Iri's posts with tag: family history
The prizewinning whaleboat crew referred to in James' letter, below.
Back row: George Henry Wright (1843-1912) cox, James Wright (1850-1912), William Wright (1845-1924),
Front row: Alexander Wright (1847-1920), Joseph Wright (1851-1914)
The following is the text of a letter written by James on the 30th September, 1873, apparently in reply to a letter he had received. It seems as though it must be the first letter sent to the family in England in all those years for James is telling them the highlights of the thirty history in this country.
All spelling and punctuation, (or the lack thereof), is original.
Island Bay Station near Akaroa
my Dear Brother and Sister i right to you all hoping this will find you all in good health as it leaves us at Preasant thank god i received your kind letter and News Paper we were so glad to hear from you Dear Brother we have twelve children 9 boys and 3 girls we have had fifteen three are dead Dear Brother i know must tell you a little about New Zealand you know when we left England we had nothing we have 6000 sheep besides cattle and horses we have bought 300 acres of land and rent 5000 acres from the Government i Pay fifty Pounds Per year i have to town lots of land in Akaroa my Dear Brother i wish that you would come out to New Zealand labour gets seven shillings per day at harvest time they get one shilling per hour everything hear is very Cheap i will send you a News Paper so that you can see for yourself Dear Brother you need not mind sending any more papers as i get the News of the World every mail from England so i know what is going on in England still i was very thankful for the one you sent me if you think of coming out let me know you can get out here for nothing my Dear Brother what has become of my dear Brother's children Thomas and William and my Dear Brother Joseph i will send you a likenefs of a whale i have not been whaling this last to seasons my Dear Brother i was 57 years old the 9 of last August Hannah was 52 the 8 of last March my Dear Brother my wife says that she thinks the sea would do you boath good my Dear Brother Please to send us my sisters addrefs Leuzer and Harriot we have plenty of fireing i have fifty acres of wood close to my house our sheep are lambing know i will begin shearing the first week in December Dear Brother I have five children married three sons and to Daughters the oldest is a Daughter a native of New Zealand she afs ten Children the next a son only one Daughter 6 years old the next a son 3 children next a son one Daughter next a daughter one son 4 years old the Daughter we had when we left home is dead my Dear Brother New Zealand is a fine place for fruit of all kinds Peaches you can get afs many as you like two Pence Per Dozen walnuts and almonds grow fine out hear in the Season our Summer is your winter in England we are 17000 miles from you our Day is your night my Dear Brother i will send you a small sum of money when i go to town i shall have to go after shearing i shall send sum to Father Please let Father know you have heard from me tell him that i got is letter and was glad to hear from him there is no snakes out here there is a bird out hear that stands 14 ft high i have not seen one there is a Skelington of one in Christchurch 12 feet high Please to right af soon af you get this and let me know weather you think of coming out to New Zealand Dear Brother must know conclude with all of our Kind love to you and your Wife we remain your Dear Brother and Sister
James and Hannah Wright
The following is the text of a letter written by James on 24th April, 1874.
Island Bay
Dear Brother and Sister i received your kind letter and was glad to hear from you hopeing this will find you all in good health as it leaves us at Preasant thank god i send you a little money in this letter my sons have been pulling a boat race against the Champions of Christchurch and hear they won i will send you the Paper and there likeness in the dress they had on my dear Brother i had a very fine harvest i had to hundred bushels of wheat besides oats and peas i had to pay men a shilling per hour and keep them the wages are very high out hear you can get eight shillings Per day for 8 hours there is so much government work going on out hear that they take all the hands afs soon afs they come out hear my dear Brother you had ought to come out hear England is no place for a Poor man my son James is going to be married 28 of this month so they are at our house i shall Wright to you again as soon as i hear from you from your Dear Brother and Sister
James and Hannah Wright
"Dear Brother" never came to New Zealand. James lived until 1894. He was seventy-eight years old. Hannah lived until 1914, by then outliving some of her adult children. She was ninety-three when she died which is rather interesting in view of her hard life and having given birth to fifteen children from about seventeen years of age till forty-three.
The Original Comments from the 360 Page
Political Junkie: This series was just terrific!
I enjoyed it so much!
Man...pregnant 15 times, I just can't imagine going through that!
So many great adventures they all had!
Those Wright boys look a bit like some of the hard-core bikers (harley davidson)around my neighborhood! LOL! Well, they would have to be tough to be whalers!
Dear Brother:
I wonder if everyone wrote in that style, or if it was a personal peculiarity.
I am so glad you put this together. I really enjoyed Hannah and James story, and the way it informed me about the history of NZ.
I truly looked forward to every chapter!
Thank you so much!
Friday 6 July 2007 - 08:07PM (MDT)
Just Jane: Its interesting indeed, that all that hardship did not appear to shorten her life. Too darn busy to lay down and die, I guess.... or maybe just surviving the trip out here and the rigours of childbirth that many times in the conditions then prevalent spoke of an extremely strong woman.
My husband's paternal grandmother had 9 children, raised them on a farm .... so none of the amenities that we take for granted these days... and lived to 96
Saturday 7 July 2007 - 12:23AM (PDT) TB: Have to say Iri these blogs have been one of the most interesting ones that I have seen here on 360....thank you for posting this and I hope that you will post something similar in the future....have a good Tuesday, take care friend Tuesday 10 July 2007 - 02:54AM (CEST)
The Island Bay Whaling Station
The Island Bay Whaling Station which had originally been established by the tree men, William Green, Charles Brown, and Matthew Hall in 1852, had then passed into the hands of the Greenwoods at Purau by 1846.
The Greenwoods made an agreement with John Moles and Samuel Williams to whale from the bay. The agreement had the Greenwoods supplying the whaling gear and. in return, they received half of the value of the oil and bone until the gear was paid off. By October of 1846 twenty men were working on two boats and had taken eighteen tuns, (or barrels), of oil and a ton of bone. But at the end of that year, the American Samuel Williams, (also known as "Yankee Sam"), had packed up to travel down to Timaru where he established the first pub there.
In May of 1847 the Greenwoods sold Purau apparently with the Island Bay Station as part of a package deal to the Rhodes Brothers. George Rhodes ran the whaling operation from his Red House Bay base but then he too abandoned the station when he went south in 1851.
The Canterbury Block
In 1848, Governor Grey himself initiated negotiations with Ngai Tahu for the purchase of the Canterbury Block, a vast area of eight million hectares for two thousand pounds. A verbal agreement to the sale was made by Ngai Tahu chiefs on the condition that adequate reserves should be set aside for the use of their people. Grey then appointed Tacy Kemp to negotiate the details of the sale but Commissioner Kemp was not to be remembered for his scrupulosity. The boundaries of the purchase were not properly defined and his tactics could only be described as bullying, threatening to pay Ngati Toa to attack or to use troops to drive them Ngai Tahu people out. The promised large reserves were diminished in Kemp's deed of sale to only the Ngai Tahu cultivations and dwelling places. One Walter Mantell was appointed to establish these reserves and, following Grey's instructions, 2,543 hectares was allocated to 637 people or four hectares a head.
Banks Peninsula
In 1849 Mantell applied these same principals and coercive tactics to purchase three land blocks on Banks Peninsula. As the reserves of residential and garden land were insufficient for subsistence the chiefs refused to sign the deed of sale. This obstacle the government overcame by simply passing the Canterbury Settlement Act to make the land available for European settlement.
Baron of Whakamoa
The commanding presence, already noted as part of James' personality at Port
Nicholson, did not diminish over the years, so that, after he acquired the Whakamoa land in 1852, friends and neighbours dubbed him "Baron of Whakamoa".
In 1852 James took over the Island Bay Whaling Station and, employing mainly local Maori people as workers, he continued the whaling operation there until 1863 when on the 26th January, a maliciously lit fire destroyed the worker's houses and much of the whaling gear at the bay.
The previous season had been considered a good one with four whales successfully taken from the sea. The resulting whale oil was shipped around to Lyttelton via a coastal boat.
James clearly enjoyed the adrenalin involved in whale chasing. Despite the loss of the gear at Island Bay, he continued to go out whaling whenever the opportunity presented itself. He is known to have still been out whaling as late as 1870, by which time he would have been fifty-four.
The "Baron" also had quite a reputation of being a very generous man to his friends, and was never adverse to throwing parties at Akaroa for his whaling mates. The parties were strictly "men only" affairs featuring plenty of food and drink. A story passed down is about at one of these parties, when something or someone so enraged him that he lifted his legs under the table tipping it and all its contents onto the floor.
Hannah wound up paying for the damages from her cheesemaking proceeds.
Another time James had taken stock to sell at the Addington Saleyards. The stock sold well but unfortunately James went on a "bender" which did not finish until all of the money, (their supposed income for the following year), was gone.
This was not the first time that something like this had happened, but it was probably the last. Hannah took over the financial management of the farm at this point and the Baron received an allowance.
PB: I have to say, I have enjoyed reading these blogs. How amazing is man for settling in a new area, to begin their life and family....The strength, and will power...Wonderful blogs....looking forward to the next one... Friday 6 July 2007 - 01:01AM (CEST)
Just Jane: Perhaps Hannah was in fact the backbone of the family - but of course in those male dominated days all the credit would have gone to the man. I wonder how much input she had into the decisions that steered them through this far? Guess we'll never know.
Saturday 7 July 2007 - 12:10AM (PDT)
TB: catching up Iri
Tuesday 10 July 2007 - 02:49AM (CEST)
Beau Brummell2006: it is why we men give you women the money....we are hopeless with it Monday 13 August 2007 - 03:19AM (BST)
Right: Grass seeders threshing seed from cocksfoot grass on Banks Peninsula
The Two Volcanoes of Banks Peninsula
Banks Peninsula was formed through volcanic activity. It is comprised of two large volcanoes which were active less than half a million years ago. Their craters were enlarged over the centuries by the eroding action of streams and they were then invaded by the sea during the postglacial world-wide rise in sea level beginning about fifteen thousand years ago.
Those two volcanoes now form the harbours of Akaroa and Lyttelton. The Akaroa Harbour was the larger of the two volcanoes and both have been considered extinct until recently when a steam fissure has opened up. The volcanoes may in fact be just dormant.
Originally the peninsula was in fact an island, but the island became connected to the Canterbury Plains when the growing alluvial plain reached the base of the island. They are now juxtaposed in stark contrast, a steep mountainous peninsula beside a barren plain.
Banks Peninsula has a more gentle climate than the Canterbury Plains, with a higher rainfall and fewer frosts, especially on the lower slopes. The highest slopes do get snowed on during the winter months and the snow may lay for several weeks on the tops.
Anyhow, back in the eighteen hundreds...
The Kemp Purchase of Banks Peninsula
On the 12th of June, 1848, at Akaroa, in an atmosphere fraught with cultural misunderstanding, sixteen Kai Tahu chiefs signed a deed which had been prepared by Commissioner Henry Tacy Kemp. This agreement "allowed" the Kai Tahu iwi to keep their settlements and food gathering sites and also some other reserves.
This agreement opened up land for settlers who were now be able to purchase land on the Peninsula from the colonial government.
When the land was surveyed later in 1848, many of the agreed reserves in the Kemp Purchase were reduced and ignored, a typical scenario of colonialism, and a common theft from indigenous people wherever colonisation takes place.
The Canterbury Association
A lot of surveying was happening both on Banks Peninsula and across on the plain that is destined to become Canterbury. The year 1848 also sees the founding of the Canterbury Association in England. This association is clearly inspired by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, (of New Zealand Company fame), and John Robert Godley.
The Canterbury Association sent out one Captain Joseph Thomas who was apparently undeterred by either the swamps, the lack of timber on the plains themselves (which were covered in native NZ flax and braided rivers), or even the sizable steep hill between the port and the plains. He merely got on with laying out the new port town of Lyttelton and the plains town of Christchurch, and began a road over the port hills, (really it was only a bridle path).
The first four Canterbury Association ships arrived in Lyttelton in 1850 and by 1853, a total of 3,549 new immigrants had disembarked. Of these, some four hundred people had the necessary wherewithall to purchase land for themselves, the rest were mainly labourers and servants.
This was a deliberate goal of the Canterbury Association - like the New Zealand Company their desire was to replicate what they saw as England's stable, class-based society onto this foreign land.
Whakamoa
On the first of May, 1852, James Wright together with an Akaroa resident named William Lucas was allotted Run 13 comprising 5,000 acres. This area covered the whole of the west headland of the Akaroa Harbour, (see map again on previous blog), the boundary running from Island Bay to Cape Three Points.
James and William Lucas were not planning to work this run as partners however. Each had his own stock and Lucas worked the Lands End portion while James worked the other half.
The Forest
Native Podocarp forest, (trees such as Matai, Totara, Rimu, Kahikitea), covered most of the peninsula at this time, with the exception of the drier northern hills now known as the Port Hills (the hills between Lyttelton and Christchurch). The bush was dense in the valleys and on the lower slopes, but were more in the form of scrub and patches of bush on or near the summits.
Sawmilling and land clearance therefore occupied the early would-be farmers and in fact by 1900 the whole forest cover of 140,000 acres would be removed. Today, only a few scattered patches of bush, a total of less than 150 acres, remain.
Cocksfoot Grass
After all that milling the would-be farmers now needed need grass for their stock. The grasses that cows and sheep feed on have evolved with those animals in the northern hemisphere. The new colony of New Zealand had no grazing grass at all and the imported cows and sheep would not feed on the native ferns or tussocks and flaxes. (They still don't eat them which is why I plant flaxes and tussocks along the boundary of my section and the paddocks).
Cocksfoot is a perennial grass which was productive and drought tolerant and was found to flourish on Banks Peninsula, and yielded large quantities of grass seed. Hannah and James and the other settler farmers, as well as capturing the seed for their own use, sold their excess seed all over the rapidly opening up settlements in New Zealand. Cocksfoot grass-seed was also one of our earliest exports to Australia and North America.
So when the bush was cut down and burned, cocksfoot was sown in the ashes. Women as well as men would work to gather in the grass seed harvest using "reap hooks", then with the sheaves laid on the threshing sheet it would have to be flailed.
The Dairy
As fast as the bush was disappearing and a few acres were grassed down small dairies were started. Cheese was quite valuable right now and well worth the trouble of pressing and carrying water for washing it. The water would have to be collected from the creeks that ran down the hillsides and I imagine Hannah would have been setting her children that job.
Cheese making by women had begun on the Peninsula from 1844 and the next year cheese was made for sale, but the first load to Wellington was fated to never reach its destination. The cheese was sent in a small cutter under Captain Sinclair, but the boat was wrecked and the men on it drowned, and all that first years produce lost.
The Farmhouse
The homes of most settlers were sod or slab-built whares, (the Maori word for houses of similar type), they had mud floors which they kept scrupulously clean with manuka brooms. The safest chimneys were generally made from corrugated iron if it was available. Window panes and curtains were very simple - they were the same thing - calico tacked across the opening and easily removed for ventilation or washing. Furniture would be primitive often made from boxes or packing cases, and limited to the barest essentials. Mattresses were often filled with raupo leaves, (flax), which the children collected from the swamps and were dried.
In those early days women mostly cooked over an open fire, meat being cooked on a "crane". the joint of meat would be hung on a jack and someone would have to keep turning it while the fat would be caught in a pan below. Luckier women had a camp oven in which bread could be made.
A "kitchen" was considered too unsafe to be part of the "main" house and was often housed in a separate whare of its own.
A Woman's Work is Never Done
And while Hannah was busy with all this, she was also still having children.
Robert was born on the 13th of September 1853; John Thomas Austin on the 12th of November, 1855; Mark on the 4th of September, 1858; Elizabeth Drury on the 22nd of July, 1860; and Luke on the 12th of September 1862.
John Austain (or Austen or Austin)
Hannah's father John Austain when he was already an elderly man, journeyed the thirteen thousand miles across the seas to New Zealand to live with Hannah and James. There is no record of when he arrived but the local records state that John Austin, farmer, died of dropsy on the 1st of February 1860, aged seventy-three, and was buried on the farm at Whakamoa.
I imagine that the child Elizabeth Drury, born later that year in August, was named in his honour, the original Elizabeth Drury being John Austin's wife and Hannah's mother.
It is also of note that a son, John Thomas Austin was born to Hannah and James in November of 1855, and I cannot help but speculate that this may suggest the year of John Austin's arrival in New Zealand.
TB: very interesting indeed Iri...looking forward to read more
Tuesday 3 July 2007 - 10:07PM (CEST) Mary: Great as usual Iri. I feel like I'm there when I'm reading. Keep em coming.
Thursday 5 July 2007 - 02:56PM (EDT)
Left: map of Banks Peninsula showing the whaling stations and settlements.
A (hopefully) reasonably concise history of Banks Peninsula.
Banks Peninsula, (Horomako), was important for Maori because it combined the resources of forest and sea and was close to the productive wetlands near the coast, also handy to Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere), and Wairewa (Lake Forsyth) - renowned eel and flounder fisheries.
The Peninsula is within the traditional boundaries of the Kai Tahu iwi (tribe). Their most important pa was at Kaiapoi which was also a centre of trade in pounamu (greenstone).
Captain James Cook sighted and misnamed the peninsula as Banks Island in 1769. He did not land there and so the first recorded European landing on the peninsula was not until 1815 or 1816 when a sealing ship put into Akaroa to trade for potatoes and flax. Akaroa is Kai Tahu dialect for Whangaroa which means "long harbour".
Schools of Humpback, Minke, Right and Sperm whales migrated past the New Zealand coastline from early May each year on their journey from the Pacific Ocean to Antarctica. By the eighteen-thirties whaling ships from Australia, America, Britain and Europe were anchoring at Port Cooper (now Lyttelton), and the Akaroa harbour.
The shore-based whaling stations of Ikoraki, Peraki and Oashore were established during the eighteen-thirties and the Island Bay whaling station was set up in 1842 by William Green, Charles Brown, and Matthew Hall.
So In 1842...
Akaroa had just been colonised by a small group of French and German settlers in August of 1840...
The oh so famous John and William Deans will not be founding their Riccarton, (Putaringamotu), until 1843...
And the Canterbury Association which will send the first four ships, (The Randolph, Cressy, Sir George Seymour, and the Charlotte Jane), of English settlers to colonise Port Cooper, (Lyttelton), in 1850 will not even be formed until 1848...
Whaling On The Peninsula
Upon their arrival at Banks Peninsula in 1842 James initially took his wife and infant daughter to the unsavoury environment of the Oashore whaling station. Captain Hempleman's log, (he owned the Peraki whaling station), paints day to day pictures of boredom, drunkenness, disputes, and desertions amongst the whalers. Weeks could pass without sign of a whale - according to the log, in the first six months of 1840 only seven whales were captured.
Whaling stations were usually filthy. They had a permanent "disgusting stench from putrid whale carcasses left to rot on the beach" which was also strewn with gigantic bone fragments. Pigs and seagulls picked over the refuse while mixed race children played in and out of the remains.
Workers at bay whaling stations were not generally paid wages, instead they were paid in slops, (loose-fitting trousers), spirits and tobacco. The whalers would have to purchase all their provisions on credit from the earnings they hoped to make from their share of any whales that might be captured. Frequently they could wind up ending their season further in debt than when the season had started.
A whaler could expect to earn the equivalent of about thirty-five pounds, (minus debt), for the whole season whereas more "skilled" workers such as carpenters, blacksmiths, and coopers, (barrel makers), were paid at the higher rate of ten shillings per day.
Hunting Whales
James worked as a whaler at the Oashore, Peraki, and Island Bay whaling stations for about the next ten years.
The work was dangerous. The whales were usually found close inshore in the bays, about two to seven miles off the coast. The shore whalers moved in with their fleet of small whaleboats, each boat holding a crew of six, comprising four strong rowers, a steersman in the stern, and a harpoonist standing in the bow ready to strike.
 The most dangerous part was when the whale had been harpooned and the ten fathoms of line had snaked out - a whale might speed off at a fast pace dragging whaleboat and crew behind it, or even more dangerously, the whale might dive towards the bottom of the sea and then resurface again amongst its attackers, its gigantic tail thrashing about in the waves, capsizing, swamping, or smashing boats and the crew could be drowned, or maimed, or left clinging desperately to their upturned boats, waiting for rescue from the other boats of the fleet.
As an example of how dangerous this life was, in 1845, "The New Zealand Spectator" published a short and bleak item to the effect that the Island Bay Fishery had "broken up" early that season due to "all hands being lost at sea on the 6th of May".
After a kill was made, the whale carcass had to be dragged back to the station which, depending on the weight of the whale, could take up to fourteen hours hard rowing over several days. If the weather packed up the whalers might have to anchor their catch out there in the swell while they rowed for safety to the nearest shore, to return the next day.
Reaching The Shore
The whale carcass would be hauled up the beach and then "flensers" would climb over it with sharp 'spades" to cut the strips of blubber down the length of the body. These strips were then dragged of with the help of a "capstan" and chopped into blocks to be thrown into trypots which were heated with "scrag", the name given to the residue of the previous rendering which burned well. As the reeking oil rose to the surface it was skimmed off and stored in large wooden casks for cooling, ready to be loaded aboard the next visiting whaling ship.
Then the whole jawbone was carefully cut out and buried in the sand for ten days by which time the hair on the plates was rotted away.
The Whale Products
Hairless, washed, scraped, and carefully packed, the whalebone was a valuable commodity. The pliable bone from the mouth was used for women's corsets and stays. this bone was also used in the manufacture of flexible "buggy" horsewhips.
Whale oil was in great demand. It was used as a clean burning fuel for lamps in Europe, Asia and America and for machinery lubrication. As whale oil would not congeal in extreme cold nor would it require further refining, and so therefore it was a useful lubricant for the cogs and wheels of delicate instruments such as clocks and watches.
The family grows and their fortunes improve...
During their ten years on whaling stations Hannah gave birth to six more children, George Henry was born on the 9th December, 1843; William who was born on the 14th October, 1845; Alexander on the 10th February, 1847; finally another girl, Susannah on the 14th July, 1848; James on the 15th April, 1850; and Joseph on the 24th August 1851.
And in the year 1852 they finally get their own land.
Shortydeb: hmmmmmm..Kia Ora Iri!!...is wondering if Great Great Great Grandpa was a whaler..now I have to go look into our families background...u got me goin Iri...
Monday 2 July 2007 - 02:03PM (MMT)
The First Day
The colonists who had arrived on the previous four immigrant ships had already been flooded out from their original infant settlement location at Petone and had now migrated to the other side of the harbour. The passengers of the Martha Ridgway were therefore duly landed at Pipitea Point.
Pipitea Point was thickly clad in native bush and close to a Maori pa. Here the new settlers were accommodated in tents which were quickly erected on the rising ground. Most of the immigrants had not been able to bring many household goods with them (due to the limitations of space on the ship), and they had no cooking facilities but some people felled a large tree and then they cut small hollows into it. They then filled those small hollows with clay and these were used as fireplaces. It has been recorded that these unusual fireplaces were very effective in use, one woman later told how she learned to fry fish that day on her family's dugout fireplace.
In that First Year...
The settlers were beginning to get their land legs. What was key to their survival was the ability to buy or barter for food from local iwi (the Maori people). A lot of the time it was Maori people who showed the new colonists how to find food in this country and how to grow the vegetables they needed for food.
Establishing vegetable gardens was an important priority for settler families. When they ran out of their own veges children were sent out to collect sow thistle, and a plant they called colonial cabbage which was plentiful and growing wild. It is thought that this wild cabbage may have been descended from cabbage seeds given to Maori by Captain James Cook.
People also gathered the curly buds of New Zealand native tree ferns, (ponga), and made them into pies which children liked because they were very sweet.
And right from the very first year, the settlers celebrated their first Anniversary Day with picnics and sporting competitions.
The Earliest Houses
The new settlers built one and two room cottages from ponga trees and mud. These houses had only mud floors. They were built on sections of land on Wellington Terrace, just above what is now Woodward Street.
Back then Woodward Street was not a street, but a creek flowing down from the hills behind and crossed by a narrow bridge. Years later this bridge was to be replaced by a brick structure which in it's turn disappeared when the whole creek was covered over and the street was formed.
But Back to 1840 and James Wright.
James was described as being a tall, fine-looking man with a genial personality, and even when he was still a young man, (in 1840-42 he was 24-25), he is already recorded as having a commanding presence. It is said that he easily won the respect and affection of both the settler and Maori communities.
Our family folklore, (unable to be verified but possible), has it that during their time in Port Nicholson, James obtained an appointment under Governor Hobson as a kind of "policeman" charged with the task of attempting to stop the sale of arms, ammunition, and liquor to Maori. There was still a whaling industry off the coastline although it was past its peak due to overfishing. First sealers, then whalers, and then obligatory missionaries had comprised most of the European population at Port Nicholson prior to 1840. It was mostly the European whalers who were selling the banned commodities to the local iwi so it was with these people that James principally dealt.
Sarah Ann
Sadly by 1842, the little British-born Sarah Ann has died. The exact date and cause of her death are unrecorded. In those times and circumstances, and with none of the flash medical care and medications that we now take for granted, there could have been a number of causes.
The New Baby
On the 29th of December, 1841, Hannah gave birth to another little girl. People seem to have had a penchant back then for reusing names of deceased family members. James himself had had an older brother named Joseph who had died, then later a younger brother born to his parents was called Joseph.
The new New Zealand-born baby girl was named Sarah Ann.
It is from her line that I and my children and grandchildren descend.
A story that has come down to our family is about the abduction of Sarah Ann when she was a small baby.
Hannah had put her baby down one day and the next time she looked Sarah Ann had vanished. Poor Hannah must have really panicked and of course everyone went looking for the baby, and she was found some time later at the nearby pa safe and unharmed and the object of curiosity from Maori people who had not seen such a pale baby before.
Land Conflicts
James was less than impressed with the New Zealand Company and he wasn‘t the only one by a long shot. Already, and very early in the eighteen-forties, Maori people were beginning to express dissatisfaction over the ways in which the major land deals were being conducted by the Wakefield brothers. The first New Zealand Company land deals were carried out through the whaler, Dicky Barrett, who's 'pidgin' Maori was very not up to the task.
Maori owned land communally. In the land deals, often not all of the owners were brought in and involved with the sale, especially often the least malleable owners would be bypassed, or the purchase price was found to be inadequate.
The main area of conflict however between the two cultures was mutual misunderstandings about what constituted land ownership. For Maori there might be a variety of factors such as inherited rights and rights associated with occupation and use. For the English it was all about the signed deed.
Later a Land Claims Commission would find that Maori were underpaid for land in the Wellington area and ordered recompense. But Wellington Maori were not seeking additional remuneration. They were arguing that large parts of the land claimed by the New Zealand Company had never been sold.
This claim was finally upheld by the Waitangi Tribunal in 2003.
Moving On
All of that was probably discontented grumbling back in 1840-42. And while it may have been an issue I think it also likely that James was chafing under the organised Company development and sought more independence as well as more secure land.
In any case, 1842 saw James, Hannah, and their new baby boarding the "Bright Planet" to sail south to Banks Peninsula on the East Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
Mary: everything that Political said, I would say, but, why repeat it. Excellent, Iri.
Monday 25 June 2007 - 09:56AM (EDT)
Just Jane: I recall the historical outline which was covered in school history lessons - it's the detail that I particularly enjoy.
Iri Ani: I love your comments, thanks people, its really nice to know that I am not boring the pants off people...
I have always liked the social history side of things, the how people did things and coped with it stuff and what they used (I guess you can tell that from the story).
and Jane, I think the history we learned at school varied from region to region (I noticed this because my family moved around a lot). So when I lived in Blackball we were learning about the early explorers and coal and gold mining, in Picton it was all about Capt Cook and his early arrival in the sounds, in Christchurch it was all about the first 4 ships that arrived in Lyttelton (NZ Company of course).
But it was all about dates and the BIG things that MEN did like FORGING tracks through the wilderness and DISCOVERING new worlds and IMPORTANT STUFF like that.
never about interesting things like how to make a fireplace in tree log hehehehe... (I loved that bit too Poli)
Tuesday 26 June 2007 - 09:32AM (NZST)
Delona: Fascinating posts. I read all three. You made it come alive. How blessed you are to have your family's stories and your history. Fantastic
Tuesday 26 June 2007 - 07:19PM (CDT)
PB: Ok, I haven't commented on the other one, because I wanted to read it all then comment...goofy I know...but I have to say, this is so fascinating for me...interesting, and amazing....I appreciate that you are sharing a part of your history with me....looking forward to the next... Thursday 28 June 2007 - 01:02AM (CEST)
Helly: im enjoying this
Thursday 28 June 2007 - 07:54PM (NZST)
Chrissie: This is great stuff, Iri, I've taken my time and carefully read all three parts, I am particularly interested because it was to Wellington that my younger daughter and husband, two children and two dogs immigrated in 1984. I agree that little details like the fireplaces in your account are fascinating. Accounts of all pioneering women, often pregnant and/or with young children have always been a source of great interest and admiration to me. You are doing a great task in writing so eloquently of what you know from personal and public accounts. I look forward to the rest of this history.
Wednesday 1 August 2007 - 10:47PM (BST)
Ports were essential to early settlements, and their promoters liked to talk up the advantages of their anchorages. Wellington Harbour which was an excellent deep-water harbour, featured prominently in the New Zealand Company propaganda.
This view was drawn by Charles Heaphy in 1839, and lithographed by T. Allom and published in 1843. It was technically accomplished enough and at first sight appears remarkably accurate. But the amount of flat land has been exaggerated, the hills have been softened and shortened, and the Hutt River (centre right) has been made to look improbably fit for navigation.
Maori called this place "Te Upoku O Te Ika", which means "The Head Of The Fish". Europeans renamed it "Port Nicholson", and Maori had transliterated that right back to "Poneke".
In the future it will be known as Wellington.
Arriving at Paradise aka Poneke
I am imagining Hannah and James standing beside each other on the deck of the Martha Ridgway as she finally sails into harbour on the fourteenth of November, 1840. Right now Hannah is still only nineteen years old. She is holding the nearly two year old Sarah Ann tightly, but I don't think the wee girl is wriggling much, unlike normal toddlers of this age.
I suspect that Sarah Ann and her parents might be looking more as though they had just emerged from a war zone.
The family have spent four months and five days traversing some thirteen thousand miles on a sailing ship, from England to Aotearoa/ New Zealand. They have sailed through seas that have threatened to engulf the vessel, (and did engulf the chicken coop). The family are probably severely under-nourished by now as keeping passengers and crew fed was a majorly challenging undertaking in those days before refrigeration. It may be that one or more of the family has been infected with the smallpox virus that was known to be on board. And they have lost two babies.
Is New Zealand worth all this?
Still, at Least it is Spring in Paradise!
November is spring in New Zealand of course, so maybe the sun was shining that day and the bright blue sea was glistening and sparkling beneath its rays. The steep bush-clad hills above the narrow beach would have been filled with the sound of joyous bird-song.
If you have never heard the song of a bellbird you have missed something.
Hannah and James might be wondering where the spring blossom was though, because unlike England, most of our New Zealand native trees are not deciduous.
This is the beginning of their new life and they are young and resilient.
The New Settlement at Port Nicholson.
The Martha Ridgway was the fifth ship of Wakefield's New Zealand Company to drop anchor at Port Nicholson. The first ship had arrived about ten months earlier in January of 1840. This was before the Treaty of Waitangi, (Te Tiriti O Waitangi), was even written let alone signed by anyone. In fact, it was as much the precipitous actions of the New Zealand Company that pressured William Hobson to draw up the document, as his worry over the possible French annexation of the country.
By November 1840 when Hannah and James arrived, fewer than 1200 settler-immigrants had fetched up on the shores of Port Nicholson so the 225 passengers of the Martha Ridgway swelled the local European population by more than twenty percent.
To Maori, this was beginning to look rather large scale immigration however. The Ati Awa chief Te Wharepouri commented to William Wakefield that when he had participated in the sale of land to the New Zealand Company he had been expecting about ten Pakeha, (non-Maori), to settle around Port Nicholson, one Pakeha for each pa.
When he saw the more than 1,000 settlers who stepped off the company's ships, he therefore felt rather panicked about the whole thing. It must have seemed like an invasion of extra terrestrials, a fleet of spaceships disgorging little green beings, and it was certainly beyond anything that Te Wharepouri had imagined.
To most of these extra-terrestrials, (oops, immigrants), Port Nicholson was no paradise. The New Zealand Company had promised them land and there was little or no land available to them. There was no accommodation provided when they first arrived, and food was scarce and expensive. the immigrants perceived local Maori as being unpredictable and cannibalism was still believed to be practised in surrounding districts.
Already in these first few months disaster had struck some of the new immigrants. Fire had destroyed a row of fourteen newly built cottages owned by some Cornish settlers on the night of the 25th of May. No one was hurt but the devastated owners of the burnt cottages had lost all of their possessions which were at this point irreplaceable.
It was recorded that Maori from the nearest pa danced around the flames in "high glee", not at all upset that such misfortune had overtaken these foreigners who had arrived unbidden to share their country.
The excitement over the fire had scarcely ceased when the poor colonists were again aroused, this time by undulating movements of the earth beneath them and the severe shaking of their houses. This was probably the first earthquake these people had felt in all their lives. Most of them had no idea what was happening.
The following night another slight shock occurred and two more later on. The first of these was the most severe and the longest though it did little damage. However that was mostly because there is little to damage in a settlement comprising mostly flax huts. (The flash cottages had already been burnt after all).
People were probably feeling pretty ripped off by the New Zealand Company at this point. New Zealand Company literature had explicitly stated that there was no record of any earthquakes in New Zealand within the memory of "man". The written records of the English had only begun the year before, in 1939.
That week in May of 1840 was a very bad week for the woebegone settlers. That same week, on the 30th of May, the Hutt River overflowed its banks for the second time since the arrival of that first ship in January.
This was the insecure world that Hannah and James and little Sarah Ann gazed upon from their ship.
Vivien: I visited Australia when I was 18 and spent a few months in Tasmania, which is full of the remains of prisons. Comparatively, New Zealand must have been paradise for settlers, but, as you say, I bet they didn't think so when they first arrived! (Also spent a month in NZ, which I loved!)
Saturday 23 June 2007 - 09:57AM (BST)
Just Jane: First thing - song of the bellbird - here is a link if you would like one:
http://www.backpack-newzealand.com/articles/topic51.php
I used a link to the song of the tui in a blog a while back - I had to click the arrow twice before it played.
Yes, expectations for both Maori and settler would have been quite different from the reality, I would imagine. The New Zealand company had a lot to answer for - actually information to potential immigrants was still being misrepresented when my Mum and Dad came here in the 1950s.
They were specifically told that they would be best to sell all their furniture,car etc and buy again here rather than pay to ship it out.... completely incorrect advice....
Saturday 23 June 2007 - 05:35AM (PDT)
The Parish Church Of St Dunstans, Cranbrook, Kent, England where James and Hannah were married in 1837. The church is still there. This story about Hannah and James is also the story of the first thread of my family history in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is also one of the many stories of European colonisation of our country. People who were reading my blogs over on Yahoo 360 will recognise this story. Hopefully those of you who have not seen it before will enjoy reading it. The story is in seven parts. The story begins in England...
Hannah Austain, (or Austen or Austin), was born in the town of Cranbrook in Kent, England on the 8th of March, 1821. She was a daughter of John and Mary Austain, (or Austen or Austin). There is a lot to be said in favour of standardised spellings hehehe...
James Wright, (sometimes spelled Wraight), was also born in Cranbrook, Kent; his birthdate was the 9th of August 1816. He was the 2nd son of eight children of James Wright and Elizabeth Drury (m. 12th April 1814).
Anyhow...
Hannah and James were married on Friday the 16th of June in the northern hemisphere summer of 1837 at the Parish Church of St Dunstan at Cranbrook. James was twenty years old and Hannah was sixteen.
The marriage was solemnised by the Rev. Francis Curtis and witnessed by John Austen, (probably Hannah's father), and George G Waters. James signed his own name as James Wraight but Hannah signed an x beside the noted "Hannah Austens's mark". She may never have learned to write as years later her will is signed in the same way.
From here until 1840 there is little information about the couple except that James enlisted in the 1st Life Guards at Windsor but was discharged on the 12th of September 1838.
1840 in the New Colony of New Zealand...
Te Tiriti O Waitangi
In 1840 the British Colonial Office were persuaded to accelerate plans for the annexation of New Zealand, amidst fears that the French and/or the Catholics would claim it first.
William Hobson, Lieutenant Governor and Queens Representative, wrote the English version of The Treaty of Waitangi in four days, then at the last minute Church of England missionary Henry Williams and his son Edward cobbled together the Maori version, (Te Tiriti O Waitangi). Henry and Edward did not write a direct translation of William Hobson's document, rather they couched their Maori version in terminology they believed would make better sense to the Maori people. None of these three men have a legal background.
To this day Te Tiriti O Waitangi, (the Treaty of Waitangi), is a hotly debated and contested document in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Its main importance and usefulness back in 1840 however, was that it enabled English Colonial Settlement.
Enter The New Zealand Company...
The New Zealand Company settlement of Wellington on the shores of Port Nicholson was the brainchild of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. He thought up this impressive scheme while he was imprisoned for three years in England after his abduction of schoolgirl heiress Ellen Turner in 1826. It was during his imprisonment that he developed a theory about systematic colonisation of which the principal aim was to provide a balance between capital and labour. However, because of his notoriety, Wakefield was forced to play a "behind the scenes" role in his company.
Investors in The New Zealand Company included the Earl of Durham, John George Lambton, Sir William Molesworth and the Hutt brothers, John and William. Edward Wakefield's brothers, William and Arthur were also involved as agents. Kiwis will recognise many of these names as town suburb and street names in New Zealand today.
The Wakefield plans for New Zealand were to establish a "better Britain". They expected that English class distinctions would be preserved but that industrious artisans and farmers could better aim for prosperity here than in the old Britain. Unfortunately Company prospectuses as well as other advertising of the time blatantly lied about the new country. For instance, Wellington was presented as a " place of undulating plains! suitable for the cultivation of grapevines,olives and wheat". Actually Wellington is nearly all steep hills which were still totally bush-clad in the 1840's and was also notable for its strong winds.
The New Zealand Company counted on the fact that by the time the new immigrants arrived and realised the truth about the new Wellington settlement, they would be unlikely to turn around and travel all that distance back to England.
The Voyage Of The Martha Ridgway to the New Colony Of New Zealand...
The Martha Ridgway sailed from London on Thursday the 9th of July, 1840, its destination Port Nicholson, New Zealand. It had a displacement of 621 tons and was commanded by Captain James Forbes Bisset. The ship carried 225 passengers, of whom seventy-five were children under the age of twelve, the youngest passenger was only three weeks of age.
Hannah and James were on board. By this time they had a small daughter listed as Sarah Ann and aged one and a half years of age. Hannah was pregnant on embarking, carrying twin sons who were born only to die on the ship and were buried at sea, two small pale silent bodies slipping beneath ocean waves.
Several other people also died during the voyage, one was the ships surgeon's child and another was the wife of Alfred William Renall, mother of four children.
This account is an excerpt from a letter by Mr T.B. Hines, another passenger on board the Martha Ridgway:
"...we have experienced very bad weather in turning down our Easting between the Island St Pauls and Cape Leewen, (C. Leeuwin), in about Lon:90 we had a tremendous gale for 48 hours it blew a perfect hurricane the wind changed suddenly from N.W. to S.W. with a heavy cross sea, the stern boat was smashed to pieces, this ship is as firmly built as will be found and as well manned, from the Captain Downwards as any Merchantman perhaps that ever left our native shores but she is the worst sea boat and the wettest ship. I may say most uncomfortable sea boat that I can imagine and scarcely a day passed that the decks were not afloat to the great discomfort of the Emigrants even the Poop was not exempt as the sea often broke over it the Cabin was often wet and mine quite afloat from the water rushing in on the opening of the door incautiously. we very nearly lost our Captain by a sea breaking over the Poop, taking away the hen coops the great error of the ships construction is her want of beam being only 29 feet and 135 length overall".
The above copied from a transcript of Mr Hines' letters held by the Alexander Turnbull Library.
Mr Hines also wrote about illness on board.
"I must tell you that our Quarantine was occasioned by our having the small Pox on board which we have had during the entire voyage it having commenced on 11th July the day previous to the Pilots leaving the vessel, we only lost one patient a little boy of the doctor a few days before we sighted NZ. the Captains Steward had it severely and a young lady who was under the protection of Mr Felix Losack, this case was attended with a very melancholy result as it brought on insanity before she had recovered from the disease fortunately this happened during the latter part of the voyage..."
As each boatload of immigrants arrived in Aotearoa/New Zealand, they disgorged disease as well as people, germs which were unleashed onto the unprotected indigenous Maori population who had little or no immunity to these European diseases.
Original Comments from the 360 page:
Political Junkie: Fascinating.... Please continue!
Wednesday 20 June 2007 - 09:51AM (MDT)
Mary: Iri, I found this blog fascinating, I want to know more. I guess I'm a real history lover, the old letters and sea records have always held an interest to me. I imagine the minds and hearts of those brave men and women, climbing onto a ship, headed for the unknown. Oh, I can't get enough, Great blog Iri.
Wednesday 20 June 2007 - 11:58AM (EDT)
Iri Ani: I forgot to write on the end of this thing *to be continued* lol
Thursday 21 June 2007 - 09:40AM (NZST)
Political Junkie: *to be continued* that is great! LOL! Per Mary's comment, my "ancestors traveled to my continent by ship, and it's a good thing they had the bravery to do so. Since I am terrified of the great depths, had this emigration depended upon me, we'd still be in Europe
Thursday 21 June 2007 - 07:58AM (MDT)
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