded. They ran out the back door to hear the kokiritia (charge) sounded. They made for the steep fern-ridge, trying to gain the shelter of the bush, but had just reached the edge of the forest when the Hauhau caught up with them.

The prophet Te Ua Haumēne, about 1866. From James Cowan: The New Zealand Wars

Walter Moore, who had the loaded rifle and was running last, turned to level his rifle at the nearest Hauhau. Unfortunately the solitary charge, on which so much depended, failed to explode and Walter was cut down by the pursuing Maori. This gave his comrades the opportunity to reach the shelter of the bush. From their accounts it seems Walter reversed his rifle, and presented the butt to his foes as a token of submission but was immediately shot. Wilkinson and Livingstone escaped down a steep gully but Beggs was overtaken and tomahawked. The bodies of Moore and Beggs were not discovered until some time after and it was evident they had been treated with fearful barbarity.⁴ 

Upper Wairau Cemetery

It is doubtful his sister, Mary Solly in Golden Bay, heard of his death for some time but she named one of her sons Walter Solly in memory of her brother. Walter Moore's father William, in Marlborough, expressed his grief in poems written on the death of his only son. He did find happiness once again when he married widow Sarah Burrell and, as his teaching career came to a close, he was invited by the Newman family of Cowslip Valley, South of Renwick, to be private tutor to their large family. A comfortable cottage was built for William and Sarah on the farm near the Newman's large home and upon his death, William was buried in the Newman plot at Upper Wairau as a much loved member of the family.

With travel difficult and with many children to look after in Golden Bay, it may be that Mary Solly never saw her father in his latter years, but she carried his legacy in her love of books. Indeed before his death at the hands of the Hauhau, her late brother Walter had been studying mathematics. Their father's role as one of Nelson and Marlborough's earliest educators has been largely overlooked in histories of the area although Judge Lowther Broad recorded the important part William played in establishing Nelson first schools when he wrote the Jubilee history of Nelson.

Contributed by Jane Sparrow McDonald, granddaughter of Walter Solly, great granddaughter of Mary Ogilvy Solly nee Moore and great great granddaughter of William and Isobel Moore.

Henry Redwood and early settlement

The Redwood family is remembered through place names in Nelson, Marlborough, and throughout New Zealand.

It all began with Henry Redwood and his wife Mary (Gilbert), who sailed to New Zealand, both aged 48, on the George Fyfe with their children¹, arriving in Nelson in December 1842. The Redwoods had been tenant farmers on the Clifford estate in Staffordshire for several generations.² Sir Charles Clifford  also immigrated to NZ on the George Fyfe and settled in Marlborough.³

Henry Redwood senior.As grandfather Henry Redwood went the rounds with his horse taking orders for flour to be ground at his little mill, it was his custom to herald his approach by continual and happy singing. New Zealand Free Lance, October 15, 1952. Credit Marlborough Museum Archives.

Redwood, Mrs Mary. Nelson Provincial Museum, 5083

Eldest daughter, Martha, was also on the voyage with her new husband, Joseph Ward and was very unwell for much of the voyage. Joseph wrote of the conditions during the voyage: “Bad living, bad health- very bad tempers……Talk of suffering.” ⁴ Martha and Joseph, who was a surveyor, were to have 12 children. Joseph went on to become a prominent member of Parliament.⁵

On arrival, Henry senior erected a large 60 foot long tent divided into compartments for his family of four daughters and four sons. Soon after arriving in Nelson, on the George Fyfe on 2 January 1843, Fanny Dillon gave birth to her first child with a kindly neighbouring tent dweller, Mrs Redwood, assisting the ship's surgeon.⁶

The Redwoods spent the first six months of life under canvas at their Waimea West section while their two story mud cob home, Stafford Place, was built. It was replaced by a two story wooden house two years later.⁷  They were soon supplying the Nelson market with beef, mutton and butter. Henry established a butchery on his Town Acre (no. 167) on the south-east corner of Trafalgar and Bridge Streets, which was run by his eldest son Henry from 1845-1847.⁸

In January 1845, the family provided a grand social event: a triple wedding was held with Mary Redwood marrying a solicitor, Joseph Greaves, Henry Jnr marrying a widow, Elizabeth Reeves, and Elizabeth Redwood marrying Edward Bolton.⁹

Henry Redwood jnr and his father shared an interest in horses and in 1849, a new house Hednesford, was built for him on the family property- where it still stands today. Father and son imported a large number of thoroughbred racehorses from England and Australia and the Redwood Stables  were built alongside Henry jnr's house made with bricks from their own kiln.  The bricks and heritage listed floor, have been reconstructed into the Stables Tavern and Restaurant in Richmond.¹⁰

Sarah Greenwood 1809 -1899. Stafford Place, House of Mr Redwood, 1850. Pencil drawing. Nelson Provincial Museum, Bett Loan Collection: AC334

In the 1850s, when youngest son Francis came home from studying at Father Antoine Garin’s seminary to help on the farm, he noted: “The early years are crammed with the practical details of farming; the chopping of stakes, planting potatoes, the bulling of heifers, the slaughtering of sheep and pigs, the pupping of bitches, the castrating ("cutting") of male calves, milking cows in the rain, building a malthouse, making bricks, brewing beer, getting a boat (tub) across the river with ropes and pulley, and getting in the harvest. Tall, golden grain…I did my share, half an acre a day.” ¹¹

Religion played a major role in the Redwood story.  It is reported that Henry and Mary separately converted to Catholicism and that their religion and a lack of land may have played a large part in their decision to emigrate to New Zealand.¹²  Henry senior nearly went to Tasmania when he found  there were no regular masses celebrated in Nelson.¹³ Nelson’s first Catholic Mass was said at the Redwoods’ home on  May 5 1844.¹⁴

While the family prospered in Nelson, they also saw opportunities over the hill in the Wairau.  Henry was granted a depasturage licence for The Bluffs Run on Marlborough’s East Coast and son Thomas Redwood established a homestead near the Vernon Lagoons. Another son, Charles established himself on a property at Riverlands in Marlborough, where his mother Mary died in 1879.¹⁵

When Henry died aged 79 in 1873, his obituary described him as man  of great vigour ‘both of body and mind’,  who had devoted 30 years in New Zealand to agricultural and pastoral pursuits, adding value and acreage to his land. “He who had been a tenant-farmer in England under the family of the Clifford Constables, found himself ‘seized’…of a greater number of acres of land than were owned in England by the wealthy squires to whom he used to pay rent.” ¹⁶

Father of  New Zealand Turf - Henry Junior

Mr. Henry Redwood, Junior. Nelson Provincial Museum 67901

Henry junior was 19 when the family arrived in New Zealand.  His interest and dedication to breeding thoroughbred racehorses became legendary. In 1853-4, he imported 20 thoroughbred mares and seven stallions.¹⁷ The Redwood Stables were built in 1851 and land at Rabbit Island was used for training horses.

Henry Redwood junior imported a number of thoroughbred horses from Australia in 1852, including a chestnut, Zoe, who won numerous races in Nelson and the Wairau. In 1858, Henry sent Zoe to Australia, where she won two prestigious races. Sydney's leading horse painter, Joseph Fowles was commissioned to paint her portrait. Credit Marlborough Museum Archives. Caption by Jane Vial.

Henry Jr. became interested in the potential of the Wairau Plains for grain crops and moved to a property in Spring Creek in 1865. As well as establishing a flour mill there, he increased his reputation as a breeder and trainer of  bloodstock, becoming known as the “Father of the New Zealand Turf”.¹⁸  The Examiner noted in 1866, "Mr Redwood's stud is outstanding. No gentleman has a finer lot of brood mares south of the Line…... He has as valuable a stud as could be found in any British colony."¹⁹

A Son for the Church - Francis Redwood

Francis Redwood was to become New Zealand’s first homegrown Catholic archbishop. When Father Antoine Garin came to Nelson in 1850 he saw Francis's potential.  In December 1854, after expressing a strong desire to be a priest, he was sent to France for further education. He studied and taught in France and Ireland and didn’t return to New Zealand for another 20 years.²⁰

Redwood, Archbishop, right. Nelson Provincial Museum, 61228

Francis became Archbishop of Wellington in 1874 and  New Zealand’s senior bishop in 1895.  In 1924, tens of  thousands of Wellingtonians came out to see the pomp and ceremony of   the jubilee celebrations  of New Zealand, and the world’s longest serving Catholic bishop.

"Never before has Wellington witnessed such a religious procession," The Evening Post said."It provided a unique opportunity of witnessing a Catholic religious pageant in all its majesty and solemn glory. Along the whole route every vantage point was occupied, and the many colours reflecting the bright rays of the brilliant sunshine made up a radiant sight, which was wonderful to behold."²¹

Archbishop Redwood was popular among Catholics and non-Catholics alike for the stately way he conducted himself and by his balanced views and his eloquence both in the pulpit and on the platform. When he died on 3 January 1935 his life had spanned the Catholic Church’s  transition from a missionary church to an established institution in New Zealand.²²

Thomas and Charles Redwood

Eventually Charles and Thomas ended up living in the Wairau. Nelle Scanlan remembered the early Blenheim Catholic Parish in ‘the beautiful old church…The Tom Redwoods were on the right and the Charlie Redwoods on the left.” ²³

Redwood, Mrs Charles. Nelson Provincial Museum, 5086

Thomas drove 2000 sheep from Nelson  to the Bluffs’ Run (later known as Vernon) via the Tophouse route.²⁴  He  managed Bankhouse Station and the Vernon Run in the Wairau. Early in the 1870s, he bought “Burleigh” and lived on the estate for twenty-three years. He then farmed “Woodbourne,” an area of 1200 acres, near Renwick, and the Omaka Reserve. He was also secretary to the Marlborough Racing Committee, and owned horses, with which he won many races.²⁵ Blenheim’s Cob Cottagewas possibly built for Charles Redwood.  Having housed members of the Redwood family and a succession of farm labourers, it served as  a local schoolroom from 1906 to 1909.²⁶

A 1912 Marlborough Express obituary for Charles’ wife (no first name noted), Mrs Redwood, describes her as being an ‘ideal hostess’ and said that her ‘unselfishness and usefulness will be missed’ particularly regarding her charitable works for the Catholic Church. She was survived by Charles and 12 out of their 15 children.  The Charles Redwood family moved to Toowoomba Queensland in about 1896.²⁷

2017

Marlborough's East Coast earthquakes

Marlborough’s East Coast is cross hatched with fault lines so the large earthquakes of 2013 and 2016 should not have been surprising, although it is thought the 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake ruptured a record 21 faults.¹ The region sits on a set of major faults:  the Wairau, Awatere, Clarence and Hope faults; and has recorded a number of significant quakes over time.²

Marlborough Fault system by Mikenorton - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10742220

1848

The first European settlers in the Awatere region had just started to make themselves at home when an estimated magnitude 7.1 earthquake woke them at 1.40am on Monday 16 October, 1848. Thomas Arnold was visiting Frederick Weld at Flaxbourne  and reported being woken up as his bed shook violently from side to side.  “….every plank in the house creaked and rattled, the bottles and glasses in the next room kept up a sort of infernal dance…..When the shock was past, there came a few spasmodic heavings like long-drawn breaths, and then all was still,” he wrote to his mother in England.³

Henry Godfrey Gouland, early settler and magistrate. N. Brayshaw. Marlborough Museum and Archives. From his diary: October 16, 1848 - Awoke at 2.30a.m. by the great earthquake. House thrown off piles.

The earthquake lowered the bed of the Wairau Lagoons by 1.5 metres which increased tidal movement of water and provided better boat access into the Wairau and Opawa Rivers.

There has been some disagreement about whether the quake was a rupture of the Awatere or Wairau Fault,⁴ although modern scientists favour the Awatere Fault.⁵ However we do know that the initial 7.1 shake was felt throughout the Awatere and Wairau Valleys and was followed by a long sequence of aftershocks.

Con Dillon’s new house and dairy in the Waihopai Valley were levelled to the ground and Te Rauparaha, who was sleeping at the Wairau Pa (or near Picton), was thrown from bed and sprained his hip. The whalers of Cloudy Bay were so alarmed, they took their women and children across Cook Strait to Wellington, which was also badly affected by the quake.⁶ Nelson’s resident magistrate, Major Mathew Richmond , noted in November 1848, that ‘a crack quite straight crossed the country for miles'; in some places he had difficulty crossing it with his horse; in another, the crack passed through an old warre [whare] dividing it in two pieces standing four feet apart.⁷

1855

But worse was to come. At 9.17 pm on 23 January, 1855, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake triggered by the Wairarapa Fault struck.⁸ Early Kekerengu  pioneer, Frederick Trolove described shocks continuing through the night until ‘a most awful shock the imagination could conceive forced us once more out of the house in the greatest confusion and alarm’.⁹

Kekerengu pioneer, Frederick Trolove and his sons Peter and Willie. Frederick described the 1855 earthquake in which he lost his first home. Marlborough Museum & Archives

Trolove recorded that 16 houses, all built that summer at Flaxbourne, were either flattened or beyond repair.¹⁰ From the woolshed, he watched the house he had built tottering with every shock. Next morning, he woke to see his ‘neat New Zealand cottage with a garden full of veges ruined beyond repair.”¹¹  It is interesting to note that Trolove descendents still live in the same area and were impacted by the November 2016 earthquake.¹²

Aftershocks continued throughout February, March and April. Alexander Mowat and his family fled their house at Altimarloch in the Awatere Valley. Their house was so badly damaged, that they had to live in a tent while it was repaired.  In the lower Wairau Valley, the Redwood family were living in the woolshed.¹³ The January quake saw the seaward end of the Wairau Valley subside by more than a metre.¹⁴ William Budge and other settlers on flat land in the lower Wairau Valley had to move to higher ground to avoid being flooded.¹⁵

1966

Seddon lies south of the Awatere Fault and is built on silts and coarse gravels overlaying mudstone.¹⁶ On 23 April, 1966, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake centred 35 kilometres from Seddon in the Cook Strait caused damage in the township and minor damage in Blenheim and Wellington.

John Bargh surveys the chaos in his Seddon grocery store after the 6.1 earthquake centred in Cook Strait, 35 kilometres from Seddon on 23 April, 1966. Fairfax NZ.

Practically every chimney in Seddon came down and there was considerable household damage.  At the Cape Campbell lighthouse, a guide roller to the 2.5 ton prism was sheared off, hit the prism and bounced through a window. By the end of April, 41 shocks in the Seddon sequence had been recorded.¹⁷

2013

The Seddon/Flaxbourne area was once again a centre of seismic activity in 2013.  A quake struck on 21 July,  centred about 20km east of Seddon, measuring magnitude 6.5 at a depth of 17kms. It caused minor damage in the region, with more significant impact in Wellington, but was followed by a series of aftershocks.  On 16 August a second quake hit. This is now known as the Lake Grassmere earthquake, and measured 6.6, with an epicentre 10km south east of Seddon.¹⁸

The chimney fell through the ceiling of the Heritage 2 listed Ugbrooke Homestead in the Awatere Valley as a result of the 2013 Lake Grassmere earthquake. Owner Alex Stowasser sits amidst the rubble. The property continues to operate as boutique accommodation. Fairfax NZ

State Highway 1 between Riverlands and north of Kekerengu was closed and businesses and houses in the region were badly damaged.¹⁹  Salt production at Lake Grassmere's saltworks was stopped for four days as they had no water or electricity due to the earthquake.²⁰

The Marlborough District Council instigated its emergency management plan when there were fears that the Haldon dam  in the headwaters of Starborough Creek above Seddon might be breached.²¹

2016

On November 14, 2016 residents in Kaikoura, Marlborough and Wellington were jolted awake just after midnight by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake which, GNS scientists say caused a record 21 faults to rupture.²² Thousands of aftershocks were recorded after the initial twin earthquakes which appeared to start just northeast of Culverden on the Kekerengu Fault, before rupturing the newly discovered Waipapa Bay Fault, the Hundalee Fault, and ending its massive vibration at the western end of the 230km-long Hope Fault, which connects to the South Island's main Alpine Fault.²³

The 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake shook Marlborough, Wellington and Canterbury. Photographed in North Canterbury by University of Canterbury geologist Dr Kate Pedley. Fairfax/ Pedley.

Data, including satellite radar imagery, shows that parts of the South Island moved more than five metres closer to the North Island, and that some parts were raised by up to eight metres. GNS scientist Ian Hamling said the land from Kaikoura to Cape Campbell moved north-west by up to six metres.²⁴

There was extensive damage up and down the East Coast.   Homes and businesses were damaged and destroyed, there were fissures and slips on farms and hillsides, roads cracked and twisted and train tracks buckled and broke.²⁵

Railway line flung across State Highway 1 north of Kaikoura by the 7.8 earthquake 2016. Fairfax NZ

About 110 km of  coastline from Oaro to Lake Grassmere was uplifted. Geonet described the uplift as ‘a phenomenal tectonic event…  causing numerous problems for local residents, fishermen, boat operators and coastal users’.²⁶

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake caused nine major slips north of Kaikoura which was cut off for days until the inland Kaikoura Highway and, eventually SH1 south of the town, were reopened.  It was thought it would take at least a year to clear the highway to the north of the town, with the alternative route between Picton and Christchurch via the Wairau Valley and Lewis Pass seeing a large increase in traffic volume.²⁷

Kaikoura’s Takahanga Marae fed and sheltered hundreds of people stranded by the 7.8 earthquake 2016. Fairfax NZ.

Crayfish was on the menu at the Takahanga marae, which fed 900 people on the first night and hosted tourists and locals alike. Other visitors slept in churches or were welcomed into local homes   Defence Force helicopters flew people out of the town.²⁸  Navy vessels, the HMNZS Wellington and the HMNZS Canterbury arrived the next day to bring in supplies and rescue stranded people.²⁹

To the north, Ward was also badly affected, with farms, homes and a crayfish factory badly damaged.³⁰ Three weeks before the Kaikoura earthquake, a premier of the movie Light between the Oceans, which was filmed around Cape Campbell, was held to kick off a fund raising campaign for the Flaxbourne Heritage Centre .  It will feature exhibits about earlier earthquakes, the large Flaxbourne pastoral station, the Cape Campbell lighthouse and the multi-million dollar fishing industry based in the area.  The building where many historical items were stored was badly damaged and has been red-stickered. A group of locals³¹ still hopes to achieve their dream and build a centre which will tell the stories of this historic region.³²

2017

In 1913, Picton was visited by the largest warship that had ever come to New Zealand, the HMS New Zealand.

HMS New Zealand visits Picton. Picton Historical Society

Our country was very proud, as the ship was funded by the New Zealand government as a gift to Britain (our government took out a loan to pay for this). She was launched in 1911, commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1912, and in 1913 was sent on a tour of British Dominions, New Zealand in particular. It was estimated that almost half the population of New Zealand saw the ship, so her arrival in Picton was warmly anticipated. Meetings were held, committees formed, and there was great bustle to ensure that the town upheld its honour. Shops and businesses were decorated with bunting and greenery, and several trains brought sightseers from Blenheim and further south.

HMS New Zealand is welcomed to Picton. Picton Historical Society

Anchored outside Mabel Island, HMS New Zealand was a battlecruiser of the Indefatigable class, 590 feet long. Tenders were used to bring officers and crew ashore and to take the many local visitors out to the ship for tours of inspection. The ‘native chiefs’ D. Love and A. Rore were asked to provide a Maori welcome, and there was a civic reception outside the Post Office, when the Captain was presented with a framed photo of the brand-new Cook Memorial in Ship Cove.

A ball was held in the evening for the officers, and during the day men of the ship took part in shooting, football and hockey matches against the locals. The visitors were diplomatic enough to state that Picton had the best harbour in New Zealand, and that the haka they’d witnessed was the best they’d seen anywhere.

HMS New Zealand Promotion poster. Picton Historical Society

The ship returned to England in time to take part in the First World War, and was active in many major North Sea battles. She survived unharmed through much action, and this was credited by the crew to her Maori gifts of a piupiu (flax skirt) and greenstone hei-tiki, which the Captain would wear during attacks.

There was another world trip in 1919, when she again visited Picton with the same amount of festivity. The ship was sold for scrap in 1922, many items from the battlecruiser being sent to New Zealand. During the Second World War, her 4-inch guns were mounted to protect harbour entrances at Auckland, Wellington and Lyttelton. The captain's piupiu was returned to New Zealand in 2005, and is on display at the Navy Museum in Auckland alongside the ship's bell and other artefacts. The New Zealand Government completed paying off the loan used to fund the ship in the 1944/45 financial year.

Story originally written by Loreen Brehaut for the Seaport Scene Picton paper in 2013

While researching the history of Russell Street, for use on a historical interpretation panel for the Nelson City Council, I met Madge Wilson on 3 April 2017, at her home. This story is written from notes and a recording of our conversation, as we sat in the front window seat that overlooks Haven Road and Port Nelson.

Madge Wilson. Janet Bathgate

“I don’t understand new people moving in here and then a few months later complaining to the local authority about the Port noise. It’s a working Port and always has been. They should have paid more attention before purchasing. I bet the real estate agents keep quiet about it.”

Madge was raised with Port noise, being born at No.52 Russell Street in 1924. Her parents, May and John, bought the house in 1918. The house was first built in 1903, and sat prominently against the skyline at the top of the ridge. Madge had one sister and one brother, and when she was 16 a nephew, John, came to live with them and he was like a young brother to her as well.

No.52 Russell Street, built in 1903. The sign on the front of the home reads Haumoana (home beside the sea).

Back then the road up the hill was a rough dirt road. There were cottages clustered together near the bottom of the hill but the upper slopes were farmland. Local boys and girls played together all over the hills. They would roam over to the western side of Queens Road and look down into the back of the large Nelson Foundry building that was located on Wakefield Quay.

In those days Nelson Haven had not been reclaimed for Port and associated industrial use. The estuary came right up to a sea wall on Haven Road.

“We swam at the bottom of the hill, beside the sea wall opposite Franzen’s ship chandlery; there was an open space for small boats and it was good for a swim. At low tide we got in under Franzen’s¹ and would explore the pools for cockabully’s.”

Back then, boats would be seen anchored in the Haven and sometimes moored right up to the wall. A railway line to the Port ran around beside the road. The Wilson children attended Auckland Point School and later the respective Nelson colleges (Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls).

Looking down Russell Street from the veranda of No.52. Note the sections of the lower Russell Street houses extending right up to Queens Road, at left.

“The boys always looked after us when we were little. When we went to tech to do cooking and sewing in standards five and six, we had bikes by then. The boys would always meet us after cooking so they ate what we had made that day.

When I left school I went to work at Louisson's,²  Nelson premier womens’ wear store, and it was during this time that my friends and I were ‘Manpowered’ for the war effort. We went to Stanley Brook, way up the valley, to work in the tobacco. We worked very hard. The first time I went there was with a larger group of girls and the local M.P.’s wife Dorothy Atmore came and cooked for us until a cook could be arranged. The second time it was just with my friend Betty Henderson and we had to pump water and light a fire at night to do our cooking”.

At the end of World War II Madge went to Auckland to train as a nurse. Unfortunately she contracted tuberculosis (TB) and had many weeks in hospital followed by sick leave at home in Nelson. She was absent from training for so long that her nursing friends had moved on in their studies. Madge worked for a time in Nelson at Louissons before joining her friends on an overseas working holiday. They travelled by ship to England through the Suez Canal.

During her overseas adventure, Madge stayed often with her father’s relatives, in London, Cambridge and various European countries and doing office work that she learned quite quickly. One skill never mastered was shorthand, but by keeping the notebook well slanted towards her, Madge created a ‘long-hand, short-hand’ that got her by.

Russell Street from The Haven. No.52 can be seen prominently on the ridgetop skyline, sitting to the right of Russell Street. FN Jones Collection. Nelson Provincial Museum

Upon returning to New Zealand Madge finished her nursing training in Nelson, living at the Nurses Home. In 1965 she went to Wellington to carry out post-graduate maternity training and came back to work at Nelson Hospital.

"The hospital was my life. I worked there until my early sixties. It was a supportive place. Colleagues stood up for you and it was like family. I did theatre work and later social work.

Our father died in 1959 and that’s when I went home to look after our mother. Mother died in 1967 and left this home to my sister and I. I have lived here ever since, on my own. I like being by myself. People ask me if I am lonely but I am never lonely; I’m too busy to be lonely.

There was always a strong community feel here up until WW2. Before then there was the cluster of houses near the bottom and only a few at the top. Then things changed. The arrival of B.B.Jones, the developer and house builder, was quite significant. He built a lot of houses in Russell Street and around the hills. Things became more crowded; more people; more buying and selling. Children from the working class houses at the bottom of the street, when they grew up and married they were quick to move into homes further up the hill.

Most families for a long time had connections with the sea. Many ship’s captains and several harbourmaster’s lived around here. Gilbert Inkster used to be up there on Victoria Heights and at Christmas he played his bagpipes down his street and the neighbours formed a procession.

When the reclamation was being formed the boys would find materials to use for building huts and other uses – boxes, timber, that sort of thing. One day I was coming home and there were John and Ken’s legs under a huge box going up the hill. They couldn’t see where they were going and were stumbling about. Nephew John married one of the Hadfield girls. Their family run the Abel Tasman tourism business now.

This home has been altered slightly over the years. The veranda has been enclosed. That’s the warmest part of the house in winter because the sun is low and gets right inside. As soon as the sun comes up in winter it hits the sunroom and shines in all day long. The trees have grown up in front. Ken and father planted the largest of the two pohutukawa. I was five, so around 1929; it’s a listed heritage tree now.”

2017

Emerging from the bush

The discovery of gold and the search for grazing land were the initial driving forces behind the establishment of the township of Hampden, which later became known as Murchison.¹ But developing a settlement in wild, inhospitable, isolated country was slow.

Fox, William 1812-1893 :On the grass plain below Lake Arthur. 8th & 9th Feb. 1846. Alexander Turnbull Library, B-113-014 Four men (Fox, Heaphy, Brunner and Kehu) with their packs and a gun by a camp-fire in the foreground.

Māori axes and implements indicate that Māori passed through the area in pre-European times on their way to and from the West Coast and its valuable pounamu. The dense native forest in the Upper Buller provided excellent hunting for birds, but it seems that Māori did not live in the area.²

Located on the Four River Plain at the confluence of the Buller, Matakitaki, Mangles and Matiri Rivers, the heavily wooded flat was first described by Charles Heaphy.  In February 1846, each carrying a 75 lb pack,³ Heaphy, Thomas Brunner, William Fox  and their Māori guide, Kehu (Ngāti Tumatakokiri) set off from Nelson to look for ‘the plain beyond Rotoiti.  Heaphy wrote of their first sighting of the Murchison Valley: “ an expanse of open manuka country, with pine (kahikatea) forests and fern flats on either side of the Buller, several valleys seem to join the main opening a mile or two down the plain.”⁴

Further surveys were conducted in 1859 by John and James Rochfort, who travelled up the Buller River from Westport in kayaks, reaching four miles above Lyell before their canoes capsized in rapids and they returned by foot to Westport.  Early in 1860, James Mackay and Julius von Haast suffered severe privation when they conducted a survey in the area. Haast named Mount Murchison after noted British geologist, Sir Roderick Murchison.⁵

Gold in the Mangles

Upper Buller - Trich Devescovi: near Longford on the Upper Buller Gorge Road (print by courtesy of Cobb Robertston)

The Nelson Examiner reported the discovery of a rich gold field in the Upper Buller region on 23 July 1863. Two days later, the newspaper announced that a party of four men had obtained a pound of gold out of the Mangles River after just a few hours work.  Within a month, 70 men were working on the new gold field.⁶

The Nelson Provincial Council lost no time in planning for future settlement and chose an area of flat land at the junction of the Buller and Matakitaki Rivers.⁷  In 1864, the council sent John Barnicoat to have a look. He was impressed with the agricultural potential of the land along some of the Buller’s tributaries, travelling about 25 miles along the Matakitaki River valley. On his travels, Barnicoat noted a number of gold diggers on the Mangles, Matakitaki and Lyell Rivers.⁸

Junction of Mangles and Buller Rivers. Ernest Wilton. Nelson Provincial Museum. 178430

Thomas Brunner was back in 1865. By now, he was the Provincial Council’s chief surveyor and town, suburban and rural sections were offered for sale.  They were mainly taken up as investments, and very few people lived in Hampden for the first ten years.⁹

George Moonlight, Newman brothers and a name change

In the 1870s, legendary explorer and prospector, George Moonlight must have seen potential in the district and settled at Hampden with his family.  He set up a store and in 1877, bought the Commercial Hotel, which became the social centre for gold diggers, with Moonlight as the unofficial sheriff in the Wild West atmosphere.¹⁰

View of several horse-drawn vehicles, including two covered wagons, outside C Downie's Commercial Hotel.; Nelson Provincial Museum.181965

In July 1879, Moonlight and other locals were on the steps of the Commercial Hotel to greet Tom and Harry Newman’s first mail run between Foxhill and Longford.  The Newman brothers drove a horse-drawn coach over the muddy bush track, until they had to give up at Longford.¹¹ Tom was determined to get the mail through so he put the mailbag over his shoulders and walked.  Hampden was renamed Murchison in 1882 when the regular mail service began, to avoid confusion with the Otago township of the same name.¹²

Born in Hampden in July 1880, lifelong resident, George McNee remembered the town in his childhood: “ ….all around was nature in unspoiled beauty. The axe and the mill had not begun to destroy the bush, there were hundreds of birds and insects to listen to and study.” He noted there were “ two stores, a blacksmith’s shop, a cobblers and three or four private dwellings.”¹³

Geo. Moonlight & dog, April 1868. The Nelson Provincial Museum, W E Brown Collection: 11061

In 1882 Moonlight offered a ‘commodious building for a school' and the Nelson Education Board received a request to constitute Hampden as a separate district and build a house for a teacher.¹⁴ A teacher was sought for Hampden Aided School (salary £75 /annum with residence) in August 1883.¹⁵ The hall at the Commercial Hotel was rented for £4 a year and used until a school room was built in 1895.¹⁶

There was more contact with the outside world, when a telephone station was opened in July 1883.¹⁷ That year, Boxing Day races drew a crowd, with horses racing in events such as the Buller Plate and the Goldfields Handicap.¹⁸

In 1884, a Government Act empowered the Midland company to build a railway line between Canterbury, Nelson and the West Coast. While part of the line was built between Nelson and Kawatiri and Greymouth and Reefton, it never reached Murchison or Canterbury and valuable pastoral land was tied up for nearly 20 years.¹⁹

Supply Centre for Miners

View of two motor vehicles and a group of men and dogs outside the Commercial Hotel, Murchison. 178053 Nelson Provincial Museum

By the end of the 1880s, Murchison was steadily growing as the supply centre for surrounding gold mining communities.²⁰ When George McNee left school aged 15 (1895) his father set him up in a store up the Matakitaki River. McNee wrote that there were about 100 Chinese miners in the area, who were honest (“I’m sorry I cannot say that of the other residents”) and kept their simple whares spotless. He said he learnt some Cantonese, including counting to 100 in the language, and was invited to their homes for meals.  He sold opium to them, until it became illegal.²¹

But, access to the small township was still difficult. In May 1900, an article in the Colonist,  headlined "The Central Buller. Much Needed Works", described ‘the necessity’ of constructing a road to Murchison, now a bridge across the Buller River at the Mangles was completed. The article also recommended the construction of roads up the Maruia Valley and from the Matakitaki into the Maruia.²²  

Twentieth Century Developments

Between 1900 and the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914, three bridges linking Murchison with the outside world were built, the main highway passed through the town, much farming land was taken up, a butter factory was built and various social and sporting clubs were established.²³ In 1904, the Oddfellows first anniversary concert and ball was declared the ‘most successful ever held in Murchison’.²⁴

By 1909, the population of Murchison was 300.²⁵ The first dairy factory was opened in 1909, producing the ‘Airship’ brand of butter, which was transported by wagon to the railhead at Kohatu at night to keep it in good condition. The factory closed in 1973.²⁶

Six Mile hydro scheme. NZGeoview M.Boyce

Molly Borkin’s family arrived in the Tutaki Valley in 1911. Her Irish father, a school teacher had won land in a farm ballot.  “There were over 20 settlers in the valley and soon it was like one big happy family.  It took four hours to drive from our home (on mud roads by horse and cart) to Murchison initially.  Anyone who happened to be going to town, contacted the neighbours on the way to get various messages for them,” she wrote.²⁷ 

Murchison residents were some of the first in the country to enjoy electric heat and light.²⁸ The Six Mile hydro-electric scheme was opened on 25 January 1922. At a cost of £13,000, it had an output of 80 kilowatts and was used by the dairy factory, farmers and households, and provided street lighting in the town.²⁹   

Murchison Earthquake

By 1929, Murchison was on its feet, a supply town for farmers and, as it had been in the days when it was a Māori settlement, a crossroads for travellers.  But on a cold foggy winter morning, at 10.17 am on 17 June, 1929, explosions sounded around the hills, chimneys fell, buildings crumbled and hillsides collapsed.³⁰ The magnitude 7.8 Murchison earthquake was centred in the Lyell Range west of Murchison and was felt from Auckland to Bluff.  You can read more about it here. 

For more information

With a proud, pioneering history, the very active Murchison District Historical and Museum Society, has collected stories of life in the region for many decades - excerpts from some of these accounts are used in this story. Contact the Society.

There are many books and accounts of Murchison’s early days and the 1929 earthquake, particularly the titles by former teachers in the area: Difficult Country: an informal history of Murchison and Murchison, New Zealand: how a settlement emerges from the bush. For details see further sources.

2017 

The King of Motueka

Times were turbulent when one of Motueka’s earliest Pakeha pioneers arrived to take up his newly-bought block of land. Edward Fearon had barely pitched his tent and made a start on clearing his section when the Nelson district was thrown into a state of panic, fearing an imminent Māori uprising following the Wairau Affray of 17^th June, 1843. Motueka was an isolated spot, covered in thick bush, with sea access only, a large resident Māori population and only a very few other widely scattered settlers in the vicinity.  A former ship’s captain, well used to taking command and dealing with sudden crises, Fearon is credited with playing a significant part in calming local tensions. He went on to see the tiny settlement grow and prosper, and such was his influence and involvement in almost every aspect of the fledgling township’s affairs, that fellow residents half-jokingly dubbed him the “King of Motueka”.

Captain Edward Fearon (1813-1869) Nelson Provincial Museum. W.E. Brown Collection, ref. 12084

The youngest son of Isaac Fearon, a London-based merchant and stockbroker, and his wife Elizabeth (formerly Baty nee Hodgson), Edward Fearon was born on 31 October 1813 at the family home on Shove Place, in the Parish of St John’s, Hackney, London.¹ He  was sent to school, but as a youth ran away to sea, where his abilities were soon recognised. He rapidly rose to become a master mariner in the British Mercantile Marine (the equivalent of today’s Merchant Navy) and in his twenties captained ships trading to North and South America, Cape Colony in South Africa and Australia.²

Elizabeth Fearon nee Ward (1811-1901) Nelson Provincial Museum. Davis Collection, ref. 893

On 11 February 1840 Edward Fearon was married at St Olave Hart Street, London, to Elizabeth Ward, from Crediton, Devon. Straight after their wedding they set sail on the “City of Edinburgh”, a 365-ton barque on the London to Sydney run with Captain Fearon in command. Their honeymoon trip was cut dramatically short when the ship was caught in a cyclone as she approached Australia and wrecked off Settlement Point, Flinders Island, on 11 July 1840.³ Though left with only the clothes they stood up in, the ship’s company all survived and were returned to England by a ship which called in at New Zealand en route. The intrepid newly-weds were taken with what they saw of the country, and determined to return later as settlers.

Emigration to New Zealand
Having amassed a comfortable fortune during his successful career, Fearon retired from the sea and at the age of 29 emigrated to New Zealand. Accompanied by his wife Elizabeth and two of her brothers, John and Thomas Ward, he embarked on the New Zealand Company's ship “Thomas Sparks”, departing Gravesend on 27 July 1842. It was a fraught and seemingly endless voyage. The captain, Robert Sharp, was an alcoholic, prone to erratic seamanship and violent rages. On the night of 3 October 1842, he drove the ship on to Whale Rock off Penguin Island. As water poured in and pandemonium reigned, Captain Fearon proved the man of the hour, swiftly taking charge and restoring order. He had the pumps manned all night and in the morning the badly damaged barque came off the rock and limped into Capetown. It wasn’t until 26 February 1843 that the 30 hapless passengers for Nelson finally reached their destination.⁴ In the meantime Edward and Elizabeth Fearon had made a start on their family, with their first child, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Ludwig Fearon, being born during the outward-bound voyage on 22 December 1842. 

Dr J.D Greenwood (1802-1890) Drawing of "my dear husband" by Sarah Greenwood [ca 1852]. Alexander Turnbull Collections, ref. A-252-021

The Fearons settled at first in Nelson and soon became part of what counted as the upper echelon of Nelson society. They befriended new settlers Dr John Danforth and Sarah Greenwood, who arrived a month after them on the “Phoebe”. The Greenwoods decided to settle on Section 152 in Motueka. They were keen for the Fearons to join them there as neighbours, "for their mutual friendship and protection”, so on 2 June 1843 Edward Fearon bought Motueka Section 155 from Captain Wakefield, the New Zealand Company’s Resident Agent in Nelson.⁵  It was situated half a mile distant from and to the north of the Greenwoods’ and close at its eastern boundary to a tidal estuary. The Fearons’ 50 acre property was a mix of fern, flax-covered swamp and native bush, which he straightaway set to work clearing. 

The Wairau Affray and its aftermath
The Wairau Affray of 17 June 1843, was the result of an ill-advised attempt to strong-arm Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha into handing over his lands in the Wairau Valley to the New Zealand Company. The skirmish which followed led to the deaths of several Māori and  22 settlers, including Captain Wakefield himself. For some time Nelsonians lived in fearful expectation of a full-scale retaliatory attack. The alarm felt in Nelson was even stronger in remote Motueka, whose few resident European settlers (apart from small groups at outlying Riwaka and Lower Moutere) were clustered around the small harbour known as the Manuka Bush, at the end of what is now Staples Street.

Greenwood farm [Woodlands] at Motueka, [1852]. Artist: Sarah Greenwood. Nelson Provincial Museum, Bett Loan Collection, ref. AC333

Local Māori were equally concerned about reprisals from the British, and Captain Fearon acted as a calming presence in the small community. On the 1 July 1843 he reassured readers of the Nelson Examiner that “the natives at Motueka are perfectly quiet and friendly”.⁶  However, over the next months there were some heated exchanges with Māori over disputed land claims. Reflecting continued anxiety amongst settlers, when Danforth Greenwood moved to Motueka around August 1843 and built a home called “Woodlands” at the seaward end of Tudor Street, it was designed as a defensible blockhouse, with an excavated refuge beneath and a stockpile of gunpowder.  (A second Greenwood home, also called ”Woodlands", can still be seen at 27 Tudor Street.)

Fearon, Greenwood and Thorp
Charles Thorp, a settler who had arrived in Nelson on the ship “Olympus” in 1842, moved to Motueka around 1848 and bought several sections on the road later named for him, Thorp Street. Thorp became not only a good neighbour and friend but also a relative-by-marriage on 11 April 1850, when he was married at St Thomas', Motueka, to Mrs Fearon’s younger sister Mary Ward. 

Charles Thorp (1820-1905). Friend, neighbour and brother-in-law. Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, ref. 11025

For many years this public-spirited trio of earliest settlers - Fearon, Greenwood and Thorp - would be at the heart of local society, giving freely of their time and talents to "the Village”, as the Motueka township was known, though the sorry state of its first roads in the wet also earned it the nickname “Muddy Acre”!   

Fearon was elected an inaugural member of the Richmond Cattle Fair in 1851. He served as member of the Nelson Provincial Council  for Motueka and Massacre Bay (now Golden Bay) from 1855-57 and always maintained a close interest in local politics. He was also a prime mover and Provisional Committee member when the Nelson and Marlborough Coast Steam Navigation Company was set up 1855. It purchased the paddle steamer “Tasmanian Maid”, which was used to carry goods and passengers between Nelson, Motueka, Collingwood, Wairau, Picton and across the Cook Strait to Wellington, one of the earliest of the small coastal steamers that revolutionized transport in the Nelson region. From 1861 Fearon served on the Motueka Board of Education for several terms and was appointed as well its representative to the Central Education Board in Nelson.

Civic duties 
A churchwarden at St Thomas,’ Motueka, from 1849 and a member of the Nelson Diocesan General Synod, Captain Fearon was always a generous benefactor to the Church of England. In 1844 he donated a piece of his land at the junction of today’s Thorp and Fearon Streets as the site for St Thomas Anglican Church and a churchyard burial ground. The church was moved to High Street in 1860, but although no longer in use, the cemetery remains on the original site and is now part of the Pioneer Historic Park.

St Thomas' Anglican Church in Thorp Street. Drawing of "Our little church at Motueka" [1850].by Sarah Greenwood. Nelson Provincial Museum. Bett Loan Collection, ref. AC325

This was the first of several such bequests Fearon made to the Motueka community. These included the gift in 1857 of a quarter-acre site (where the Motueka Memorial RSA Club now stands) cut from his Section 155 for a public library and reading-room, known as the Motueka Literary Institution. This opened to great fanfare in January 1858, with an extensive programme of celebrations, including a fête, musical festival, fireworks display and a ball. A plaque at the entrance of the present Motueka Public Library in Pah Street commemorates Edward Fearon’s original gift.

Captain Fearon was a founding member of the Loyal Motueka Lodge of Oddfellows, established in 1850, and also gave land (the site today of the Abel Tasman Motor Lodge) for the Oddfellows’ Hall, which opened on Boxing Day 1864, another excuse for a good knees-up.⁷

Commemorative plaque at the Motueka Public Library, 12 Pah Street, Motueka. Photograph A. McFadgen

Edward and Elizabeth Fearon’s family had grown with the additions of Mary (May) (1845-1901), Emma (1847-1913), John Hodgson (1849-1860), Sarah Frances (Fanny) (1851-1913), and Edward Fearon Jnr (1853-1880). Although both sons died young, three of the Fearons’ four daughters married, leaving many descendants - Emma to John Clervaux Chaytor of “Marshlands” near Blenheim, Mary to Richmond Hursthouse, for many years  M.P. for Motueka and the town’s first mayor, and Fanny to Fred Thomas, whose family owned the “Dehra Doon” estate at Riwaka, and still run an orchard and packhouse there under the name “Thomas Brothers”.

Among Captain Fearon’s descendants are two distinguished soldiers who both served with NZ armed forces: Major-General Sir Edward Walter “Fiery Ted” Chaytor, who commanded first the NZ Mounted Rifles, then the ANZAC Mounted Division in the Middle East during WWI, and Major-General Walter Babington ‘Sandy” Thomas, author and decorated WWII veteran, commander of 23 Battalion in Italy and later appointed Commander of British Far East Land Forces.

The Fearons built a large gabled homestead called “Northwood” where visitors were welcomed. Originally described as set back from the road (Thorp Street) in an open paddock, plantings over the years transformed it. A long, winding avenue of oaks, elms and poplars led to the house, which was surrounded by gardens. Later on those trees would be cut down and the drive straightened to form Fearon Street. The old house burned down in the late 1920s, but the homestead section was bought not long after by hop industry legend, Jeffrey “Mac” Inglis, who eventually built his own grand home on the same spot as the Fearons’ house (today 39 Fearon Street).⁸ He kept the name “Northwood,” which also became attached to the Inglis family business, “Northwood Hops”.

"Northwood", the Fearon family homestead on Section 155, Motueka. [Date & artist unknown]. Motueka & District Historical Association, Kaye Emerre Collection.

In January 1849 Fearon was granted grazing rights to a 13,000-acre run in the lower Awatere Valley.  He named it “Marathon” and soon freeholded the property. Although the subject of envy - “Marathon” had more good flat land and low downs in proportion to its size than any other run in the Awatere - in truth Edward Fearon always found the position of absentee runholder a burden.  

Part of "Awatere Valley". Artist: John Kinder [January 13, 1872]. Te Papa/ Museum of New Zealand. Collections Online registration no. 2003-0036-1

Fearon enjoyed exploring, and had a small boat of his own which he sailed regularly to Nelson and Golden Bay. Early in 1860 he helped skipper the schooner “Gipsy” when she took John Rochfort’s expedition to the West Coast. She was taking in supplies for another party led by James Mackay Jnr, a Golden Bay resident and an old friend of Captain Fearon’s.⁹ The “Gipsy” anchored in the Buller River and Fearon accompanied Rochfort’s party on a tramp down the coast to the Mawhera (Grey) River, where they met up with McKay before setting out for home on 13 March 1860.

Captain Fearon had every reason to feel confidence in the future, but ongoing difficulties with the management of his Awatere sheep run persuaded him to sell ”Marathon” in August 1866 to Joseph Dresser Tetley for £20,700 (the equivalent of around $2.2 million today) – all left on mortgage.¹⁰ Unfortunately the personable Tetley was a colonial con-man who left a number of men who had dealt with him facing financial ruin. In December 1868 Tetley skipped the country without having made any payment on ‘Marathon”, and leaving Fearon in a fix. He applied to the Supreme Court for the return of his run but was obliged to buy it back. Due to a slump in the prices of sheep and wool, Edward Fearon was unable to recoup his losses and became deeply despondent about his future prospects.

Captain Fearon's gravestone at Pioneer Historic Park, Thorp Street, Motueka. "Sacred to the memory of Edward Fearon. Died November 21 1869 Aged 56 years.Courtesy of MystikNZ at the Find A Grave website.

It came as a shock to all when  the Captain died suddenly in Nelson on 21 November 1869. Stress resulting from his “financial misadventures” was generally believed to have led to his death at the relatively early age of 56.  Did despair over his financial reversal and subsequent loss of face drive him to commit suicide? The circumstances are suggestive, but an apparent conspiracy of silence at the time makes this impossible to confirm. He was buried at the old churchyard cemetery on Thorp Street, in land he himself had gifted to the community.  Today the Motueka place names “Fearon Street” and “Fearon’s Bush” remain as a reminder of the magnanimous Edward Fearon and his family .

"The late Captain Fearon was one of the best known
of the early pioneers.
He landed in Nelson, but shortly after came to Motueka,
where he was looked upon as the "Village Father",
often being called upon to settle disputes in those days".¹¹

Captain Fearon’s widow, Elizabeth, survived him by many years. She was 90 when she died at “Northwood” on 1 January 1901 after a long and eventful life, sustained to the end by her faith and family. She was buried alongside her husband and sons at the old churchyard cemetery on Thorp Street.

Note: Adapted from an article published on Anne McFadgen’s  Rustlings in the Wind blog about Captain Fearon and his family, in the context of Motueka’s development. Please refer to this article for further references and list of sources consulted. 2017

Phyllis Field (nee Griffin) 1914-2007 - the early years

Phyllis was born in 1914, the youngest child of George and Caroline Griffin.

Her father was manager of the Griffin Biscuit factory, a business begun by his father John Griffin in 1865. The factory was on the land on the corner of Alton Street and Nile Street East. The family lived in a large two story house on the top of the hill in Tipahi Street (now 3 Eckington Terrace).     Phyllis recalls that they had a large section and kept a cow and lots of chooks. She had five brothers: Charles, Augustus (Gus), Henry (Harry), Robert (Bob) and Peter and her sister Else.

View from Dellside looking down Queen street. Image supplied by author

In 1919, George Griffin purchased the Barrington Farm of 100 acres, following the death of William Higgs (see map – section 90 and 88). When her brother Gus came back from the war with tuberculosis of the spine, after living in the trenches, he was not allowed to do office work again so the farm was for Gus and Harry to work. The old house was rebuilt and the property was re-named Dellside by Gus, after the convalescence home where he recuperated in England during WW1. Dellside is believed to have been a private home near Southhampton.

Phyllis had many happy memories of her time at Dellside. The farm grew new potatoes and peas, they kept pigs and had a milking herd of pedigree Jersey cows.  There was also a plum orchard. A spring on the hillside was used as a source of water for the Griffin cowshed. The children played in Reservoir Creek catching “crawlers” (Koura), eels and large native fish. Cooking up the native crayfish was a great delicacy. Brothers Bob and Peter dammed up Reservoir Creek and dug a swimming hole. This was still evident at the time of the interview and may have been the pond near the Cambrian coal mine. The mine sold coal as early as March 1862. A Mr. Roberts took out 100 tons then sold to W. Higgs who reopened it in 1872 and took out 30 tons. The mine closed in 1873 because the workings were below Reservoir Creek level. Gus and Harry later lost a horse in the mineshaft and Phyllis was told to stay away from the area.

View of Easby Park. 1920. Image supplied by author

The Griffins also had a tennis court at Easby Park (the level area of grass can still be seen). Every Saturday carloads of family and friends turned up for tennis. Sister Else spent all morning cooking dainties for afternoon tea. (The tennis court against the hill is the site of the target range that was no longer in use when Phyllis was young). Below the tennis Court, where the present footbridge crosses Reservoir Creek from the carpark, was the area where the Griffins kept their pigs.

Approximately 60 metres upstream from the pond William Higgs had a sheep dip. The Griffin brothers and neighbouring Sutton family used this facility.

Griffins Factory 1904, Nelson Provincial Museum, FN Jones Collection 9944.

When Phyllis was about eight years old they moved back into Nelson living in a house in Hardy Street which was close to the factory. Phyllis attended the Tasman School which backed onto the Maitai River. By the time she was about 11 years old they had moved back to Dellside. Her oldest brother Charles had married and he and his wife Alice moved into the Hardy Street house. Her father and brother Bob would travel into Nelson by car and take Phyliis to Preparatory of Nelson Girls College. As they would arrive in town early she would amuse herself at the factory – eating biscuits and looking for unusual foreign stamps in the rubbish baskets. Many of the materials used in the factory came from overseas. Crystallised flowers from France, patterned tinfoil from England and Europe, cocoa butter and vanilla pods from Africa or cocoa beans from tropical countries.

Phyllis was at the prep school in 1929 when the big Murchison earthquake struck. Luckily the building was wooden and didn’t sustain the damage of the Nelson College. Nevertheless, it was a terrifying experience. “Our school just shook and shook and all the water from the boarding rooms above came pouring through the ceiling”.

28 Marlborough Cresent 2016

The Griffin family homestead survives and is located at 28 Marlborough Crescent. Across the road, behind existing houses, along the base of the hillside, thousands of shells and evidence of ashes (middens) were found by the Griffin children. It is significant to note that Gus or Harry recovered a Maori adze from the swimming hole. It was small and polished[this is possibly held in the Nelson Provincial Museum]. Phyllis also mentioned that they dug out “Maori Potatoes”. This area of Dellside is also recognised for the large number of fossils found by the Griffin family.

[This story is based on notes of an interview with Phyllis by Tom Kroos in August 2006]

In August 1847 Charles Clifford and his cousin, Frederick Weld drove 3000 sheep from Port Underwood to Flaxbourne: "Crossed the Bluff River with sheep.  Had to throw them all into the water, a day and a half's hard work," wrote Weld in his diary.¹

Sir Frederick Aloysius Weld. Schmidt, Herman John, 1872-1959 :Portrait and landscape negatives, Auckland district. Ref: 1/1-001819-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22732091

The cousins had worked together at a Wellington trading company before (with Cousin William Vavasour) leasing the land which was to become the Flaxbourne Estate. Clifford wrote: " I went to him (Te Puaha, a Māori chief), was very kindly received, and soon agreed upon a lease of all the land from the Vernon Bluffs down the East Coast to Kekerengu for £24/annum."²

Sir Charles Clifford. Urquhart album. Crombie, John Nicol, 1827-1878. Ref: PA1-q-250-51. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22339596

Clifford was to become the Honourable Sir Charles Clifford, Baron of Flaxbourne: a name well-earned over the course of an eventful 80 year life. He was born in 1813, in Mt Vernon, Lancashire.³ A lifelong Catholic, he was educated at the Jesuit college of Stonyhurst –  and in the grand Jesuit tradition, he went abroad, taking the word of God to the young colony of New Zealand in 1842. He immigrated to Nelson on the George Fyfe in 1842 with the Redwoods who had been tenant farmers on the Clifford estate in Staffordshire.⁴

While based in Wellington, Clifford travelled New Zealand extensively, mapping out areas of the Wairarapa, as well as buying property in Marlborough and North Canterbury. One particular Marlborough property is of note - Flaxbourne Station was the first large sheep station in the South Island.⁵

The station’s location near the coast made it a useful stop for ships heading from Wellington to Christchurch. It became a stop for (among others) horse traders bringing stallions to stud.⁶

The cousins ferried goods between Flaxbourne and the North Island on the Petrel, which was lost off the Kapiti Coast in 1849. The crewmen aboard tried to bring the sails under control, but they failed -- the ship sunk, and all aboard were lost.⁷

Group comprising Frederick Weld, Filumena Weld, Frances Louisa Tollemache, Sir Charles Clifford and Jessie Cruickshank Crawford. Crawford family :Photographs of James Coutts Crawford and family.[ Frederick Weld married Filumena Mary Anne Lisle Phillipps in England in 1859, and returned to New Zealand with her in February 1860.] Ref: PA1-f-019-12-3. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22783513

The Clifford family became experienced at handling livestock. In 1852, Charles sent his younger brother Alphonso with another load of sheep for land they were farming in Canterbury. The Lyttleton News wrote "[Alphonso] Clifford has succeeded in driving about 1500 ewes from the Wairau district, only losing one on the road." He took them through Flaxbourne, then down the coast to Kaikoura.⁸

Plan of Flaxbourne Settlement, 1905. Marlborough Museum - Marlborough Historical Society Inc.

In  the 1860s, Clifford and Weld turned some fallow deer out on the Flaxbourne run, which “….disappeared for some time, but they have, in all probability, gone back to the inaccessible country of Tapuanuka, the highest of the Kaikoras (sic).”⁹ 

In the 1850s, the cousins became interested in local politics -- they were signatories to a letter asking Charles Elliot, founder of the Nelson Examiner, to stand for Wairau in the Marlborough Provincial Council.¹⁰

Clifford clearly caught the bug, and by 1854 he was back in Wellington and unanimously elected Speaker of the House of Parliament serving two four year terms. He retired to London in 1860, where he occasionally acted as a government advisor on New Zealand issues. He died in London in 1893.³

In 1853 Frederick Weld ran unopposed for the new Wairau seat in Parliament. He served for two years but was clearly unhappy with his life in the new colony he’d helped to develop. In 1855 he wrote: “colonising, exciting enough in its early struggles becomes very milk & waterish when it resolves itself into merely going certain rounds to visit sheep stations and staying a week in this settlement & a week in that. The tone too of the Colony alters, there are new faces & mercenary ideas, different from those of the adventurers of the early days – friends too get sick or get disgusted – die or go away.”¹¹

Sir Frederick Aloysius Weld's Personal Journal. Archives New Zealand. [Weld was not just a controversial politician; he was also an avid writer and painter amongst other things]

Weld returned to Marlborough three years later, and was again elected to the Wairau seat, but the province only held him for another two years. He was the sixth Prime Minister of New Zealand, but served in the office for less than a year. In that eventful year, he moved the capital from Auckland to Wellington, and confiscated over 4000² km of land from Waikato Māori. These acts made him deeply unpopular with the public. He resigned in October of 1865, citing his health - only 11 months after taking the role.

Clearly a wanderer at heart, Weld lived in Canterbury and Malaysia, before he returned to England, where he died in 1891.

Although both men were frequent travellers who lived and worked all over the country and the world, Clifford and Weld both left their indelible mark in the Marlborough region.

 2017

Joseph Tetley, a swindler and a gentleman

Marlborough was shaken by a scandal in the 1860s, when a Member of Parliament ran off to South America with £40,000 of investors’ money, and never returned.

When Frederick Weld  returned to England from his time in Marlborough, he brought with him tales of a lush and verdant land where those seeking to escape England could become prosperous sheep farmers. He published a pamphlet, Hints to Intending Sheep Farmers in New Zealand¹, which inspired many young men to leave their homes and seek their fortunes in Marlborough.

Joseph Dresser Tetley, Miss Dodsworth and Jessie Cruickshank Crawford. Crawford family :Photographs of James Coutts Crawford and family. Ref: PA1-f-019-18-2. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

One of those young men was Joseph Tetley. Born to poor Yorkshire farmers in 1825, he managed to elevate his status by marrying well: his wife, Elizabeth Dodsworth, was the daughter of a baronet. His new connections with the gentry allowed him to meet Weld at a party, likely in 1856. He read Weld’s pamphlet, and the two hit it off. Tetley left for New Zealand in 1857.²

Sir Frederick Aloysius Weld. Schmidt, Herman John, 1872-1959 :Portrait and landscape negatives, Auckland district. Ref: 1/1-001819-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22732091

With his connections and a recommendation from Weld, he managed to secure a meeting with Nathaniel Levin: a prominent Wellington businessman. Levin provided Tetley with financial backing, and Tetley purchased a parcel of land in Kekerengu, close to Weld’s station at Flaxbourne.³

Kekerengu Station Buildings (Former). East elevation, former Manager’s Residence. Heritage New Zealand. Taken By: Pam Wilson. Date: 1/06/1993.

Within ten years, Tetley owned over 1000 hectares in Marlborough alone. He was elected the Picton representative on the Marlborough Provincial Council in 1867⁴, and appointed to the Legislative Council in Wellington later the same year⁵. It seemed everything was going smoothly for Joseph Tetley.

On a trip to England in 1864, he met four young men: Digby Garforth, Henry Wharton, Frederick Dull and Richard Beaumont. He impressed thm with his talk of Marlborough, and they sailed for New Zealand together in 1865.⁶

Portrait of Nathaniel Levin . Davis, William Henry Whitmore, 1812-1901. Davis, William Henry Whitmore fl 1860-1880 Ref: PA2-0596. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand

Unbeknownst to them, Tetley was playing them from day one. In what appears to be a con a decade in the making, he failed to transfer them any livestock, and instead used their money to borrow heavily without security. He recommended  a scheme whereby they would receive only 1/8th of their investment, and they were so charmed that they took him up on it. Beaumont in particular was so impressed with Tetley’s talk that he wrote home for more money. The four men invested a total of £22,000 in Tetley, with a large majority of it coming from Beaumont.⁷

Elizabeth, his wife, died of yellow fever in 1868, and Tetley returned to England for her funeral. During this time, Beaumont got a good look at Tetley’s financials, and came to a series of shocking realisations. Tetley had not left enough money to run the properties, and was £14,000 in debt to BNZ Picton, and £24,244 to Levin and Co.. All capital invested was gone; Beaumont lost £15,000, and Nathaniel Levin lost £6,000 personally.⁸ Adjusted to 2017 rates, Tetley ran off with under $7,000,000 NZD.

Tetley never returned to New Zealand. Instead, he sailed for Montevideo, Uruguay: a well-known haven for English reprobates.⁹

Of course, the scandal didn’t end when Tetley disappeared. Back in Marlborough, Richard Beaumont was furious at being deceived. He blamed Nathaniel Levin: claiming that Levin was complicit in the crime. Levin at this time had just been appointed to the Upper House of Parliament. In a precarious position, he sued for slander to put rumours to rest.¹⁰  Both Beaumont and Levin’s cases were pleaded in the Nelson District Court in 1869.  Under pressure and after being absent from Wellington for too long, Levin was forced to resign from the Upper House, less than 18 months after taking his seat and without giving a single speech.¹¹

The trial was widely publicised. Although the jury found that Levin had not actively colluded in the scam, they did find that he had been suspicious of Tetley’s behaviour, and failed to warn Beaumont and the others. Both Beaumont and Levin left the court with nothing,¹² and Levin would leave New Zealand forever, one month after the conclusion of the trial.¹³

Beaumont didn’t do too badly out of the business. The three properties owned by Tetley, with the assistance of his three young partners, including Beaumont, became known as Starborough. In about 1872, Beaumont became the sole owner of Starborough until 1895, when the Land for Settlement Act 1894, saw the station split up by the Government along with 21 other large Marlborough estates.¹⁴

The scandal of the gentleman-turned-rogue swept the country: how could Tetley – a man of such good standing – throw it all away for the money? Tetley gave no answers, and was never brought to account for his crimes. He became such an infamous drunk and scoundrel in Montevideo that he acquired the nickname ‘The Pacific Slope’. He lived out the rest of his days there, dying rich and happy in Colonia, Uruguay, in 1878.¹⁵

 2017

2017