Fairfield Park, one of Nelson’s first cemeteries, was created in 1851 and over 78 people were buried here before it closed in 1910. It had various names, including Old Trafalgar Street Cemetery, or more simply, the Old Cemetery, and later “Copenhagen Mount." The story of the Graveyard is told elsewhere on the Prow, this article documents the lives of the people buried in the cemetery.

The graves and headstones

The headsone of Robert Shallcrass, Fairfield Park. Nelson City Council
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An engineering field book¹ ( no.10) was drawn up in October 1933, before the cemetery was made into a park, which showed the original positions of existing tombstones at that time. By 1983, 22 headstones originally listed were no longer there or legible, when another survey was done.  As it is the relatives of the deceased's responsibility to maintain tombstones, rather than the City Council, some have been refurbished recently, such as the McVicar memorial, and the Ching family 150th reunion noted on Jane Ching’s grave. Some relatives have been added to the existing stone at a later date, or a new memorial erected.

Members of the Nelson Genealogical Society have established that, for the period 1851 to 1901 inclusive, there is some form of record of burial and/or headstone at the cemetery for at least 185 people.  In addition, there are various extra memorials that seem to have appeared, some possibly without formal permission.  An interpretative panel with the early history of the Park lists all the memorial stones that can still be read. Council's cemetery database contains names of recorded burials.

Many of the Trafalgar Street Cemetery headstones have long gone, but those of the following people can be easily found amongst the trees and shrubs

1. Reverend Charles Sarda. On his way from missionary work among Māori in Auckland to take up new work in Akaroa, Canterbury, Charles Sarda developed consumption and died at the Catholic Station in Nelson, aged 28 years. Father Garin described his as the first “natural death” of a Roman Catholic priest in New Zealand, as all earlier deaths had been from drowning. Consumption, otherwise known as Tuberculosis, caused the most widespread public concern in the 19th and early 20th centuries as an endemic disease of the urban poor. In 1815, one in four deaths in England was due to "consumption". By 1918, one in six deaths in France was still caused by TB. After TB was determined to be contagious, in the 1880s, it was put on a notifiable disease list in Britain; campaigns were started to stop people from spitting in public places, and the infected poor were "encouraged" to enter sanatoria that resembled prisons (the sanatoria for the middle and upper classes offered excellent care and constant medical attention). Whatever the (purported) benefits of the "fresh air" and labor in the sanatoria, even under the best conditions, 50% of those who entered died within five years (circa 1916).

   Portrait of Reverend Lonsdale Pritt, vicar in charge of St Andrew's Church, Epsom 1872-1873. 'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-8115'
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2. Francis Otterson - Francis was born in Roscommon, Ireland on 1797. Francis married Jane Heveningham (1807-1888) and they had three children. He was very active in local politics, being a Justice of the Peace, and a member of the Provincial Council. Francis was said to have sufficient initiative and capital to establish a flourishing mercantile business. His main competitors were Fell and Schlanders . Francis Otterson drowned in the Wairau River in 1854.
   He and his wife Jane originally lived in the Bridge Street house where the first Mass was said (though they had moved to Rostrevor, in Richmond by that time), and Francis was strongly Roman Catholic. Some of his family had different religious persuasions and permission was granted to have part of the family memorials in the Protestant section of the cemetery, and part in Catholic section. The trustees records there is a confused case where a young Roman Catholic man named Mr. Otterson, who had come from overseas to stay in Nelson but had died here at the age of 17, was to have been buried on the Roman Catholic section, presumably in the Otterson plot. However his parents were Protestant and so a debate began. This was quickly resolved under the terms that Mr. Otterson was to be buried on the dividing line between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, so as to please all.
   Some family members are buried in the family plot, including his daughter Mary Otterson, 1842-1872,  who had moved away from the Catholicism of her father. She married the Rev Lonsdale Pritt, who came with Bishop Hobhouse and his new wife to Nelson in 1858. Pritt was praised for his assistance to the new Bishop of Nelson Cathedral.² Pritt was the first clergyman to perform duties in the Waikato and later became Venerable Archdeacon of Remuera in 1870. He died in Auckland in 1885. Mary, his wife, predeceased him by many years and died at Auckland Point Nelson in 1872 aged 30.   

   Robert Shallcrass. Image from NZETC
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3. The headstone of Thomas Rollinson and Margaret Dalkis, includes the inscription "Drowned at Awaroa". Until bridges were built river-crossing accidents were a frequent cause of death in New Zealand  Records show that, between 1840 and 1870, 1115 deaths were recorded, but this may not reflect the true numbers. A government report in 1870 states:  "...Considerable pains have been taken to make this return as complete as possible, but I regret to say that, from the imperfect state of the old records, it is still far from being an accurate statement of persons drowned in New Zealand Rivers. Names of persons ascertained to have been drowned in harbours, wells, waterholes, swamps and in the sea have been excluded from this return. Cases of drowning in the River Grey are sometimes stated to have occurred in the Province of Nelson and sometimes the in the County of Westland. This is accounted for by the inquests being held on either side of the river."³
   

   The report notes that figures became more accurate over time, but some confusion could occur if a body was not found and over names of rivers where person died. Locations were easily muddled as ”there are many rivers in New Zealand with the same name (Wai means water in Maori).”

4. Robert Shallcrass - A prominent figure in the early Nelson police force,
   Robert was born in Surrey, England, 29 October 1819 and apprenticed as a printer aged 12. In 1851 he went to America, returned to England and later travelled to the goldfields of Victoria, Australia. Shallcrass then emigrated to New Zealand, sailing on the Spray from Melbourne, arriving in Nelson on Sunday 29 June 1856. He worked as a printer for the Nelson Examiner and took up half an acre of land in Brougham Street, part of town acre 600, which he purchased in 1857. Shallcrass built Merton Cottage and, before it was completed, he met Miss Annabella Williamson Jeffrey. Annabella had emigrated with her family from Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland at the age of 24, arriving on the Cresswell on 6 October 1856. Robert and Annabella were married on 4 July 1857 by the Rev TD Nicholson. They had eight children, seven sons and a daughter, with two small sons dying in 1861 during a diphtheria epidemic. They were buried in Fairfield Cemetery and Robert planted five elms around the grave to represent his five living sons.
   

   Robert Shallcrass was appointed Sergeant-Major in charge of the Nelson Provincial Police Force in 1861. His part in apprehending and bringing the four villains who committed the Maungatapu murders to justice in 1866 earned him high praise. Shallcrass prompted one of the suspects, Joseph Sullivan, to turn Queen's Evidence against his accomplices, on condition that he was not hanged. This confession and the subsequent finding of the bodies enabled the case to be proved, and three of the murderers were hanged in the Nelson Gaol on 5 November 1866. That same year, Shallcrass was promoted to the rank of Inspector on a salary of £260 per year. Early in 1870 Sub-Inspector N.W. Franklyn, the officer controlling the Nelson Southwest Goldfield Police, resigned and Shallcrass was appointed Chief Inspector of the Provincial Police.

   In 1874  the Provincial Council gave Shallcrass control of Nelson Gaol. He resigned his police appointment and lived on the premises. In 1883 he was held at gunpoint by a prisoner, John Davidson, who stabbed warder Samuel Adams to death and then shot himself, under advice from Shallcrass. Robert resigned as Gaoler in 1883 and retired. He died at Merton cottage, aged 68 in 1888. Annabella died on 31 March 1893 at the age of 61 and was buried in the family grave at Fairfield.⁴

5. Thomas Blick - a master weaver from England, who became the first person to manufacture cloth in New Zealand, owning the country's first woollen mill which was sited in Brook Valley.
   

   Blick came to Nelson, with wife and seven children in 1842 on the Indus, by all accounts a ghastly journey. In the tropics the drinking water, stored in barrels, became contaminated and had to be thrown overboard. Food became putrid. Passengers and crew were in danger of death from starvation and thirst. A large number, including many children died. The captain decided to put into Sydney for fresh food and water, but for three days before the "Indus" berthed, everyone on board was without any form of sustenance. Before he left England Blick had applied for permission to buy land in the Nelson Colony and the area of the Brook Valley was sold to him. On arrival he saw a need for good, hardwearing cloth and leather, so he set up a tannery producing leather by 1843. Behind Blick House, a Cob house where they lived from 1860, other buildings and soak pits for the leather were constructed.

   As he had brought no weaving equipment from England, cloth was harder to produce. The first attempts at a hand loom construction were unsuccessful, the split bamboo that he used to make reeds was not smooth enough for the fine woollen warp threads and the local timber had a tendency to warp, but he eventually got it working.  He used yarn spun by local women, who had bought their own spinning wheels with them. In June 1845, he exhibited two lengths of tweed at the Nelson Institute. The cloth sold well and, greatly encouraged, Thomas set about improving his loom using an engine driven by water power from his stream. “Blick“ cloth (tweed and flannel) was in great demand and used for constabulary uniforms. Weaving stopped for a while when spinners wanted an increase in price for their wool, but production started again in 1850’s . Joseph Webly, a fellow English weaver came to Nelson became Blick's partner in 1858. Blick died on 28 November, 1860, aged fifty eight. His wife sold the factory to Joseph Webley, as no family member wanted to continue the business, and Webley continued the manufacture of cloth there for some time before transferring to new premises in Bridge Street and changing the trade name from Blick Cloth to Nelson Cloth.

   In 1850  the Baptist Church was opened in Nelson. It was the first foundation of the Baptist church in New Zealand and Thomas Blick, his wife Hannah, son Enoch and daughter Hannah were all foundation members. The early years of the church were fraught with difficulties of every kind, but it struggled on, prospered and has made a valuable contribution to the life of Nelson.⁵

   The garden at Fairfield House, 2013. First established by Neil McVicar. Nelson City Council
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6. Neil McVicar is buried under a simple headstone facing Fairfield house, which was once the site of his home, nursery and orchard.  Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1808, he was a nurseryman in Bath, England, when his first wife Mary, the mother of his sons, William and John, died. He emigrated to Nelson from England in 1849, on the barque Cornwall. His second wife, Margaret and infant son, Wishart, died on the voyage. Neil built the original dormered four-room cottage where Fairfield House stands today.  He established a large orchard behind his home of some 500 fruit trees, which included 30 varieties of apples, as well as shrubs and some of the forest trees, we can see today. Neil developed a nursery supplying fruit trees, choice shrubs, oaks elms, poplars and cypresses etc. to the early pioneers. "The Nelson Examiner" of 1852 records that he won prizes for his rose blooms. After only four years in New Zealand he died leaving his remaining sons William and John orphans. They both moved to Blenheim and trained to become builders and cabinetmakers.
   Bellevue. The Bell family home in Richmond. Retrieved NZETC
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7. William Gordon Bell - W.G. Bell was born in Scotland in 1784,  worked as a plantation manager in the West Indies, and married Alziere Cervantes, the widow of the owner.  They returned to Scotland when abolition of slavery made the plantation unprofitable. When James, their son, became a surveyor for the New Zealand Company, William (aged 56) and his children and families came to New Zealand in 1840 via Australia. They spent six years in Wanganui, endeavouring to establish a home and farm in a climate of Maori hostility to the land buying proceedings of the New Zealand Company agents. They decided to move to Nelson, another New Zealand Company settlement, and replacement land for the abandoned Wanganui farmland was able to be negotiated.

   William and some of the family settled on land which is now Lower Queen Street, Richmond in 1847. Daughter Bessie (Elizabeth), who spent a lifetime as a practical farmer, kept a diary of day to day events of the first year here. It reveals the constant hard work of establishing a farm from scratch. The two daughters, Margaret and Bessie, their younger brother Willie, and a hired hand, Harry Tunnicliff, assisted their father with most of the work. They built a house and used the bullock drawn plough. Flax had to be grubbed, gathered and burnt, posts and rails carted from a nearby wood and fashioned into stockyards and pig pen, and crops sown. She describes neighbours helping with the early ploughing, making the first cheese, fencing stock, planting crops. There was no work on Christmas Day; the hired man spent the day in the Ale House. Income was earned from the sale of cheese to a Nelson shop, barley to a Nelson brewery and stock were traded at sales. There was a cart road to Nelson for transport of produce and infrequent visits by William Gordon Bell to the bank, for Grand Jury service and for settling the ownership arrangements with the New Zealand Company. Sundays were visiting days and, in March, young and old enjoyed a couple of days at the races. The New Zealand Company ceased to exist in 1850 and Crown Grants were issued to its land purchasers. W.G. Bell's 1851 grant was for 110 acres (the original farm, now named Bellevue) and, in 1852, he got 1900 acres in the Upper Motueka valley, now Golden Downs. W.G. Bell the Younger got a grant of a smallish acreage of land adjacent to the Waimea River. The year 1851 marked the death of Alziere, buried at Fairfield, Nelson.  Disagreements between father and son, financial difficulties, sale of land (Motueka) and a try at goldmining occurred after this.⁶

   On his death in 1864, the Nelson Examiner remarked how "the clear ringing voice and vice-like grip of the hearty old Lowland farmer" was missed, and "His work as a man and a colonist will be conceded by all who knew him: and any country which can boast a number of men of the same stamp may justly feel proud."

   The grave of Nathaniel Edwards. Fairfield Park. Nelson City Council
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8. Nathaniel & Annie Edwards - The tombstone for Edwards family includes Nathaniel & some of his 16 children. All the children noted on the stone died before Nathaniel (who died 1880) apart from daughter Frances Augusta who died 1881.  The remaining family lived in England with their mother after 1881.

   Nathaniel  Edwards, merchant born 1822, arrived on the ship Slaines Castle in 1845 as a single man. He must have had some money or backing, as he arrived as a partner in a firm to establish and operate a flax mill near Motueka.  Flax dressing was already an established industry, with several firms working on becoming profitable.  Flax–made rope was sold in Bridge Street.  Edwards arrived with staff and machinery and produced plenty of dressed flax, but was no more successful than others in making the dressed flax competitive on the English market. Without successful exports the business failed.  In 1846 he sold all the machinery for a pittance and joined the Government survey team in the Awatere Valley.

   On 29 August 1855 Nathaniel married Ann Augusta Nicholas Nelson cathedral. In 1856 he joined the mercantile firm of Fell& Seymour as a clerk. In 1857 an agreement was signed for Edwards and George Bennett to take over the company and John Symons joined the partnership. The business was known as N. Edwards & Co.. It operated as general merchants, importers and commission and shipping agents. By 1863 they were operating their first coastal vessel, the steamer  ‘Lyttleton’ as part of the Nelson Steamship Company.  To further its mercantile interests, the company established, in 1866, a shipping branch, and established a workshop near N. Edwards & Co bulk store at Auckland Point.

   Aerial image from Top of the South Maps showing location of graveyard and Edwards plot

   In 1866 Edwards sold his shares in the mercantile firm to his partners. He retained the shipping department but, by 1870, John Symons had become the sole owner of both the mercantile company and its shipping department. Edwards was also a politician both as a member of parliament for Nelson and member of legislative Council.When Edwards bought Fells imposing residence (now Warwick House) in 1862 he undertook two major expansions perhaps envisioning the family which seemed to increase annually. The site away from the “ditch” in the city would have been healthier. Epidemics of Diptheria and typhoid were common and he lost two children in the diphtheria epidemic of 1861. Upon completion the house had approximately 50 rooms. Edwards died only a few years after making these additions. In 1880 his estate was valued at the incredible amount of eight hundred thousand pound sterling, which would equate to around $90 million in today’s terms After Nathaniel Edwards died in 1880, aged only 57, his wife Mrs Anne Augusta Edwards (nee Nicholas) went to England with her 9 surviving children. She lived in London till she died 31 July 1922. 
   
   Annie Augusta and Nathaniel Edwards had 16 live children (but some didn’t live long) and twins seem to run in the family.

9. Jane Ching’s memorial stone was refurbished at the time of the Ching family 150th reunion in 1992 . The story of the Ching family is told elsewhere on the Prow.

10. McGee-  The McGee family came out on the Martha Ridgeway in April 1841. Parents Alexander, 34 shoemaker, and Catherine, age 35, wife brought with them their five children: Charles 15yrs shoemaker, Henry 12yrs; Ann 9yrs ; Elizabeth 7yrs  and David age 8mths.  The headstones refer to  Alexander and Catherine and their children Henry and Ann. Son Charles is noted on another headstone, possibly with his own wife and children.
    
    Alexander McGee owned a number of hotels, including the Marine Hotel 1859-64 (later renamed as the Coach and Horses on the North east corner of Trafalgar and Bridge streets). Alexander had the licence to the Anchor Inn on the south east corner of the same intersection, which later became the Trafalgar Hotel under a new owner. McGee probably found, like others at this time, that running a hotel was a lucrative business and past experience not necessary.  Hotels and licences changed hands often.
    
    His son, Charles McGee, appears to have followed in his father’s footsteps as a shoemaker, stating this as an occupation when they arrived in Nelson, and in public records in 1847. However Charles also turned to being a publican, stating this as his profession by 1853 on the electoral roll. The Royal Arms on the corner of Collingwood and Bridge Streets was licensed in 1851-1857 to him, and then in 1865 Charles McGee rebuilt it as the 17-room Nelson Hotel. Sadly this hotel was destroyed in a disastrous fire in 1866 that started here and spread to all corners of the intersection, fanned by a strong wind. It was quickly rebuilt and the famous public meeting to form the Nelson Rugby Club was held here in 1868. During the 1890s the licence lapsed and the building was used by the Anchor Boot Company. 

A sketch of the Cemetery from the 1933 Engineering field book showing location of the Hale plot

Illegible or missing stones

1. Samuel Stephens - A Quaker. Stephens was a member of the New Zealand Company's preliminary expedition to Nelson in 1841 as first assistant to the chief surveyor. At the time at his death he was the member for Nelson in the House at Representatives. His gravestone is now illegible but contained the following words: ‘Sacred to the memory of Samuel Stephens Esq., who died at Nelson N.Z. 26th June 1855. He was one of the first English settlers and ever took the warmest interest in the progress of the colony.This tomb is erected in affectionate remembrance by his widow. Requiescat in Pace.' The designated Quaker cemetery is on the hillside off Rutherford St, near the junction with  Selwyn place.
   
   
2. The headstones of William Hale and his wife Eliza and daughter Hannah were damaged beyond recognition by 1948 and were buried along with others in the South Western area of the cemetery. William Hale was one of the first men to establish a nursery in Nelson. Some of the trees growing here at Fairfeld could be from his stock.

2015

The Nelson Women’s Club is formed

On Monday 26^th July 1926, 60 ladies of Nelson gathered in the afternoon in the Haeremai Room of the building at 296 Trafalgar Street, Nelson City, on the site formerly occupied by the Nelson Institute, for the purpose of inaugurating a Womens’ Club.  Present were women from prominent families whose descendants are still here in Nelson today.

View looking north along Trafalgar Street from Church Steps towards the Post Office. F.N.Jones, c.1915. Nelson Provincial Museum 309991
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From the outset a formal meeting process was followed.  Mrs C.R. Fell was elected to chair the meeting, and the motion by Mrs W. Rout that a Womens’ Club be formed, was seconded by Mrs Gibbs, and carried by the ladies present.  Officers of the Club were elected – President Mrs Gibbs; five Vice-Presidents; Committee of ten, and the annual subscription was set at £2.2.0.  The subscription would be without entrance fee, for those on the list of ‘original members’, i.e. those present at this meeting, and for all those applying, subject to ballot, before 1^st September 1926.  

The committee was instructed to draw up rules along the lines of the Otago Womens’ Club, and the meeting was adjourned till 4^th August 1926 at 7.30pm.  In preparation for the General Meeting in nine days’ time the committee met and a Secretary and treasurer were appointed; a bank account set up with trustees recommended by the bank manager; suitable possible club rooms identified; and Club Rules prepared, which were later ratified at the adjourned General Meeting on 4^th August 1926.  64 members were elected.

Club rooms

The City Council offered the Haeremai Rooms, basically the present rooms, at a rental of 35/- per week, on a three year lease.  The Council offered to effect repairs to the value of £100.  A Furnishing Committee was formed and it was decided to issue debentures for £300 of £1 each at 5% for items to furnish the rooms

In October it was decided to “open” on 17^th November 1926, when the furnishing would be finished.  On the opening day, the president was “At Home” to members in the afternoon from 3.30pm to 5.30pm, and in the evening from 8pm to 11pm to members and one man friend.  The Mia Mia tearooms catered for 300.  The president provided entertainment in the afternoon and the committee provided the evening entertainment.  Vitetta Bros. played for one hour at each function.

Traditions of The Nelson Womens’ Club

The Bridge Circle was the first to form in December 1926. In February 1927 Drama, Garden, Arts and Crafts, French and Literary Circles were formed, and so the life of the Club really got under way.

Nelson Women's Club launch. Nelson Evening Mail 28 July, 1926
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A tradition of the wives of Governors General being Patronesses of the Club began with the invitation to Lady Alice Fergusson to take the role. She accepted in May 1927 after the Incorporation of the Club and its affiliation with the New Zealand Federation of Womens’ Clubs.

The Club had 13 Patronesses, who were wives of the current Governor General. This ended when  Dame Catherine Tizard became Governor General, when the chain was broken.  The photographs given to the Club by these ladies are on display in the Club rooms.

Becoming owners of the building

The Nelson Women’s Club took over the lease of the upstairs floor of the building in August 1926, and successfully ran the Club for 39 years as tenants of the Nelson City Council. In 1965 Nelson City Council wanted to sell the building; Club members of the 1965 era took up the challenge and bought the premises, despite the only income being from subscriptions. The original subscription was £2.2.0 – in today’s money that would be $189.69.  A much lower annual subscription, currently $65, is set today. The purchase of the building by the Club was funded by debentures raised by individual members.

Photo: Martin de Ruyter in 'Meet You At the Church Steps - A Social History of a Nelson Landmark' by Karen Stade, 2013.
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The Club celebrated its 85^th anniversary in 2011 and were proud of what had been achieved by volunteers since purchasing the building in 1965. Successive presidents and executive committees, volunteers all, have run a business with responsibilities for maintenance, employment, and governance issues and accountability as landowners and landlords, plus the continued enjoyment of the members.  Long hours of voluntary labour have willingly been given by these people, and the general membership, to keep the Nelson Women’s Club and all its Circles afloat and flourishing.

The continual need for maintenance of the exterior and interior of the building, furniture and furnishings could not have been handled from subscription income alone.  There have been high and low points as building owners, and huge fund raising efforts the major one being to fund the strengthening of  the south wall to the seismic requirements of the 1990’s (nearly $86,000 was the cost). This was completed in June 1992.

Good management of the Club, owning the building, and having good tenants whose rent has assisted the Club to maintain the high standard of facilities for members to enjoy today, have meant the Club is in good shape to last a lot longer.

The history of the building at 294 Trafalgar Street

Located in Town Acre 445 the site was the first location, on land, of the Nelson Institute,  first called The Literary, Scientific and Philosophic Institution of Nelson. This was formed on board the ships ‘Whitby’ and ‘Will-Watch’ in May 1841 in the Bay of Biscay, on their way to Nelson.  Late in 1842 the “Nelson Institute” took up residence on the site, in a single storey building, starting Nelson’s first library, and subsequently incorporating a museum. In1844 the Institute had 60 members though membership was not open to women at this stage. By 1861 it had outgrown the initial premises and relocated to Hardy Street.

On 14 April 1897, Margaret Vining, wife of William Graham Malone Vining, acquired title to the land, and the Vinings built the building the Club occupies today.  Originally Mr Vining operated a piano showroom and cycle shop; and in 1901 the building was extended at the rear for a car showroom, repair depot and garage which later moved to Montgomery Square.  Other occupants of the building, prior to the Nelson City Council buying it in November 1925 were Fredric Higgins, draper, and F.A. Palmer cycle importer.

Nelson City Council operated a gas showroom on the ground floor of the building, and the Nelson Women’s Club became the building’s owner from 1965.

There have been various tenants of the downstairs shop-front area, commencing with the Nelson City Council gas showroom, some of whom are:

• Tudor House China & Crystal showroom, owned by Wattie Gibson and Ted Hockey; which subsequently moved down Trafalgar Street to approximately where Glassons is today.
• The “Chez Eelco” coffee bar and art gallery of Eelco Boswijk from 1961 until his retirement in 2001, and was famous for Eelco’s great hospitality, long hours of opening, and being one of the earliest cafe's in New Zealand to have footpath table and chairs
• Kirsten Boswijk, Eelco’s daughter ran a café from 2001 to 2004.
• The late Graham Barker ran a café called “The Chez” on the site for a short time during 2004.
• “House of Ales” Café and Bar was run by Barry McCann from late 2004 until his enterprise ended in receivership in 2010.
• Harrys, run by Howard Morris and Rob Fanselow relocated from their previous site in Hardy Street in 2011.

The Club has many photographic records of historic interest and has been well served by gifts and bequests from past members.

For more information contact the Nelson Women’s Club

2011

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]. Available at Nelson Public Libraries.

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

Blick Cloth is reputed to be the first woven cloth in New Zealand. It was also known as Nelson Cloth or Nelson Tweed, and was 'described as 'good rough woollen cloth' (Anon,1845:5).¹ It was manufactured in Nelson between 1845-1876.

Thomas Blick. Nelson Provincial Museum Reference: Tyree Studio Collection 69435

In 1870, Nelson Cloth won the tender to produce 2000 yards of grey tweed to make the uniforms for the New Zealand Constabulary.

Described as New Zealand's first weaver, Thomas Blick (1802-1860), set out from Gloucestershire, England on the ship the Indus. He  had purchased eight acres of land in the Brook Valley from The New Zealand Company, and it was here that he established a mill in June 1845. He brought with him his wife and seven children, arriving in Nelson in February 1843.

Thomas was 38 years old and his wife, Hannah, 39. Their children were: Benjamin, aged two,  Charles, fourteen,  Enoch, seventeen, George, eighteen, Hannah, thirteen, James, five and William, nine.

Thomas had been a weaver in Gloucestershire, but he described himself as a labourer  when he emigrated to New Zealand. He may have chosen this vocation as there was a  demand for labourers at the time.

Thomas Blick developed Blick Cloth  from sheep's wool spun by German immigrant women. They worked for one shilling per day. As production increased, Thomas was not able to keep up with the demands the spinners made for an increase in wages, so the business folded.

Thomas began production again in the late 1850's and a business partnership was formed with Joseph Webley, a friend and master weaver who came out from England.

Joseph Webley and his wife. Nelson Provincial Museum

The stream running through Thomas Blick's property was used to power the first loom in New Zealand. As production increased a water wheel was installed, which was reportedly 32 feet across. 

When Thomas Blick died  in 1860, Joseph Webley bought the business and continued to produce a high quality and sought after cloth, which was renamed from Blick Cloth to Nelson Cloth. The factory was moved to Bridge Street in the Nelson township.

 'In 1871  Webley changed the trading name to Webley Brothers and the cloth became known as Nelson Tweed (Anon 1871:7). In 1872 Webley Brothers were reported to be producing  more than fifty different patterns in Nelson Tweed. (Anon,1872).²

What became of this successful business, that up until 1870 'was the only woollen mill in the colony'.³   It became too competitive an industry for Webley, with the growth of mills such as the Mosgiel Woollen Factory Company and Kaiapoi Woollen Company in Christchurch in the mid 1870's. Webley sold the land and machinery in 1876.

Blick Cloth made an appearance  again in 1969, when a time capsule was found below the Provincial Council Chambers  building which was being demolished at the time. The capsule, dating back to 1859, contained a collection of objects which represented local industries at that time in Nelson. It is now held at the Nelson Provincial Museum.

Blick House Nelson. Retrieved from: http://flickr.com/photos/21985823@N07/12081123236

The site of  New Zealand's first commercial mill and weaving industry can be found if you head up the Brook Valley in Nelson - at 26 Blick Terrace. Thomas Blick's House is still standing and protected under the Historic Places Trust. The house, which must have once been a  busy household with seven children, the bullock pulling the water wheel, and the sound of German  being spoken, as  the women spun the sheep's wool, now has a peace about it.  Thomas would once have been sitting at his loom, weaving high quality Nelson Tweed. 

To explore further:  

• Thomas Blick's grave can be found  in Fairfield Cemetery in Nelson.                       
• There is a piece of Blick Cloth in the Nelson  Provincial Museum
• The original Blick House is still in existence, located on Blick Terrace, up The Brook Valley, it is  registered with the Historic Places Trust.

Notable events:

• In June 1845 Blick cloth was exhibited at the Nelson Literary and Scientific Institute
• A posthumous award was given to Thomas Blick in 1860, in the form of a bronze medal. Mr Blick had entered his cloth in 'a London exhibition at Crystal Palace and took first place in the worsted cloth section' ( Newspaper article, details unknown, 'Historic Medal returned'). The medal was  gifted  to the Nelson Provincial Museum by Thomas Blick's descendants in 1974.
• Dunedin Exhibition 1865– the cloth won a silver medal
• 'Medal of Merit'  and an 'honorable mention'  at Great Vienna Exhibition 1873
• Nelson Exhibition in November 1873: the Webley Brothers  received prizes for their shawls and blankets.

2016

Nelson's Institute of Culture and Learning

"The finest libraries in the Dominion should be like fresh air and sunlight and education - free to everyone"; said Nelson's mayor, T.A.H. Field, when laying the foundation stone for the third Nelson Institute building on 27 September 1911. In his speech, he deplored what he saw as the desire of the original settlers to "maintain class distinctions and keep all literary, scientific and political advantages in the hands of the few."¹

The Nelson Literary and Scientific Institution, or Nelson Institute,  was founded in May 1841 as the New Zealand Company ships, the Whitby and Will Watch made their way to New Zealand.²  The leaders of the enterprise, which  included Captain Arthur Wakefield, had a vision for: "a civic centre...consisting of a well-equipped library, a museum of history and ethnology and a philosophical society to promote intellectual development."³

Nelson Institute original premises, when building was occupied by Mrs Cooper, dressmaker. 46829_4, Nelson Provincial Museum.
Click image to enlarge

With an initial collection of 700 books donated by passengers, and money sent to England for more books, journals and periodicals, a new library and reading room was built and ready for business within months of the settlers arrival in Nelson in 1842.⁴

Second Nelson Institute in Hardy Street (1861-1906). The Nelson Provincial Museum, Tyree Studio Collection: Stereo 65
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A high level of illiteracy (31.3% of the population could not read in 1848)⁵, expensive fees and a membership process involving nomination by two members⁶, may be why some saw the Institute as a club for the privileged classes. No women participated in the early life of the Institute.⁷

The Nelson Institute remained at the top of Trafalgar Street on part of Town Acre 445⁸ until 1861 when a new facility catering for a library, museum and lectures was constructed on the corner of Hardy and Harley Streets.  The Nelson Provincial Council wanted the Institute to broaden its activities and become a literary and mechanics institute and gave the land and a £200 grant towards the new building.⁹ An additional museum wing was added in 1883.¹⁰

By 1873, there were 11 public libraries, mechanics institutes and other literary and scientific institutions throughout the Nelson province.¹¹

On February 25, 1906, disaster struck - fire gutted much of the wooden Institute building. A crowd of people, directed by Institute president, Fred Gibbs, managed to salvage many books and museum artifacts. The library re-opened in Kings Hall, a hall also used by the Athletic Club on Bridge Street, in the block between Harley and Collingwood Street,  just a week later and remained there for seven years.¹²

Construction of the 1911 Nelson Library, Institute & Museum, with
scaffolding. The Nelson Provincial Museum, F N Jones Collection: 26523. Click image to enlarge

The new Institute was built of reinforced concrete at a cost of £3726, and opened by the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Honourable F.D.H. Bell¹³ who urged the Institute "not to fill the shelves of its library with abtruse works of science, which the ordinary man had not time to read.¹⁴ The Institute's rules said: "there was to be no lying on benches, eating, smoking, spitting or striking of matches." Conversing or reading aloud was also prohibited.¹⁵

The imposing brick-clad building in Hardy Street was the home of the Nelson Public Library for 78 years¹⁶ and now houses the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology's  School of Marine Studies, having been sold to Nelson Polytechnic in 1990.¹⁷

The two facilities of the Institute were separated in the mid-1960s, the public library coming under the direct control of the Nelson City Council and the Museum under the administrative control of the newly-formed Nelson Provincial Museum Trust Board. The museum and its library and archives were relocated from Hardy Street to Isel Park, Stoke in 1973.  An additional exhibitions and education venue opened in October 2005 - on part of the original Town Acre 445 where the Institute began.¹⁸

The Nelson Literary Scientific and Philosophical Institute continues to this day with lectures and discussion groups. The Institute's 170^th birthday was celebrated on 22 May 2011.

Nelson Institute & Museum after fire. The Nelson Provincial Museum, Copy Collection: C826
Click image to enlarge

Mechanics' Institutes

Mechanics' Institutes were established in Europe and America in the early nineteenth century as educational organisations for craftsmen and skilled workers. Institutes aimed to provide education for members through lectures on science and a variety of self-improvement topics. The institutes also usually provided subscription libraries for the use of Institute members and members of the public.

 In New Zealand, Mechanics' Institutes were formed very early in the European settlement period. The Auckland Mechanics' Institute was established in July 1841, and a Wellington Institute in April the following year.¹⁹

The Richmond Mechanics Institute was formed on 12 November 1846, after a well-attended public meeting. A series of lectures were delivered in the following months, including one by Charles Heaphy on ‘Astronomy'.²⁰ The Nelson Institute began to provide lectures and classes from 1850 ²¹, with regular classes on writing, geography, grammar and arithmetic and lectures on subjects such as poetry, mechanics and hydrostatics.²²

2011

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

At Home and Away during World War I: A Tale of Two Families

Albert Edward (Bert) Everett was born in Nelson in 1857 and was the fifth of ten children. He came from a prominent Nelson family with civic connections. His parents, Edward and Hannah (Annie), née Pope, had previously spent several years in Canada before emigrating to New Zealand on the Sir Edward Paget. They made landfall in Auckland on May 25, 1853.¹ A Londoner by birth, Edward Everett settled with his wife and first four sons in Nelson around 1856 and soon prospered in his new home town.

Edward set up as a publican and wine and spirit merchant, getting an early boost to his fortunes by obtaining a lucrative "bush licence" in March, 1857, for the sale of liquor at the Aorere goldfields. Starting with both the Bank and Masonic Hotels on Hardy Street, he built up a substantial property portfolio over the years, including the historic Haven homestead, "Stafford House". He also served as a captain of the Volunteer Fire Brigade, City Councillor, Justice of the Peace and twice as Mayor of Nelson during the 1870s and 1880s.²

Everett Bros. Bridge Street Store ca 1910.Nelson Provincial Museum Ref: 176679 (Photographer F N Jones). The "Victoria House" premises were sited at 68 Bridge Street. Later this would become the site for another long-running Nelson business, H & J Smith’s department store. Click image to enlarge

1864 saw a goldrush at Wakamarina and another opportunity for Edward Everett, who bought up John Wilson’s Accommodation House at Canvastown and rebranded it the Pelorus Hotel. With his two oldest sons, Edward Jnr and Charles in mind, he also set up an import and retail drapery business on Bridge Street. Trading as Everett Brothers & Company, with Edward Jnr in charge of the store and Charles in London, sourcing merchandise and sending it back home, this highly successful business would run for nearly 50 years, becoming a Nelson institution.³

Everett Bros. expanded their operations in 1874 by building a second, larger shop on Bridge Street. Following the death of storekeeper William Snow early that year, Everett Bros. acquired the drapery he had established on Trafalgar Street in the 1840s. Its stock and well-known trading name, “Victoria House”, were transferred to their own new premises, sited nearer the centre of town and opened in October, 1874. However, in March, 1875, a spectacular fire destroyed the original Everett Bros.’ store and its contents, fortunately well insured.⁴ Everett Bros were back to one shop, with all business now devolving on “Victoria House”.

Meanwhile the younger son, Albert, went to school. He won a scholarship to Nelson College, which he attended 1871 to 1874, then spent time in Christchurch and Dunedin. Around 1885 he joined the partnership as manager of the family firm and oversaw another period of expansion. Everett Bros.’ Nelson store underwent a total revamp in November, 1899, and branches in Takaka and Motueka were opened around the same time.  

Country cousin: Everett Bros.’ new Motueka store on opening day, 15 Nov., 1902. Motueka & District Historical Association. Fergus Holyoake Collection. Ref:355/1 SHOP. Motueka. This store was established at 151 High Street, where Paper Plus stands today.
Click image to enlarge

Motueka’s first Everett Bros.’ shop was a modest affair, but a brand new, purpose-built store on High Street was launched with great fanfare on the 15^th of November, 1902.⁵ Everett Bros.’ Motueka establishment was sold in August, 1904, to its Motueka manager, William Uren, who continued to run it as a drapery under the name Uren & Co. Albert Everett retained his connections with the Motueka community. He had a new interest and may have made a trade - store for land. In 1904 he bought a farmat Pokororo in the Motueka Valley, where he could experiment with apple production.⁶ By 1907 he was winning prizes for his apples at the Motueka Horticultural Society Show.

In 1883 Albert married Ada, née Gordon, born 1862 in Melbourne, Australia. They had 12 children who were raised in Nelson at the family's John Scott-built Collingwood Street villa, several attending Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls. They were: George, Ethel, Gladys (who became a well-known headmistress at various private girls’ schools in Australia), Viola, Claire and Dorothy (twins), Gerald, Frank, Charles, Stella, John and Colin.

Captain George Gordon Everett. Courtesy Barbara Strathdee, My Heritage: Everett-Strathdee Family
Click image to enlarge

George (b. 1884) was the eldest, and distinguished himself at Nelson College, which he attended 1900-1904, being captain of the 1st XV and Head Boy, dux and captain of the No 2 Cadet Company in his final year. A career soldier, he went to England after leaving school and gained a commission with the British Imperial Army in 1904. He was later transferred to India, where he served for 12 years as a Captain with the 67th Punjabis. He had just returned to Baluchistan after a three-year tour of duty with the Military Police in Northern Burma when he was killed on 1 May, 1917, during an attack on a British convoy by Mahsud tribesmen near Fort Nili Kach, on the North-West Frontier.⁷ He is the only known New Zealander to be commemorated at the India Gate memorial in New Delhi, dedicated to Indian Army soldiers killed in WWI and on the NW Frontier (today Pakistan).

By the time of George’s death, his father Albert was living at Pokororo. His wife, Ada, had died in 1906 and on 10 September, 1913, he remarried at the Nelson Registry Office to 40-year-old divorcée, Annie Watson, née Arscott, daughter of Thomas and Harriett Arscott of Timaru.⁸ Annie had come out from England with her parents on the White Rose in 1875. Not long before the wedding, Albert liquidated several Nelson properties, including the flagship Everett Bros. store on Bridge Street. By now the only family member involved with the business, he had decided to make a complete break and, with his new bride, set up permanently on his Pokororo farm as a commercial fruitgrower.⁹

Ralph Watson. Nelson College Old Boys Association. Courtesy Gina Fletcher. Originally published in The Nelsonian, July, 1917
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Annie had a son, Ralph Thomas Watson, born in Wellington on Christmas Day, 1897, who became Albert Everett’s stepson.¹⁰ Ralph got off to a rough start. His birth father was William John Turner Watson, an Australian carter who was working as a hotel-keeper at Makikihi when he married Annie in January 1897.  The Watsons struggled to make a living and he deserted her a year after Ralph's birth. Annie returned to her family in Timaru, where she supported herself and her son by working as a dressmaker. She eventually sued for divorce and was granted a decree nisi in 1910.¹¹

Ralph's grandparents lived on Timaru’s Dee Street. His grandfather, Tom, was a stoker with the Timaru Gas Company, his grandmother a supporter of women's suffrage. There were plenty of male role models amongst his extended family. His mother had three brothers  - Ernest, Frederick and Alfred Arscott  - who all served in WWI and returned. Their names are inscribed on the Roll of Honour at the Timaru War Memorial.

A regular attendee at the Timaru Congregational Church Sunday School from an early age, Ralph started school in 1903 and spent 20 months at Timaru Main School. From 1905 to 1910 he was educated at Tasman Street School and Nelson Central School, after moving with his mother to Nelson.¹² Annie Watson carried on her work as a dressmaker at a Bridge Street establishment, almost certainly Everett Bros., the biggest employer of tailors and dressmakers in Nelson.¹³

Ralph attended Nelson College, 1911-1914, at the same time as Albert Everett’s sons, Gerald and Frank. He appears to have been a natural athlete. In December, 1910, at the age of 12, he was coxswain for the losing crew in the final of the Nelson Rowing Clubs fours. At College he was a keen rugby player and cricketer, being a member of both the 1st XV and the 1st XI.

Albert Everett at his Pokororo farm with his children Claire (later Strathdee) and Charles (Charlie). Courtesy Barbara Strathdee, My Heritage website: Everett-Strathdee Family.
Click image to enlarge

After leaving College Ralph worked on mixed farms and orchards around Pokororo, no doubt including his stepfather’s property, where his stepbrother Frank was employed. At the age of 17 he enlisted at Pokororo, becoming a Gunner with the NZ Field Artillery. He was still keen as mustard when he wrote to his proud grandfather from France in August 1916,¹⁴ and itching to get back to the Front in a letter sent to Timaru from Sling Camp a couple of months later. Just five days after this last letter was published in the Timaru Herald, Ralph would be dead, killed in action at the Somme. He was 19.¹⁵

Five of Albert Everett’s other children also served during WWI. His sons Gerald and Frank were likewise Gunners with the NZ Field Artillery. Gerald joined up before his younger brother Frank, leaving New Zealand with the Main Body on October 16, 1914. Frank and Gerald (known as “Flick”) were also Nelson College Old Boys, with Gerald a noted sportsman at school.¹⁶

Matron Fanny Wilson and nursing staff at Walton-on-Thames Hospital, ca. 1918. Claire & Dorothy Everett together at right-hand end, bottom row. Credit: Royal NZ R.S.A. Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Ref: 1/2-014124-G
Click image to enlarge

Roy Edward Everett. Image supplied by Jenifer Lemaire
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Viola, who qualified as a nurse in Sydney, Australia in October, 1915, joined the Australian Army Nursing Service in December 1916 and served as a staff nurse at No 27 General Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, returning to Australia in July, 1919.¹⁷ Twins, Claire and Dorothy, who qualified together at Christchurch in June 1916, both went off to England with the NZ Army Nursing Service in August, 1918. They served together as staff nurses at No 2 NZ General Hospital, a military hospital for seriously wounded NZ soldiers, situated at Walton-on-Thames. The life-saving care their brother, Frank, received at No 1 NZ General Hospital at Brockenhurst from October 1916 to January 1917 possibly influenced their decision to join up. They returned to New Zealand in August, 1919.¹⁸

One of Albert's nephews went off to war as well; his brother Frank Evelyn Everett's son, Roy Edward Everett.  Roy was another Nelson College Old Boy. He also served as a Gunner with the NZ Field Artillery and was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry in action during the Battle of Broodseinde Ridge in October 1917. After the war he became a farmer at Motupipi, Takaka.

In October 1916, around the same time as Thomas Arscott was receiving the bad news about his grandson in Timaru, Albert Everett was notified that his stepson Ralph had been killed and his son Frank seriously injured by shrapnel.¹⁹

A Gun-Pit in the Somme Valley. From: The New Zealand Division 1916-1919: A Popular History Credit: NZETC
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The two stepbrothers were close in age and clearly inseparable friends as well, perhaps from school-days. They joined up together on the same day, 24 August, 1915, left with the same draft on 9 October, 1915 and trained together in Egypt, where Ralph turned 18. They were together, too, in the same artillery gun pit at Flers when it was struck by an enemy shell on October 15, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. Ralph took the full impact and was killed instantly. Frank was hit by shrapnel, receiving head injuries which left him unconscious for 14 days. Ralph was found lying over Frank, who later credited his stepbrother with saving his life.²⁰

Frank Everett. Courtesy Barbara Strathdee, My Heritage: Everett–Strathdee Family
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After three months in hospital in England, Frank was sent back to New Zealand for 12 months’ recuperation, but was discharged in 1917 as a result of his injuries and later moved to Australia to live. Gerald was demobilised in 1919 and went to Auckland, where he resumed his former profession as a clerk with the Union Bank of Australia. He retired to Nelson. Viola, who never married, continued her nursing career in Australia and in 1945 became Matron of the Kenmore Repatriation Hospital in Queensland. In 1957 she was awarded an MBE for her work there. Her sister Gladys (who preferred to called "Gordon") was also awarded an MBE in 1960 for her work in the field of education.

Dorothy and Claire came back to Nelson but soon found that it was too quiet for them. They travelled together to San Francisco where they both took work as nurses. Claire met and married Frederick (Fred) Strathdee, who came from Scotland. He had been recruited as a teenager by a Canadian Bank, and remained in banking all his working life. Fred and Claire made their home in San Francisco, and raised their three children there. Dorothy didn’t ever marry, but continued working as a nurse. She was a fond aunt and spent many weekends with the Strathdee family. When the Strathdees eventually retired to Victoria on Vancouver Island in Canada, Dorothy returned to Nelson.

The Everett family suffered an earlier loss at home on the 1^st January, 1915, when Albert’s daughter Stella drowned while swimming in the Motueka River. She was 24. Stella had epilepsy, which was thought to have been a contributing factor in her death.²¹

Albert Everett lived with his second wife Annie at his Pokororo farm for many years and remained closely involved with the local fruitgrowing industry until April 1935. He then leased out his farm and retired to Nelson, where he died 17 August, 1943, aged 85. Annie died 29 September, 1957. They both lie at the Wakapuaka Cemetery, with Albert's first wife, Ada, his parents Edward and Hannah Everett and other family members close by.

Ralph Watson is commemorated at the Caterpillar (New Zealand) Memorial at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval, France, which records the names of those NZ servicemen killed during fighting at the Somme in September and October, 1916, "whose graves are known only to God."

He is listed on the Nelson/Tasman Roll of Honour and also honoured at the Ngatimoti War Memorial in the Motueka Valley, Tasman, New Zealand.

2014

Acknowledgements: Jenifer Lemaire and Barbara Strathdee (Everett and Strathdee families); Nelson College Old Boys’ Association per Gina Fletcher; Coralie Smith, Motueka Historical Association; Tony Rippin (curator), South Canterbury Museum, Timaru, and Teresa Scott (librarian), South Canterbury Branch NZSG.

A woman who concealed her true identity under the pen name Femina was New Zealand’s pioneer suffragist. A few years later the founding principal of Nelson College for Girls lent her support to the suffragist movement to gain women the right to vote.

Working like a mole - Mary Ann Muller (1820-1901)

Mary Ann Muller's feminist ideas were formed in England, where she became concerned at the degree of legal discrimination against women.

Mary Ann Muller and her grandson, The Nelson Provincial Museum, Print Collection, 299160
Click image to enlarge

Separated from her first husband, James Griffiths, on the grounds of cruelty, Mary Ann emigrated to New Zealand with her children. She met her second husband, Stephen Muller, the ship's surgeon, on board the Pekin in 1849 and they married in Nelson in 1851. Stephen was an elected member and Secretary of the Nelson Provincial Council. Mary Ann met politically influential men through her husband and discussed women' rights with them.¹ Her particular concern was the loss of women's property rights upon marriage, and she also felt strongly that women should be able to vote. Some men were sympathetic, but many others, including Stephen, were firmly against notions of women's rights.²

The couple moved to Blenheim in 1857, when Stephen was appointed Resident Magistrate for the Wairau. Mary Ann felt unable to voice her views publicly. ‘Working like a mole'³ she enlisted the support of her son-in-law Charles Elliot, the editor of The Nelson Examiner, who agreed to print her feminist articles anonymously, under the pen name Femina⁴ (or Femmina). He ensured that her articles were widely distributed, and Femina became well known throughout the country.

In 1869 Mary Ann wrote the first women's rights pamphlet in New Zealand. ‘An Appeal to the Men of New Zealand' by Femina argued that women should not be discriminated against in law or politics because of their sex, and should have the right to vote. "How long are women to remain a wholly unrepresented body of people?" ⁵

As a result, Mary Ann met with and influenced numerous politicians. Parliamentary acts to protect the property of married women were passed in 1870 and 1884. In 1893 women won the right to vote, and Mary Ann wrote that, while now an old woman, she thanked God she had been able to register herself an elector.⁶

Mary Ann's identity as Femina was finally revealed in 1898, after Stephen's death.⁷Kate Sheppard, who led the New Zealand Women's Christian Temperance Union campaign to win women the vote, referred to her as New Zealand's pioneer suffragist.⁸

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

Educated with the boys - Kate Edger (1857-1935)

Kate Edger was the first woman in New Zealand to gain a university degree, and the first woman in the British Empire to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She received an unconventional education, studying with top boy pupils at Auckland College and Grammar School, which was affiliated with the University of New Zealand, through which she earned her degree in 1877. ⁹

In 1882, while teaching at Christchurch Girls' High School, Kate gained an M.A. ¹⁰ Soon after, she was appointed as the founding principal of Nelson College for Girls, ¹¹ where she gained a reputation as a gifted teacher, respected by pupils. She became a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union while in Nelson, running meetings and making speeches in support of its suffrage campaign.¹²

Kate married Welsh Congregational Minister William Evans in Auckland in 1890 and resigned from the college. ¹³ The couple moved to Wellington, where Kate taught privately at home while raising three children. She continued her suffrage work in Wellington and was there when women gained the vote in 1893. ¹⁴

2008

An overview..

There was plenty of opportunity for an able man (supported by an equally able wife) in the early days of a colony. All of the people listed below had their fingers in many pies: business, farming, local and national Government and the church.

The first colonists

James Sinclair, Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives, 0001

• James and Christina Sinclair were the earliest settlers at the Beaver, with James becoming known as the ‘King of the Beaver’.  They were stalwart Presbyterians.
• James Wynen set up a store and grog shop on the Boulder Bank, later setting up shop at the Beaver.
• The Marlborough Museum’s Archives hold a rich resource of diaries and letters which provide an insight into life in the colony at the turn of the 20th Century. See our Getting Established story.

Dr. T. Renwick. Hand coloured photograph [1942] Renwick Museum & Watson Memorial Library

Farmers and runholders

• Joseph Tetley was a farmer, a gentleman and a swindler who skipped the country owing today’s equivalent of $7 million. He was also involved in politics.
• Dr Thomas Renwick was a medical doctor, runholder, local politician and a proponent of separation from Nelson. The Marlborough Museum holds about 700 letters and family items from the Renwick family.
• Frederick Trolove settled in the Clarence and his diaries provide an insight into the life of an early farmer/settler. His descendants live in the area to this day.

View with Langley Dale in background and well-dressed people- possibly members of the Adams family- in boat in foreground c.1890-1920. Renwick Museum & Watson Memorial Archive

Local politicians

• William Adams was a leading voice for separation from Nelson and became Marlborough’s first superintendent. He and Martha built Langley Dale, a homestead which still stands.
• Brothers Henry and George Dodson were farmers and local politicians. Henry represented the Wairau in Parliament for nine years.
• In a time of firebrand politicians, William Eyes was the most fiery and controversial. He held many posts and was involved in local and national politics. He became bankrupt and was involved in a scandalous divorce. 

Redwood, Archbishop, right. Nelson Provincial Museum, 61228

The Catholics

• Joseph and Martha Ward were early runholders, owning Brookby. Joseph was a forthright voice in local government for nearly 50 years. 
• Ward’s in-laws Henry and Mary Redwood contributed to the development of Marlborough farming. Son Henry was known as ‘The Father of NZ Turf’; another son, Francis became a much-loved Archbishop of New Zealand.
• Cousins Charles Clifford and Frederick Weld drove 3000 sheep down the East Coast to a run which they leased for £24/annum. Weld went on to become Prime Minister and Clifford, speaker of the House.

Fiery, ambitious Scotsman was ‘King of the Beaver’

Born in Caithness, in the north of Scotland,¹ James Sinclair was described as a clear-headed, strong-minded Scotsman, who, by his dominating personality and magnificent energy, became known as the King of the Beaver.² Early local historian, Lindsay Buick also commented that he influenced the early settlement to a marked degree, but “whether for weal or woe will perhaps be the subject of divided opinion”.³

James Sinclair, Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives, 0001

The Sinclairs (James, wife Christina and their firstborn) arrived in Wellington on the Agra on 3 March 1852. They brought goods from Manchester to sell and it has been suggested they had £5000 capital to invest- an enormous sum for that time. While they sailed into Nelson, it was clear that the Wairau and Awatere were developing steadily and Sinclair saw that a key priority was the safe storage of goods waiting to be exported or imported through the Wairau River mouth.⁴

Mrs James Sinclair. NZETC.

Soon after arriving in Nelson, Sinclair sought permission to build an accommodation house, with stores for wool and dairy produce, on the south bank of the Wairau River mouth.⁵ The Sinclairs were strong Presbyterians who couldn’t abide the debauchery of the frontier river mouth settlement.⁶ The wild and drunken habits of the patrons of McDonald’s grog shop horrified Mrs Sinclair and, before the year was out, they had moved up the Opawa River. Apart from James Wynen’s raupo shed on the south bank of the Opawa River, there were no other signs of the future township of Blenheim at the confluence of the Opawa and Omaka Rivers.⁵

James Wynen, Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives

Sinclair set up business as a merchant and soon became a land agent. The land where Blenheim now stands was owned by Messrs Alfred Fell and Henry Seymour of Nelson and from 1857, Sinclair was entrusted with the sale of the town sections which were selling for £10 per quarter acre.⁷

The wharves and Fells Store, Blenheim, 1872 paddle steamer Lyttelton and schooner Falcon at berths. Lockup Creek bridge right hand side. Marlborough Museum & Archives.

In September 1854, when the settlers requested a custom house at Blenheim, Sinclair was willing to become the collector of fees, but Edward Stafford, the superintendent of the Nelson Province, favoured Port Waitohi (Picton) as port of entry for the province. He also described Sinclair as a recent settler who was committed to so many business interests that he would likely have conflicts of interest in this role.⁸

Sinclair's land holdings eventually included a wharf, wharf shed, stock yards, his own house, a hotel, the first courthouse and police station, Marlborough Provincial Council Office and a hall for hire. These were all, unsurprisingly, along Sinclair Street.⁹

Sinclair was one of the movers and shakers involved in the separation of Marlborough from Nelson and also having Blenheim made the capital of the province.¹ A member of the Marlborough Provincial Council from 1860 until the abolition of the provinces in 1876, his obituary said ‘prospering greatly he put himself in the forefront of every movement to send the district ahead.” It further eulogised: “Many a one he has helped, never a one did he knowingly do an ill turn too.”¹⁰

James and Christina Sinclair, who was also from the north of Scotland¹¹, were known for their generosity. “Whatever differences may have arisen to the wisdom of Mr Sinclair’s political views and actions, none will withhold from him and his amiable wife the virtue of unbounded hospitality during the early stages of the early settlement.”³

Dr. S.L. Muller, Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives

A search of the Paper’s Past website shows that Sinclair could be opinionated, difficult- and litigious.  In 1873, he was plaintiff in a case for unpaid rent and money owing on a chair to a total of just over £2. Sinclair spoke for two hours and the judge, Stephen Muller said that the way he had given evidence must have been painful to his own defence counsel and that he was sorry that such a paltry case had been brought to court.¹²

A most telling case was in 1870, when Henry Dodson, who was mayor at the time laid a complaint against Sinclair for publicly using offensive and insulting expressions calculated to breach the peace. Dodson told the court that he had to call Sinclair to order in a Council meeting. Later Sinclair returned to the room “in a violent temper” and fairly hissing through his teeth, said that “he knew who I (Dodson) was and that I had to slink away from Ballarat for murderous proceedings.” Sinclair’s defence was that Dodson had called him a blackguard. Sinclair was bailed to the sum of £25 to keep the peace, and in particular to Dodson, for 12 months.¹³

Blenheim 1870. Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives. 19950150191

While he took no part in politics after 1876, Sinclair displayed a keen interest in Blenheim’s municipal affairs and the Presbyterian Church, which his obituary said ‘owed its existence in Blenheim to his open-handed liberality’.¹⁰

A few years before his death in 1892, Sinclair wrote to the Marlborough Express to put the record straight. The newspaper had reported that when laying the foundation stone of a new Presbyterian church, the Rev Robb, said the land (section 452) the church would be built on had been gifted by Alexander McLachlan and Archibald McCallum. Sinclair wrote that the Rev Robb had been misinformed: “Now the truth is that Mr A. McLachlan did not gift as much ground as the point of Mr Robb’s walking cane would cover.” He went on to say that he had assigned the land to the Church in 1869 and that the land for the new building and existing ‘ald church and school’ had all been gifted by him.¹⁴

Christina Sinclair died on the 23rd of December 1895, aged sixty-eight, and James died on the 9th of August 1897, aged seventy-nine. They were survived by four sons and one daughter.¹

2017

The Nelson Settlement, planned in England, was to consist of 221,100 acres of cultivable, arable land. Despite warnings of insufficient land of suitable quality in Tasman and Golden Bays, the settlement proceeded. When the New Zealand Company realised it was 70,000 acres short, surveyors were sent to the Wairau Plains in Marlborough.  They and other senior Toa chiefs

Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, Ngati Toa chiefs, were adamant that the Wairau had not been sold. They believed that ownership of the Wairau should be decided by Land Commissioner Spain who was coming to Nelson to hear the Company's claims to land in the region. The Company was unmoved, and ordered three survey parties to the Wairau to begin work. Ngati Toa chiefs petitioned Spain, but he declined to interrupt his Wellington hearings.

Gold, C. Scene of the Wairau Massacre, 1851.Alexander Turnbull Library, B-103-030
Click on image to enlarge. 

Te Rauparaha, Te Rangihaeata and other senior Toa chiefs travelled to Nelson in early 1843 to convince the Company to withdraw from the Wairau. They escorted the survey parties from the Wairau to the Company's ship, offering no violence to the men or their equipment, although they burnt temporary shelters made from local materials, and destroyed survey pegs and ranging rods.

When the survey party returned to Nelson Magistate Thompson issued a warrant for the arrest of Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, on charges of arson. Thompson and Arthur Wakefield, the Company agent in Nelson, recruited forty-seven Special Constables (many labourers) and sailed to the Wairau to execute their warrant. Most recruits had no police or military training, and some had never handled a weapon. The weapons themselves were not in good condition.

On 17 June 1843 the Company party formed on one side of the Tuamarina Stream, with Te Rauparaha and his party, including women and children, opposite. Despite pleas for peace by the Christian chief, Rawiri Puaha, Wakefield and Thompson ordered their ragtag constabulary forward.

Gold, C. Wairau April 1851, Alexander Turnbull Library, A-329-014
Click on image to enlarge

Wairau Massacre Memorial [Erected 1869,Tuamarina Cemetery].  The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Nelson, Marlborough & Westland Provincial Districts].  Click image to enlarge

There are differing accounts of what triggered the battle. Maori accounts say that Te Rongo, Te Rangihaeata's wife, was the first to die, perhaps from a stray shot. The ensuing skirmish saw several Special Constables killed and the remainder put to flight. Some who attempted to surrender were executed by Te Rangihaeata, as utu for the deaths of his wife and comrades, and as retribution for other perceived evils and insults including the failure to convict the whaler, Dick Cook, for the rape and murder of Te Rangihaeata's close relative, Rangiawa Kuika [sister of Rawiri Puaha, and wife of James Wynen] and her child.

Twenty-two Europeans, including both Wakefield and Thompson, and between four and nine Maori died at the Wairau. There were immediate impacts. Ngati Toa vacated Marlborough to support their chiefs in the North Island, many Te Atiawa in Queen Charlotte Sound returned to Taranaki, and Maori who stayed feared they would be attacked by Government forces. European settlers were shocked and frightened, a Public Safety Committee was formed, and Church Hill in Nelson was fortified.

Governor FitzRoy who arrived in New Zealand in December 1843 investigated the Wairau Affray and exonerated Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata. When Spain sat in Nelson in 1844 he declared that the Wairau had not been sold.

2008

Wild frontier for Blenheim’s first storekeeper

How James Wynen ended up in a Nelson hotel where he died in 1866 is a mystery.¹ But the story of the ‘decent and respectable native of the Netherlands’², is touched by tragedy.

James Wynen’s son, James Virtue Wynen, who died of consumption on 10 October 1861 at Wakefield, Nelson, late of London, aged 28.⁽²⁰⁾ Marlb. Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives

In 1839, Wynen came to New Zealand to buy land for a Sydney syndicate. He took up residence in Port Underwood and, like many European men of the time, took a Maori wife, who ‘proved to be a faithful and devoted helpmeet’.³ Rangiawa Kuika, a Ngati Toa chieftainess who was related to Te Rauparaha, was to be brutally murdered just a few years later.⁴

Wynen lived happily among local Maori at Kakapo Bay according to explorer Dr. Dieffenbach who wrote in September 1839: “the natives have just built a house for him…he occupies himself much with those people, whose disposition he praises very much and upon them, he exercises a happy influence.”⁵

The Reverend Samuel Ironside and his wife Sarah arrived in Port Underwood in December 1840 and held the first Christmas Day service at Wynen’s house. Ironside described the storekeeper as ‘about the only decent and respectable man on that (whaling) station’.

One square gin (case gin) glass bottle c 1850s. Dutch. Diamond pontil mark. Pig snout. . Found at the Wairau Bar. Originally from the Wairau Bar Hotel, after they have been discarded they came up out of the mud after a flood in the Wairau river. 2007. Marlborough Museum & Archives

Wynen had married spinster Bethia Virtue in the county of Middlesex on 11 May, 1830 and the couple had one son, James Virtue Wynen who was born in August 1833.  It is unclear what happened to Bethia⁶, but Rev Ironside married Wynen and Kuika in New Zealand.²

Tragedy struck in December 1842. Wynen was rumoured to be wealthy and when he took one of his regular trips to Nelson, a fellow Port Underwood settler Richard (Dick) Cook murdered Kuika and their infant son. He ransacked the hut, finding only a bag containing useless coins.⁷ A distressed baby girl, who was looked after by Sarah Ironside, died some weeks later.⁸

Cook’s wife, Kataraina was the chief prosecution witness and said her husband was the assassin but, as his wife, she was disqualified from giving evidence and Cook walked free.⁸ This lowered Maori respect for Pakeha justice.⁹ After the Wairau Affray six months later, the chief Te Rangihaeata claimed one of the reasons he had killed Arthur Wakefield was because Richard Cook had not been punished.⁸

In about 1847, Wynen moved from Port Underwood, to the north side of the Wairau River mouth.¹⁰ At the time, the Boulder Bank was a primitive frontier settlement where bullock drivers, boatmen and whalers ‘revelled in drunken orgies’.¹¹ A series of rough drinking houses, stores and wharves served the small sailing vessels which plied their trade exporting wool and importing supplies for the fledgling pastoral runs.¹²

With his brother William, Wynen operated a virtual monopoly in the Wairau, included shipping and receiving goods, a store, accommodation house and drinking shanty. Boats from Wellington and Nelson moored outside the Wairau River mouth and cargo was discharged into Wynen's whale boats and taken up the river to be stored at his large raupo warehouse located on the banks of the Omaka River, which he eventually converted into a shop.¹³

On the other side of the Wairau River mouth, Francis MacDonald operated a hotel and relations were strained between the two businessmen. Both were seeking liquor licences and Wynen told the authorities that he had gone to Wellington leaving a man named Smith in charge. Smith had got Wynen’s young Maori housekeeper intoxicated and taken her across the river to MacDonald’s hotel where he made her work as a prostitute.¹⁴

The Kennedy at Blenheim's first wharf, April, 1866- the year James Wynen died. One of the earliest shipping photographs showing the old port of Blenheim. The Kennedy is upstream of today's railway bridge on the Omaka (Taylor) River at Wynen's wharf. This was at the end of Wynen Street on the true right bank of the river.. Marlborough Museum and Archive

In December 1849, Wynen applied for a liquor licence, writing to Nelson’s superintendent that he wished to operate a respectable hotel: “The whole of our natives have become drunkards, and then as well as the drunken Europeans, come to my place to get sober.” He continued: “I look forward to murder, robbery and crime as inevitable if some restraint is not put upon the sale or gift of liquor to the natives.”¹⁵

Gold, Charles Emilius, 1809-1871. [Interior of the house or hotel of an early settler on the Wairau plain. The painting is  thought to show Wynen and his Maori housekeeper.] Wining's Wairau New Zealand. April 1851.. Ref: A-447-002. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/29942216

Scotsman, James Sinclair and his wife Christina arrived at the Boulder Bank in 1852 and soon headed up river to the junction of the Omaka and Opawa Rivers. With the bed of the Wairau Lagoons lowered by the 1848 earthquake, Wynen also saw an opportunity to establish a base inland, although his business at the river mouth continued until he sold it to Captain Samuel Bowler and his brother-in-law, Captain George Jackson in 1855.¹⁶

An 1851 painting is thought to show Wynen and a Maori woman sitting in a large fireplace in an early hotel on the Wairau Plains.¹⁷  Wynen also had a ‘Gin Palace’ at Beavertown made from red gin cases, which was notorious for the number of drunks to be found there. He would not do business on Good Friday, although he would offer a free drink from the gin bottle he always had with him.¹⁰

We know that Wynen’s rival, James Sinclair became very successful.¹⁸ But we don’t know when Wynen ceased to run his empire and left Blenheim. Did the demon drink combined with personal tragedy break him?

On September 22 1860, a report from the Magistrate’s Court in Nelson places him at the Wakatu Hotel earlier that month, where he claimed he was trying to help the publican deal with a drunken fight. Wynen pleaded not guilty to resisting arrest by a policeman but was fined £10 for a breach of the peace.¹⁹

James Wynen died aged 60 at The Fleece Hotel in Waimea Road, Nelson and is buried in St Paul’s churchyard, Brightwater.

The photograph of Mr James Wynen

Over the years, the photograph of  James Wynen junior, reproduced at the top of this story, has been thought to be a photograph of his father, who’s story is featured here. But it seems that in fact there is no known photograph of Wynen senior. Marlborough Museum Archivist, Megan Ross shared this interesting insight into the difficulty of sourcing and naming photographs of the earliest European settlers. This 1946 letter is from Alistair McIntosh, eidtor of Marlborough: A Provincial History to the editor of the Marlborough Express, Selwyn Vercoe, also a keen local historian:

"Prime Minister's Office, Wellington, 30 March 1946.

Dear Mr. Vercoe,
I have received your letter of 28 March and regret to inform you that I have NOT got a photograph of Wynen.
I was also told in 1939 that one existed and W.J. Elvey(sic) very kindly procured it for me from the Guard family at Port Underwood. I duly had it copied, I think by Gordon McCusker, but did not use it because I did not believe it was genuine. I would have given anything for a picture of Wynen but I just could not accept the story I was told and one just can't run the risk of being bowled out in a matter like this. My reasons for disbelief were, as I recall them as follows:-

(1) The original was in actual fact a photograph and I did not believe that this was technically possible at the date on which this would have been taken had Wynen been the subject.

(2) It was the portrait of a young man either in his late twenties or early thirties. This would have placed it in the 1830s or '40s.

(3) The dress, on the other hand, clearly placed the picture in the '70s, or thereabouts, and I concluded that while the picture may have been of a Wynen it must have been Wynen's son, who, I believe, did exist in London. Presumably he was born before his father came to New Zealand, and long before Wynen had his Maori wife at the Wairau Bay.

I very much regret that, owing to some accident or other, the photographs that I collected for the Marlborough book, disappeared shortly after its publication, and I don't think I can lay my hands on a copy of this particular specimen, but I will have a look and if I have it I will send it on to you. In any case, the original is with the Guard family at Port Underwood and Bill Elvey (sic) is the man who could procure it for you perhaps. Personally I still don't believe it is Wynen.
Scholefield is not in at the moment but I will get in touch with him later and see if he has anything. I know he shard my excitement at the time about securing Wynen's picture and was as disappointed as I was, and I think shared my views, when the article was not genuine when it turned up.

 Yours sincerely, A.D. McIntosh.

 S. Vercoe Esq.,

Editor,
The Marlborough Express,
P.O. Box 31,
Blenheim."

2017

At one time, Picton was described as Marlborough's front door and the Opawa River as the tradesmen's entrance, but in the early days of European settlement, river trade was essential to the developing province. Early Wairau settlers received goods and imported wool and grain by river schooner.¹

The early Beaver settlement was sited at the confluence of the Omaka and Opawa Rivers, with  the Opawa River flowing into the seaward end of the Wairau River. Blenheim's shipping trade dates back to 1849 when small coasters such as the Triumph and Old Jack discharged and collected cargo inside the Wairau Bar.²

The ship `Opawa' at Eckfords Wharf, Blenheim. [Sydney Charles Smith]. Alexander Turnbull Library: http://mp.natlib.govt.nz/detail/?id=6775  Click image to enlarge

Marlborough produce was ferried across the Wairau Bar to larger vessels waiting in Cloudy Bay or at Port Underwood,³ and goods were transported to Blenheim on whaleboats towed by horses walking along the riverbank.⁴ 

It wasn't until a  major earthquake in October 1848 caused the Wairau  Lagoons to subside, resulting in greater tidal flows  which scoured out the Wairau (and Opawa) river mouth bar, ⁵  that navigation became less difficult and schooners and steamers could transport wool directly from Blenheim to Wellington. ⁶

In November 1848, the first recorded trading vessel to cross the Wairau Bar and navigate the 20 kilometre route along the Opawa River to the small settlement of Beavertown was the Triumph, a 10 ton schooner with Captain Samuel Bowler  at the helm.⁷  Bowler and his partners owned a fleet of small boats which ferried wool from Wynen's Wharf to the Boulder Bank.⁸

From 1860 it was realised that vessels up to 40 tons could travel up the river⁹ and within a  few years, a fleet of small trading vessels sailed between Blenheim, Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch.¹⁰

In 1861, the Nelson Marlborough Steam Navigation Company began trading across the Cook Strait with the 84 ton paddle steamer the Tasmanian Maid, which was wrecked on the Wairau Bar in 1862.¹¹  She was followed by the Lyttleton, a 78 ton paddle steamer, which began a Wellington-Blenheim-Nelson service on 20 October, 1866.¹²

A.S. Echo stranded on the Wairau Bar, 1956 (courtesy Seddon Station Master) 0000.900.0812. Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives
Click image to enlarge

Numerous ships were stranded on the hazardous Wairau Bar and and several were wrecked completely.¹³ The bar is formed where the Wairau River flows into Cloudy Bay and its shape is altered depending on river flows, flood waters and tidal flows in and out of the Wairau Lagoons.¹⁴  The Wairau became a designated port with a pilot and, by the turn of the century, the Port of Wairau was controlled by the Wairau Harbour Board based in Blenheim.¹⁵

The steamer Neptune being repaired on the 'Sandspit', Opawa River, Blenheim. Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives
Click to enlarge

There was keen competition for the Cook Strait trade and Captain Thomas Eckford joined the fray in 1881 with the 30 ton steamer, Mohaka.¹⁶   The Eckford Shipping Company eventually handled most river trade to Wellington, operating between 1881-1965. They outlasted competitors such as the Wairau Steamship Company, which owned several  passenger and cargo steamers in direct competition with the Eckford's Opawa.¹⁷ 

The best-known Eckford ship was the Echo, an auxiliary scow, with a flat bottom ideally suited to shallow river conditions and stranding inside the Wairau Bar.¹⁸  The Echo carried a range of cargo including peas, apples, Grassmere salt, cars and newsprint for the Marlborough Express.¹⁹   At one time, she was nicknamed ‘the breakfast ship' as she carried eggs and bacon on the hoof from Blenheim to Wellington.²⁰

 In 1939, James Cowan described the passage of the Echo which made three trips a week between Wellington and Blenheim. "The farmer on the bank of the Wairau exchanges greetings with the little ship working up the river under engine power. Out with the cargo and general merchandise and in with farm produce...and the Echo is off...for the Wairau Bar and the sea; then up with the sails for Cook Strait."²¹

The advent of the Cook Strait ferries in 1962 ²²  sounded  the death knell for the Eckford family and, after 45 years of outstanding service, the Echo made her last voyage on  17 August 1965.²³  

2009 

The Wairau Affray in 1843 badly frightened potential European settlers of the Wairau and it was to be several more years before the Nelson settlers again began to consider the potential of the wide plains.

In 1845 some hardy Nelson settlers returned and were very impressed with the suitability of the Wairau for settlement. By 1847, a few European settlers had trickled across from Nelson and become involved in pastoral pursuits. ¹

James Wynen, Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives
Click to enlarge

Blenheim's early river port, 1872, Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives, 0000.900.0631
Click image to enlarge

James Wynen was the region's first shopkeeper. With his brother William, he set up a highly lucrative business in 1847 at the entrance of the Wairau Bar.² Their virtual monopoly included shipping and receiving goods,³ a store, accommodation house and drinking shanty. Boats from Wellington and Nelson moored outside the Wairau River mouth, not wanting to cross the Bar.  Cargo was discharged into Wynen's whale boats and taken up the river to be stored at his large raupo warehouse located on the banks of the Omaka River, which he eventually converted into a shop.⁴

In 1852, a rival arrived and set up shop nearby. Scotsman James Sinclair was to become one of the most influential men in the Wairau and became known as the King of the Beaver.⁵  He was the principal land agent in the area, owned a store and a hotel and acted as banker and merchant to the pastoral runholders.⁶

The early settlement, located at the junction of the Omaka, now known as Taylor, and Opawa Rivers was dubbed The Beaver, Beaver Town or Beaverton because of frequent floods.  At first, buildings were clustered around the two stores and two hotels of James Wynen and James Sinclair. The fledgling township, located in what is now lower High Street ⁷ also had a blacksmith, wheelwright and shoemaker who supplied the basic needs of the European settlers. ⁸

Blenheim's earliest Europeans were very isolated with no roads, fences or bridges and mail just twice a month. Bullock teams would camp on the banks of the Wairau or Waihopai Rivers waiting for the high waters to subside. It was a day's journey to Waitohi (now Picton), with horses swimming across the Wairau and people following in canoes.⁹

First courthouse and post office, 1866, Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives, 19950150073
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James Sinclair, Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives, 0001
Click image to enlarge

The earliest days of The Beaver were also known for their informality and friendliness. ".....then the little community was simply like one large family, entering readily into each other's joys and sorrows.....There were no luxuries, but a plentiful supply of substantial necessaries..."  wrote T.L Buick in Old Marlborough.¹⁰

In 1857, Dr Stephen Muller arrived from Nelson as resident magistrate and postmaster.¹¹  By this time, The Beaver had a Court House, Post Office and plans for a Customs House. One hundred coastal vessels sailed up the river in 1857, and took away 2,288 bales of wool to the value of £51,450.  ¹²

The settlers in Waitohi had nurtured hopes of becoming the provincial port, if not its capital. In 1849, Governor George Grey had promised that a road linking Waitohi to the Wairau would be constructed and the township would become the Wairau district's port. However, the rapid rise of The Beaver and its river port saw bitter rivalry between the two towns throughout the provincial government years.¹³  Picton remained the provincial capital until 1866, when it changed to Blenheim.¹⁴

Plan of blocks and holdings on the south side of the Wairau River. Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives. Click image to enlarge

Blenheim and Picton formally gained their names when the Wairau was gazetted as the new province of Marlborough in 1859. The Beaver locals had tired of the jokes about floods and beavers and dams, and urged the Government of the day to change the town's name to something more dignified.¹⁵

[2009] 

Permission should be sought from the Marlborough Museum prior to any reuse of these images.

Plan of blocks and holdings on the south side of the Wairau River, Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives.
Click to enlarge

Plan of blocks and holdings on the south side of the Wairau River. Marlborough Historical Society - Marlborough Museum Archives. Click image to enlarge

In 1923, John Warring (known as Jack) opened a bicycle shop near Queen Street’s intersection with Gladstone Road. Just three years later the growing popularity of motor vehicles led Jack to expand and move the business to a new site on Queen Street, opposite the Star and Garter Hotel, in order to open Richmond’s first petrol station.

Warring's Garage in the 1920s. Photo from the Tasman District Council Archives on Kete Tasman.

In the late 1890s the Government had legalised the operation of motor vehicles as long as they were lit at night and did not travel faster than 20 kilometres an hour. In the early 1900s, cars cost more than senior public servants earned in a year, so most early vehicle owners in New Zealand were professionals such as doctors, and wealthy sheep farmers.¹

Vehicles were evident in the Nelson-Tasman area in the early 1900s, and in 1905 the Waimea County Council enacted several bylaws governing their use, including a speed limit on country roads of 24 kilometres an hour. On 10 February 1905 the Nelson Evening Mail reported that the non-motoring public was not thrilled to see the rise of cars on the streets.

“…the new carriage encounters a measure of hostility, because the present generation of horse is not accustomed to it. In the course of a few years the training of young horses with probably include familiarity with the motor car and the latter’s sounds…  “In a few years every horse not an incorrigible shier will be as used to the car as it has become used to the bicycle and the railway train.”²

Florence Warring and her daughter Zena Williams. Photo from the Tasman District Council Archives on Kete Tasman.

Warring’s Garage did a steady trade, selling new bicycles, and petrol in four-gallon tins. Later, a hand-operated pump was installed and a mechanic hired so the garage could also offer servicing and repairs.

Health and safety was a concern for the local Council even in the 1920s, and Jack was required to install a large wooden turntable so vehicles did not have to back out onto Queen Street, which was considered dangerous.³

In 1934, Warring’s Garage was joined by a competitor when Cromie’s garage opened on the corner of Cambridge and Queen streets, and in 1946 Cambridge Motors opened in Cambridge Street opposite the Town Hall. The owner of Cambridge Motors, Raymond Win, held the franchise for Bradford Motors, giving Richmond its first new motor vehicle sales outlet.

Motorised Public Transport

Taxis and buses were popular in the 1920s when fewer people owned cars of their own. Five taxi operators are listed in records for 1921, as well as five operators of cars and buses under the Newman Brothers banner. Crouchers (later to become the Suburban Bus Company) bus driver Ian Wilson recalled stiff competition between bus companies.⁴

Early public transport in Queen Street, Richmond. Photo from the Tasman District Council Archives on Kete Tasman.

 “There used to be a bit of a scrabble for passengers. Russells’ used to start from Appleby and they’d try and pick up your passengers. And Burnses’ (sic) from Wakefield – Black and White – they used to do the same. And also all adjust their times to take advantage. And then the bus company – Crouchers – bought out Russells’ and Russells became part of the bus company. That became Nelson Suburban Bus Company.” Ian Wilson.⁵

“I remember the first bus line. It was run by a Mr Russell and he had a walking stick, and viewing it from now I can see that he was merely trying to be friendly with the kids, but he used to chase us with this walking stick and he’d have the crooked end out and he’d catch us with the crooked end. We were all scared of him... He had the first buses that I can remember and it would be the first reliable service – like it ran to a timetable from Richmond to Nelson and back. “ Geoff Tuffnell.⁶

Text taken from The Rise of the Motor Vehicle -  Queen Street Heritage Board 2018

The Store in Queen Street Richmond

May’s store was an institution in early Richmond. It occupied a large, two-storied building on a prominent site and sold as wide a range of goods as you could get anywhere in the region, from basic groceries, medicines, farm supplies through to toys and sweets – no less than 21 different kinds.

T. R. Hodder Co, Drapers, Richmond (c1857). Nelson Provincial Museum Photographic Collection Ref. 56532. Permission of the Nelson Provincial Museum must be obtained before any re-use of this image

In 1857 the large two-storied general store and drapery opened on the south-east corner of Gladstone Road and Queen Street. The store was operated by Thomas Hodder and George Talbot. A sign identified the building as “Gladstone House”, but it was more often referred to as “Hodder’s Corner”, and later on as “May’s”.

William Richard May purchased the business in 1893 and expanded the range of goods on offer. You could get nearly anything you wanted at May’s – from basic groceries such as flour and eggs, to axes and farm supplies, clothing, crockery, as well as luxuries – including music boxes, dolls and candy.

William’s grand-daughter Muriel recalled: “We had everything there was; nothing that we didn’t have or couldn’t get”. “I was able to remember 21 types of sweets … I can’t remember them all now but some of them were frosted caramels, orange and lemon slices – of the jube type; billiard balls – they were too big, they were huge like billiard balls - and acid drops, black balls, brandy balls, peppermints, licorice all sorts, holiday mixture – great slabs of boiled toffee – you could get a lot for a penny.” Muriel Josephine Canton (William May’s grand-daughter).¹

“It was always a great adventure when I went into May’s store. The drapery side – I can see it now – they had the wool stacked in partitions and how they could take it out and do up a skein of wool so deftly always amazed me. There always seemed to be wonderful things that you’d see that you wished you could buy and never could.” Elizabeth Maude Sampson.²

May’s even offered a delivery service via horse and cart, so you could have groceries or other goods delivered to your door. May’s employed a large number of workers – including 54 seamstresses in the dressmaking department alone at the turn of the century. That was a huge number at a time when the entire population of Richmond borough was 562.³

In 1944 William sold the business to Les Wells and Joe Hill, who renamed it Waimea Stores and set about modernising parts of the building. From the 1970s, under new ownership, the building housed a variety of businesses, from a secondhand store, to a Tattoo and Body Piercing shop, cycle store and, briefly, Radio Fifeshire.

In January 2003 the building was demolished by owner David Lucas, having become increasingly difficult to maintain due to its age.

May’s Butter and Bacon Factories

W R May's butter factory, Richmond, ca 1880s. 1/2-041762-F. Alexander Turnbull Library. http://mp.natlib.govt.nz/detail/?id=27849)

In 1897 William May decided to expand his business, and built butter and bacon factories, along with a piggery, on the opposite side of the road to the general store.

“Alongside the butcher’s shop, on the left-hand side of Queen Street going up, was May’s cream and bacon factory. The dairy farmers from all around the district brought their cream in large cans by cart to the factory and lined up in a queue at the landing platform to deliver their cream to the vat and afterward go to the steam pipe to clean their cans before returning to their farms.” Roland J Papps.⁴

William’s grandson, Denis, later remembered having a fine old time in the factories. “The butter factory, which was opposite the shop, used to be one of my favourite playgrounds. There were no safety precautions. I used to go in and turn machines on, and turn the steam on that cleaned the tanks out, and generally play around without any supervision at all.” Denis May (William May’s grandson).⁵

 Text taken from the May's Store Queen Street Heritage Board 2017

Peril and Pennies from the Skies

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a growing threat to Richmond’s prosperity darkened the skies. A small number of house sparrows – as few as 100 – had been introduced to New Zealand between 1866 and 1871 to help control insects. Their numbers grew rapidly thanks to plentiful food, lack of competition and few predators. And rather than eating crop-destroying pests, the sparrows preferred to feast on the crops themselves, laying waste to the grain fields and fruit orchards around Richmond.

Advertisement. Colonist 9 Sep 1903 p.2. Papers Past

“The birds were doing a lot of damage to the crops – they were pretty thick. The sparrows ate oats. There’d be a strip right around the outside of the paddock where all the oat seeds had gone.” Bob and Mona Pugh.¹

The feeding frenzy could not be allowed to continue, the authorities decreed, and in 1882 the Small Birds Nuisance Act was passed, allowing councils to levy rates to fund the destruction of sparrows and other crop-hungry birds. In 1889, that Act was replaced by another allowing councils to lay poisoned grain to control sparrow numbers.

From then on Richmond’s sparrows had a price on their heads. The Richmond Borough Council paid several pence a dozen for sparrow eggs and heads, and the enterprising children of the borough responded with enthusiasm forming a local "sparrow club" to hunt for eggs (known as "bird nesting") and small birds.

“The hedges were marvelous for bird nesting. I learnt there how to ring a bird’s neck and it was no trouble at all!” Muir McGlashen.²

The town clerk – the equivalent of a chief executive in today’s terms - oversaw the slaughter from the back of the new Borough Council building (opened in 1904) on Queen Street. 

“He had a hole dug in the ground and we had our golden syrup tins full of eggs or birds’ heads. You had to tip them out, and then old E.J. Thomas [town clerk Ed James Thomas] would flick the eggs and heads etcetera into the hole. We used to get three or four pence a dozen, which was a lot of money in those days.” Ken Beach.³

The young people were happy to get one over the town clerk – any eggs that weren’t smashed by the town clerk were inevitably “recycled” and a second bounty collected.

“Mr E.J. Thomas had a hole there and he endeavoured to break the eggs as we sold them to him, but we ensured that every egg that he didn’t get broken when he bought them, we retrieved about half an hour later or as soon as he had gone back to his office.” Muir McGlashen.

Jones F N. Richmond Borough Council Offices. 1904. Nelson Provincial Museum Photographic Collection. Ref: 310031.

Their efforts seemed to make little difference to the sparrow population. The town clerk from 1902 – 1915, Samuel Fittall, wrote to the editor of the Nelson Mail in response to criticism of the borough’s response to the sparrow menace: “Poisoned wheat has been distributed in the winter months, and birds’ eggs and heads purchased during the season. That the results have been unsatisfactory everybody admits. The nuisance seems to defy all efforts to repress it…”⁴

The Richmond Borough Municipal Chambers Building

The site of Richmond’s sparrow graveyard was behind the Richmond Borough Municipal Chambers building. This building was across the road and slightly west of the current Richmond Library building. The council building was constructed by W.E. Wilkes, and was officially opened in 1904. The new seat of local government cost a total of £295 – including the curtains and fittings.

Queen Street is the long street that runs through the heart of Richmond, from the foothills in the east, to the Waimea River in the west.  As the commercial centre of Richmond, Queen Street has naturally seen many changes over the decades. Countless businesses have come and gone, but some of the buildings constructed to house them have had a lasting presence.

The Henley Store. Photograph from Jill and Bill Knowles. Ref: QSHP 2 on Kete Tasman.

The Henley Store

2 Salisbury Road, northeast corner of Queen Street and Salisbury Road, Richmond. 1910 to the present

The Henley Store was originally built in 1910-11 by Herbert Lusty and his apprentice Wilfred Busch for Herbert’s brother Francis (Frank) Lusty Jr..  The general store and tearooms was a family affair with Frank’s wife, daughter and other family members assisting in the business. The store served the families in the Upper Queen Street Henley area, and was an important meeting place for that zone.¹

Herbert Newport took over the business in 1920, and ran it until his death in 1931, after which the building had a number of owners and operators. Mr Goddard established a second hand shop in the building, and today it operates as the Richmond Antiques & Curios.²

Warring’s Garage

231-235 Queen Street, Richmond. 1926 – 1969, and ongoing

Warring's Garage and Service Station. Tasman District Council Archives on Kete Tasman.

John Warring (known as Jack) established the first petrol station in Richmond. He started his business in 1923, with a bicycle shop near the Gladstone Road intersection with Queen Street. In 1926 seeing the potential market in motor vehicles, he moved his bicycle business further up Queen Street and extended it to sell petrol in four-gallon tins. Later he employed a motor mechanic and installed petrol pumps.

By Council decree, the garage had to be equipped with a large wooden turntable, so that cars entering the site for service could be turned around on the platform and exit onto the street front first, rather than backing out, which was seen as a danger.³

After Jack retired, the business passed to his son in law Ray Williams, and later to Mr Porter, until it finally closed in 1969. Around that time, the family sold the land at the rear of the business for development, with a clause that a free car park would be established for the public as well – this exists today as the Warring Car Park.

The family home was built next door to the garage, and the house still stands today. At some point, the house was divided into commercial stores, and over the years, it has been tenanted by many businesses including real estate agents, and by a succession of travel agents.⁴

Star & Garter Hotel, 1940, by R. C. Alexander. Ref: QSHP 4.1 on Kete Tasman.

The Star & Garter

252 Queen Street, Richmond. 1846 to the present

The Star and Garter is one of the oldest hotels in New Zealand still operating on its original site and (mostly) still using its original name.  It was originally built as the home of William Harkness and in 1845 the building was remodeled and expanded. By 1846 The Star and Garter had been granted a licence to sell beer, wine and spirits and was operating as an hotel.

According to varying accounts, the Star and Garter was named after either an inn or hotel in his home town of Richmond-on-Thames, or in a tongue-in-check manner after a grand hotel of the same name in London.

The original wooden building was set back from the road and had many alterations over its first century. Most of the building, excluding the bar itself, was gutted by fire in May 1950, and a roughcast building was built to replace it in 1953.⁵

The Brick Building

265 Queen Street, Richmond. c.1920s-2007

Queen Street shops, 1980s. Tasman District Council archives on Kete Tasman.

Thought to have been built by G. M. Rout and Sons in the 1920s, the regal brick building in central Queen Street housed numerous businesses.  Tenants included the Waimea Electric Power Board, who had their first office on the upper floor of the building in the 1930s.

The building is most often associated with Dentist Raymond Burnet Beresford (Known as Burnie). He ran a dental clinic in the building for over fifty years, from May 1948 until December 2003, when he retired due to ill health.

In 2007 the brick building was demolished. With its unreinforced brickwork walls and simple wooden construction, it was seen as a potential earthquake risk.⁶

Gladstone House

315 Queen Street. Southeast corner of Queen Street and Gladstone Road, Richmond. 1857-2003

Hodder’s store, Richmond, by W Maguire. Nelson Provincial Museum. 56532.

In 1857, a large two-storied general store and drapery opened on the southeast corner of Gladstone Road and Queen Street. Operated by Thomas Hodder and George Talbot, a sign on the building identified it as Gladstone House, although it appears to have been referred to more often as Hodder’s Store, or Hodder's Corner and later on as May’s.

William R. May purchased the business in 1893, and by mid-1897, had expanded the business and built a butter factory and a bacon factory nearby.  May’s store sold a large range of goods, from basic groceries like flour and eggs, to axes and farm supplies, to crockery and luxury goods like music boxes, dolls and 21 different kinds of sweets! May’s also employed a large number of workers. At the turn of the century, there were 54 seamstresses employed in the dressmaking department upstairs alone.⁷

In 1944 the business was sold to Les Wells and Joe Hill and they renamed it Waimea Stores and set about modernising parts of the building.  The building was later sold to Mr King-Turner who opened a second hand business in around 1970. For the next thirty of so years the building housed a variety of businesses and shops including a Tattoo and Body Piercing, Village Cycles and briefly Radio Fifeshire.

In January 2003 the building was demolished by owner David Lucas as it was becoming difficult to maintain because of its age. The 1656sq m site retail was sold and is today the site of a retail complex and car park.⁸

The Railway Hotel

321 Queen Street, Richmond. 1883 –2009

Railway Hotel, Lower Queen Street, Richmond, by W Maguire. Nelson Provincial Museum. 57260.

Located on the corner of Queen Street and Gladstone Rd, the Railway Hotel was well placed to attract customers from the Railway Station across the road. It also catered well to country folk, providing stables for customer’s horses, and a large stockyard on site where weekly sales of cattle and sheep were held.¹⁰

The Railway Hotel building had many renovations and alterations over the years, until last drinks were called in June 2009. Being in a prime location the building was demolished to make way for a McDonald’s drive through and multi-store food outlets.¹¹

2017

It is thought Māori used the Tasman region as a rich food and flax resource from as early as 1350 AD.¹ However, a lack of archaeological evidence suggests there were no Māori settlements in the immediate vicinity of the centre of Richmond itself.²

Queen Street, 1880. Tasman District Archives. Click to enlarge

The European settlement of Richmond began in 1842 when two young New Zealand Company surveyors, John Barnicoat and T.J. Thompson, were contracted to survey 20,000 acres of land at Waimea East.³

Most of Waimea East was bought as large land holdings of 50-100 acres, with the Sutton family owning about one quarter of the total area.⁴ There were many absentee landowners, which disadvantaged the settlers who had to rent land from them and the sense of indignation continued for many years.⁵

Star & Garter Hotel  The Nelson Provincial Museum, Tyree Studio
Collection: 76910
Click image to enlarge

A village soon began to develop. Richmond was named in 1854⁶ by which time there were Methodist, Baptist and Anglican churches, as well as shops and businesses: bakers, butchers, coopers, shoemakers and general storekeepers. During the gold mining boom years, seven pubs in and around Richmond did a roaring trade. They included the White Hart, Plough Inn, Railway Hotel and Star and Garter.⁷

Education was important to the early settlers. Richmond School opened in 1856 and the Richmond Mechanics Institute, offering a book lending service and lecture evenings, was established in 1865.⁸

During the 1880s, two enterprises were involved in the extraction of minerals in the vicinity of Richmond. Between 10 and 12 tons of copper were taken from the Champion Copper Mine in 1883. About 500 tons of coal were extracted from a two metre thick seam of coal near Reservoir Creek between 1862 and the 1880s.⁹

Richmond was proclaimed a Borough in June 1891 and an Appleby farmer, George Talbot was elected the first mayor.¹⁰ By 1896, Richmond had a population of 500 people.¹¹

The Nelson Railway ran between Nelson and Wai-iti, via Richmond, between 1876 and 1955.  Richmond students travelled to Nelson College by train until 1952, when buses replaced the train service.¹² Waimea College opened in 1957.

A & P Show, Richmond The Nelson Provincial Museum, F N Jones
Collection: 6x8 37
Click image to enlarge

Richmond's first agricultural show was held at the Richmond Fair Ground on 7 December, 1859. There was a ploughing match and entries of cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry and horses, with produce classes introduced the following year. In 1876, the venue was changed to Mr Cannings' paddock, which became Richmond Park.¹³ The first A&P (Agricultural and Pastoral Association) show was held at Richmond Park in 1893.¹⁴

Electric lighting came to the Borough in 1910 thanks to Robert Ellis, who powered his Brightwater flour mill by turbine during the day. The turbine supplied power for lighting by night.¹⁵ Power lines were extended along the main highway to Richmond¹⁶ to provide lighting for households and 10 street lights in the town.¹⁷

Jubilee at Richmond. The Nelson Provincial Museum, Tyree Studio
Collection: 182035
Click image to enlarge

While the early settlers worked hard, they also enjoyed the ‘genial' climate and ‘arcadian' countryside.¹⁸ Fish were plentiful with the channels and holes around Saxton's, Best, Quarantine and Rabbit Islands yielding various kinds of fish: snapper, kahawai, terakihi, gurnard. "It would be a poor day if 12 dozen or more good flounder would not be caught," remembered Roly Papps.¹⁹

Sport of various kinds was also important in building the local community. Jubilee Park, located in Gladstone Road,  has been the home of rugby football in the area since the 19^th Century. Jubilee Park has hosted a range of other sports codes including croquet, hockey, cricket, tennis and soccer; and regional competitions between local fire brigades.  Being the only public park in the borough for some time, it was also used for non-sporting events, such as Lord Plunket's vice-regal tours. In the early 1940s Lime and oak trees were planted to commemorate the European pioneers of the district. In the late 1940s the Richmond Sports Association was formed to raise funds for and oversee the building and management of a combined sports complex on the grounds.²⁰

The Easter Monday picnic at Rabbit Island was a much anticipated occasion: "That was an event. All the local people would go...It was a great gathering of the community on that day. We used to play games on the beach and have races. Croucher's Bakery used to make hot cross buns for everyone for the occasion," remembered Veda Hammond.²¹

Richmond History trail (to c. 1900's) Tasman District Libraries. Click image to enlarge

A note on the naming of Richmond

One of the early settlers of the area was George Snow, a tailor. He named the settlement after his English home, Richmond -on-Thames in Surrey. The Star and Garter Hotel, built in 1843, was named after a hotel of the same name in Richmond-on-Thames.²²

2011

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