The Soldier, the Lost Sister and the Bigamist Blacksmith

Some leaves from my family tree

Where do your roots flow?
Down onto the earth and into your family tree
Where do your veins grow?
Down beneath the dirt and into your family tree

                              

The small West Yorkshire town of Elland was in its heyday when Allen Haigh was born there on 1 September 1840 and baptised just over a month later on 4 October at the Anglican Chapelry of Elland in the parish of Halifax St John the Baptist. He was the youngest child of Joseph Haigh and Patience nee Brearley and had four siblings- John, Margaret, Ann and Elizabeth. The textile industry was booming, and his father was at the time of his youngest son's birth employed as a silk dresser, preparing silk thread for weaving. 

Victorian Elland
West Yorkshire's "dark satanic mills".

Did Allen go to school? He could certainly  
read and write. Elland did have a charity
school for local children called Brookbank, founded and endowed in the 18th century by a former resident who made it big in London. However, if Allen did attend school it wasn't for long, as by the age of 12 he was working as a wool spinner at a mill producing worsted yarn, along with his 14 year-old sister Elizabeth. The family circumstances had changed too. Their mother had died in 1846 and the family appears to have split up. In 1851 Allen and his sister Elizabeth were living with their oldest sister Margaret. 

Perhaps Allen and Elizabeth went with Margaret after she married Job Smithies in 1853. Elizabeth herself married in 1858 to Joseph Sheard, but in the meantime Allen had taken the Queen's Shilling and joined the  British Army. With the Crimean War in full swing there was a demand for new recruits and no doubt it would have seemed the path to adventure for a lad from a drab mill town. He enlisted on 11 Jun 1855, at the age of 15, giving his occupation at the time as a "mill spinner". 

The Relief of Lucknow, 1857
Artist: Thomas Jones Barker

It's unlikely that Allen was involved in the Crimean War himself, but he was serving in Burma (now Myanmar) with the 84th Foot (York & Lancaster) when that regiment was posted to India during the campaign by British forces to suppress the Indian Rebellion of 1857-1858. He was awarded the Indian Mutiny Medal with double clasps ("Lucknow" & "Defence of Lucknow") for his part at the Siege of Lucknow under the command of Sir James Outram. Despite reaching the embattled Lucknow Residency, taking heavy losses in the process, it proved impossible to evacuate the trapped residents as planned. Outram and his troops were instead obliged to hold their position, themselves under siege, until finally relieved by troops led by Sir Colin Campbell, then commander-in-chief of British forces in India.

Allen was later transferred to the 1st Battalion, 68th Regiment (Durham Light Infantry) and as a corporal, regimental no 653, was a member of the convoy sent as reinforcements to New Zealand at Governor Grey's request, following the outbreak of the Second Taranaki War. In November 1863 the Durham Light Infantry, commanded by Lt-Col. Henry Greer, were picked up at Rangoon, Burma, by the ship Light Brigade, already carrying members of the 43rd Regiment of Foot who had embarked at Calcutta. The Light Brigade arrived at Auckland on 17 January 1864 and the troops were marched to the British military camp at Otahuhu before being sent to the Bay of Plenty. On 21 January 1864, they set sail on the ships Miranda and Corio, arriving at Tauranga the next day, Colonel Carey of the 43rd confirming that he had occupied the Mission Station at Te Papa (Tauranga). On 29 April 1864 the reinforcements, under the command of Lt-Gen Sir Duncan Cameron, saw action at the Battle of Gate Pa.

Battle of Gate Pa, Tauranga, 29 April 1864

 As an officer who fought with the 68th Light Infantry during 

both the Indian Rebellion and at Gate Pa, the artist,

Horatio Gordon Robley, would have been known to Allen Haigh.

This was a signal and humiliating defeat for the British military forces. Although the British had deployed around 1700 men against 230 Maori tribesmen of mostly Ngai Te Rangi and Ngati Ranginui descent, their losses were heavy for a skirmish of this size. Around 35 colonial troops were killed and 75 wounded, twice the number of the Maori casualties. The construction of the pa itself had a lot to do with this. Designed by Pene Taka Tuia of Ngai Te Rangi affiliation, it was a complex maze of underground trenches and dugouts in which the warriors could hide, giving the false impression of an empty pa to lure the British inside. Carnage reigned as British soldiers armed with cutlasses, pistols and bayonets and Maori with tomahawks, mere and muskets engaged each other in ferocious hand-to-hand combat. Despite their success, because they were so greatly outnumbered the Maori knew their position was untenable. Overnight they slipped quietly away, vacating the pa in order to regroup.

Letter written by Allen Haigh
to the Naval, Military &
Local Forces Land
Claims Commission

Under the command of Lt-Col Henry Greer, the 68th Regiment, including Allen, also took part in the subsequent Battle of Te Ranga on 27 June 1864, where the British comprehensively defeated the Maori. Caught unawares while trying to build a new pa further inland, they responded with great bravery but were slaughtered before they could mount a effective counterattack, and lost heart after the death of their leader, Ngai Te Rangi chief Rawiri Puhirake.

Today public reserves in Tauranga commemorate the battles of both Gate Pa and Te Ranga.

A formal surrender followed and many of the remaining Maori warriors left the Tauranga area, their lands having been confiscated. While their Headquarters (based at Durham Redoubt) remained in Tauranga, various detachments of the 68th were later sent to hotspots like Wanganui in 1865, during the campaign against the Hauhau Maori, and then to Taranaki. However, British High Command grew unhappy about having so many of its troops tied up in New Zealand, and the 68th were recalled, leaving for England on 15 March 1866. Allen, though, was not among them, being instead one of the 179 men who took up the option of discharge with gratuity at the Otahuhu Camp in Auckland on 6 March 1866, preferring to stay in New Zealand. He was a recipient of the New Zealand Medal awarded in 1869 to British Imperial troops and colonial militia who saw service during the New Zealand Wars.

Nobles township, Grey Valley, Ahaura,
West Coast of New Zealand, 1900.
 In September 1865 prospector Robert Noble was granted a claim
in the area, giving his name to Nobles Gully, Nobles Creek, and
the since vanished Nobles settlement.
 

Gold was the buzz word in New Zealand at the time and when his application for land near Auckland was turned down, Allen took his chances, heading for  the West Coast of the South Island soon after his discharge. It had been the custom to make land grants to military settlers, but for the men who fought during the NZ Wars, compensatory grants of money were given as a substitute in many cases. Allen Haig was granted 40 pounds for his claim lodged in the Nelson district, though the mills of bureaucracy ground exceedingly slow and he didn't actually receive his money till 1892. Allen proved a persistent gold miner, working with various consortiums for many years, mostly in the Ahaura district around Waipuna Terrace, Napoleon Hill, Mosquito Creek and Nobles, though it's unclear whether his efforts were ever greatly rewarded. In October 1870 Allen Haig & Co, are recorded as applying for an extended claim in the Cariboo Creek area, though Allen's later obituary indicates that he had been in the Ahaura area some time already by then, in fact had probably removed there straight after obtaining his discharge.

Allen had been based at Nobles from around 1867, and in April 1874 he applied for and was granted a residential area of one acre at Nobles township in the Grey Valley.  

On June 25 the same year, the immigrant ship "Cartvale" set sail from London, heading for Wellington, New Zealand.  On the passenger list was 28 year-old Mary Ann Hicking. a single woman travelling with her older sister Martha Lee (nee Hicking), brother-in-law Richard Lee and their three children, Harry (6), Annie (5) & George (3). Richard was a boilermaker/engineer by trade and had been employed as an engine fitter with the railways in Nottingham before they made the momentous decision to emigrate to New Zealand.

This was a period of peak British immigration, with the NZ Government offering assisted (subsidised) passages to New Zealand throughout the 1870s under the Vogel Scheme.

Church Street, Ripley, Derbyshire

One of seven children, Mary Ann was born at Greenwich, Ripley, Derbyshire in 1846, the youngest of four daughters born to comfortably situated farmer George Hicking and his wife Mary (nee Watson). Before setting off for New Zealand, she had previously been employed in Worcestershire as a housemaid at "Halesowen Grange", the Hunnington manor of Major Ferdinando Dudley Lea-Smith, J.P. and Deputy-Lieutenant for Worcestershire. Martha, Mary Ann's next-oldest sister, was a small, industrious woman, retiring by nature. She had received a good education and was working as a teacher when she met Richard Lee ("a tall, good-looking man with quite an opinion of himself") at a dance held for the local villagers on the grounds of her parents' home. Her mother felt that Richard was beneath her daughter and only gave her blessing to their marriage on 26 December 1866 with great reluctance, however, it would prove to be a long and happy partnership. 

Ironically, Martha's parents had been in a similar situation themselves. Her father George Hicking had been a friend and contemporary of his wife's parents, Thomas and Hannah Watson, who were wealthy landowners - they were all part of a philanthropic group working to help the poor, possibly associated with the Quakers, who were active in the Codnor area where they lived. George had been a sort of honorary uncle to their daughter Mary, but as she grew up the two realised they had feelings for each other and wanted to marry. George being so much older (there were 22 years between them), her mother didn't approve and young Mary was packed off to a finishing school in Paris in the hope that time and distance would put paid to the romance. It didn't and eventually her parents gave in and consented to their marriage.

Martha had been given a substantial amount of money by her parents to help her make a good life with her family in their new homeland and perhaps taking her unmarried sister with her was part of the deal - there are hints that Mary Ann may have been a bit of a prickly personality and possibly she hadn't met any suitable prospective husbands at home. The voyage took much longer than anticipated. Martha, who was pregnant, had thought she would be settled in Wellington by the time of the birth but instead ended up delivering her baby on board the ship. Things did not go well. Following a difficult labour Martha became progressively weaker over the next few days and was eventually declared dead.

Panel on the 
Somes Island Memorial

The "Cartvale" by now had landed at Somes Island in Wellington Harbour, where her passengers were obliged to go into quarantine for a week. Between 1872 & 1876 a fear of epidemics resulting from diseases such as typhoid, smallpox and scarlet fever saw a number of immigrant ships held in quarantine. Crews and passengers were kept at the Quarantine Depot on Somes Island. As part of the process they were made to sit for ten minutes in a smoke house, amidst chlorine, potassium nitrate and sulphur fumes, to get rid of any lice they may have picked up, a process that likely didn't do those hosting the parasites much good either!

As Martha's body was being carried off the ship for burial, her husband Richard thought he saw her hand give a little twitch and insisted that the ship's doctor re-examine her. Martha was indeed still alive. She recovered, went on to have several more children and lived until she reached the ripe old age of 94. Her new baby, however, was not so lucky, A little girl named Clara Lee, she was born at sea on 4 Oct 1874 and died 12 days later on 16 Oct 1874. She was buried at the Somes Island Cemetery, and her name can be seen on a panel on the memorial at Somes Island dedicated to those who did not survive quarantine.

The "Cartvale" immigrants were finally released from quarantine on 19 October, and disembarked at Port Nicholson (Wellington). Further drama ensued. While the Lees were trying to organize their children and luggage, Martha's sister Mary Ann Hicking, who had been billeted separately in the single women's quarters, disappeared amidst the chaos at the wharf. Frantic searches failed to locate her. In the end they had to give up and find a place to stay. Richard did some sawmilling for a while then he & Martha bought a block of land (Part Section 8 Mangaroa) at Whiteman's Valley, Upper Hutt. They set up a dairy farm where hardworking Martha, helped by her children, established a butter-making business producing up to 500lbs of butter a week at a time when all milking and butter production was done by hand. Meanwhile, Richard supplemented their income by working periodically at Petone and Wanganui as an engine fitter for the railways. The family was as self-sufficent as possible, making good use of the large population of wild pigs for meat. 

Richard & Martha Lee with their family
Martha (nee Hicking) centre back
with her husband Richard Lee ("a tall, good-looking 
man with quite an opinion of himself") at her right.
The date and the children's names are not given,
though the young girl standing far right at the back  
 is likely to be the Lees' oldest daughter, Annie.

Richard & Martha had four more children, making six who survived in all: Harry, Annie, Clara, Fred, Frank and Arthur. Clara, the first to be born in New Zealand, was named, as was a custom of the day, in memory of the little sister who had died at Somes Island. Born at Upper Hutt on 11 April 1876, this second Clara was my paternal great-grandmother. Her birth took place exactly a month after the death of her brother George Reuben Lee, who had died at home on 11 March 1876, just before his 5th birthday, and was buried at the St John's Anglican Churchyard Cemetery in Trentham.

While young Clara was growing up - going to school, helping her mother with the butter making, trailing her older brother hero, Harry, around and riding side-saddle into Petone for music lessons - what was the aunt she had never met doing? 

Wellington Harbour in 1874.

What happened to Martha's lost sister, Mary Ann Hicking? It must have been terrifying to be left alone and not knowing a single soul in not just a strange city, but a strange country. Where did she go? Domestic servants were in high demand in colonial Wellington, so perhaps she returned to her former occupation. Until women in New Zealand got the vote in 1893 they were invisible as far as official records go and it seemed that Mary Ann had just vanished without a trace until she suddenly popped up at Greymouth on 8 October 1879, when she was recorded as marrying at the Greymouth Registry Office to Allen Haigh, goldminer, of Nobles, one of their witnesses being the receiver of gold revenue & mining registrar for No Town, then a flourishing Grey Valley gold boom settlement. She was 33, he 40. Maybe just in time, as their only child Constance (known as Connie), was born at Nobles Creek on 3 November 1879, not quite a month later.

Sluicing for gold

The Haighs moved at some point to Totara Flat, possibly so daughter Connie could go to the Totara Flat School, though were back at Nobles by the turn of the 20th century. Allen continued to pursue the golden dream. In between stints on the goldfields he took up paying work, like roadmaking, which was a financial staple for colonial settlers everywhere. The "Grey River Argus" of 10 Dec 1884 indicates a disappointment - his tender to the County Council for the first stage of a prospecting trail between Waipuna and the Clarke River was declined. The same paper did have some good news, though - the ever-reliable Newman Bros' tender had been accepted for the mail coach service between Belgrove and Reefton with a service to and from Westport, connecting both there and at Inanagahua Junction. This would cut travel times between Nelson and the West Coast considerably. 

By 1891 Allen had formed another syndicate which put in a claim for a block of land in the Mosquito Creek area, and was still putting in claims until at least 1901. A brief foray into community service in 1898 when he became a member of the Nobles School Committee saw him inadvertently stir up controversy when he wrote a letter to the paper about issues at the Nobles School, discovering the hard way in response the vituperative nature of local committee politics. In 1903 he was honoured by being granted a place (which he didn't take up) at the newly built Ranfurly Veterans' Home in Auckland, by virtue of his 12 years' military service. 

Greymouth  between 1900-1910
The suburb of Cobden (in foreground) could only be 
reached by punt until a bridge was built in 1886.

The same year his daughter Connie married Cornelius Francis Sexton, a blacksmith of Irish descent. The wedding was held at Holy Trinity Church, Greymouth, on 30 July 1903, the Ven. Archdeacon George W. York officiating, and the bride's parents put on a generous spread for the guests afterwards. The newly-weds settled at the Greymouth suburb of Cobden, which remained their home for the rest of their lives. They had four children: Hector Stanley Percy, William Conrad Allen, John Gordon Leonard and Irene Roslyn Constance. Not long before his death, Allen Haigh and his wife Mary Ann moved into their daughter Constance's home, where Allen died on 15 May 1917, aged 79. As a decorated veteran, the local members of the NZ Territorial Force were called out to parade at his funeral, held on the afternoon of 17 May and followed by his burial at the Greymouth Cemetery.  An obituary titled "The Last Post", published in the "Greymouth Evening Star" on 15 May 1917, mourned the passing of "another of the grand old band" of West Coast pioneers, detailing his military service and passing on sympathies to his bereaved widow and daughter.

Mary Ann Haigh continued to live in Cobden with her daughter's family until her own death at the age of 85. She was buried at Greymouth Cemetery on 6 May 1930, along with her husband.

Meanwhile her sister Martha's daughter Clara had met Alfred Cobin Mitchell, a blacksmith and wheelwright by trade, born in 1868 at Porirua. Alfred's father William (a "big, braw Scotsman with an eye for the ladies") was one of a large family who had settled in Wellington after emigrating from Aberdeenshire.   William Mitchell was married on 27 January 1862 at First Church, Dunedin, to Elizabeth Fill, who had been born in 1841 on board the ship "Lady Nugent" during the last stage of her family's outward bound voyage to New Zealand. William and Elizabeth went on to have ten children, Alfred being the third. Alfred and Clara married at the Wellington Registry Office on 14 September 1895. Both shared a passion for music and often played the piano and sang together, plus Alfred was the only one of pretty Clara's admirers to breach her protective Papa's guard and win her hand. However, as one of their daughters later noted, it was a marriage that was far from ideal, marked by frequent  "tiffs". With the help of Clara's parents, who lent the newly-weds a large sum of money to get them started, Alfred and Clara settled nearby on an 800 acre farm in Whiteman's Valley - 260 acres in grass and the balance in bush, for the felling of which they had a mutually beneficial arrangement with a neighbour who ran a sawmiling operation. They soon had a nice little herd of dairy cows, a flock of sheep, a few horses and pigs, a dog or two and five small children: Ivy Clara, born 14 July 1896 (my grandmother), Clarence, Nellie, Elsie and Minnie. 

Opening of the Whiteman's Valley Bridge
 on 26 Sept 1904, a day of rejoicing for
 the area's residents.

Until a bridge was built at Whiteman's Valley, residents travelling by horseback or in horse-drawn vehicles took their lives in their hands every time they had to cross  the Mangaroa River. There were many tragedies as a result, especially during flooding, and great-grandmother Clara very nearly became yet another casualty whilst crossing the river in flood while riding pillion on horseback with her husband one day. Both she and Alfred were unseated and Clara swept away, but luckily Alfred spotted her long thick hair floating down the river, grabbed hold and managed to drag them both up the bank to safety.

The children enjoyed a simple country lifestyle - helping on the farm, making fern houses, swimming in the creek that ran next to their house and attending the nearby Whiteman's Valley School. By means of hard work, Clara, who kept the books, managed to pay back her parents' loan.  Then in 1907 Richard & Martha Lee took up a 650 acre block of land at Te Poi in South Waikato, offered as part of the Selwyn Settlement, land subdivided from the northern portion of the original Selwyn Estate owned by the Thames Valley Land Co. Their youngest son Arthur went with them and another son, Frank, who had initially stayed behind in Wellington, followed in 1912 after himself taking up land nearby on what is now Kakahu Road, where he raised his own family. Alfred and Clara decided that it might be time for them to make a change as well, so in August 1907 they advertised their freehold Whiteman's Valley property for sale then bought a farm at Wiri in Papatoetoe, at that time a rural district outside the city of Auckland.

"68 acres of sticky clay, plenty of grass. A plantation of pine trees and plenty of out-buildings; an old house with an attic at the top and a verandah that used to attract scores of kingfishers. Wonderful fun there; daisy chains and butter-cups, days at the beach in the summer,  away we'd go  - hitch our lovely grey mare Peggy to the buggy and all aboard". So my great-aunt Elsie recalled life at Wiri. The children attended Papatoetoe and Manurewa Schools and went to Sunday School at the fondly remembered little Wiri church, St David's. As oldest daughter Ivy reached her teens she took over responsibility for the domestic chores - cleaning, cooking and sewing - relieving her mother Clara, who with her green fingers and golden touch with dairy cows, was the farmer in the family. Happy days at Wiri were about to come to an end, though. Land at Papatoetoe was becoming increasingly valuable as demand for housing in the area grew exponentially. Perhaps they were made an offer they couldn't refuse or the opportunity to realize a good return couldn't be ignored? The farm at Wiri was sold some time around 1912 for what was an excellent price at the time.

The Mitchell family in happier times at Wiri
(despite the lack of happy smiling faces!)
L-R Back row: Elsie, Clarence, Ivy, Nellie
Front row: Minnie, Clara & Alfred.

Clara wanted to buy an established farm already under full cultivation next, and had one in mind,  just a few miles away, with a very nice home and closer to the dairy factory. Then Alfred saw an advertisement for a grazing run of some 1324 acres (Section 66, Block XVI, Tepapa Survey District), available at Okoroire near her parents' farm. Known as "Kuranui",  this property was undeveloped and largely covered in bush - fern, manuka and stands of native trees. Nothing would do but that they all up sticks and go to live in the backblocks. The Mitchells' land was at what is is now 577 Kakahu Road, Tepapa, and may well have been taken up at the same time as the 150 acre block bought by Clara's brother, Frank. Her oldest brother Henry Lee (always known as Harry), who had been farming at Wainuiomata in Lower Hutt, also made the shift north around this time. Assisted by his youngest brother, Arthur Lee, Harry established a 390 acre dairy farm called "Manoa Downs" at Rotokauri, Frankton Junction. Lee Road at Rotokauri is a reminder of Henry Lee's connection with the area. 

Did Alfred already have in mind that he could park Clara and the children down there with her parents and brothers nearby for support while he continued to swan around Auckland acting the big businessman?  Possibly he felt that Clara did everything anyway and he was just a spare wheel. At any rate, having got the family to Okororire, Alfred fenced the property with the help of son Clarence (pulled from school for the purpose) then pretty much left them to it. Interestingly, the Okoroire property appears to have been put solely in Clara's name, as indicated in a prosecution brought against the Mitchells in December 1913 by the Farmer's Co-operative Auctioneering Company of Hamilton for non-payment of costs associated with the farm. 

Section 66, Block XVI Tepapa S.D.
Upper green block rt-hand side
The Mitchells' farm at Okoroire.

Determined to at least have a nice home built before her husband managed to spend all the money from the sale of the Wiri farm, Clara set the wheels in motion and a local builder, Joe Maunder by name, was engaged to take on the project. The new house was built of heart kauri, the timber brought down from up north by train and carted the nine miles from the Okoroire railway station by three sturdy draught horses harnessed to a strong wagon. The family stayed with Richard & Martha while three small sheds and a big marquee were erected - the sheds later serving respectively as storeroom, wash house (laundry) and a farm worker's hut. The Mitchells then settled in, using the huts as sleeping quarters and the tent as kitchen/living room during the "seven long months of carting timber, hammering and all the business that goes with building a house". 

Desperate to get the land operational and paying its way, Clara set to work, driving herself to the point of exhaustion as she spent day after day tramping the farm, burning off the bush, as people did in the days before machinery made large scale clearance possible, and sowing grass seed as soon as the ashes had cooled. Her efforts paid off as green paddocks started to show up everywhere and her dairy herd began to grow. While Ivy continued to run the household and Nellie, Elsie and Minnie attended the Okoroire School, Clarence was more often than not called upon to help his mother on the farm and his sisters mourned the transformation of their lively, happy-go-lucky young brother into a stolid lad worn down by the burden of constant hard work. Clara, who had resented the pressure her father put upon her beloved brother Harry to work at home when he should have been at school, bitterly regretted doing the same thing to her own son, but couldn't manage without his help. 

The main attraction at Okoroire,
the Sanatorium built at the hot springs there in 1889

During this time Ivy became seriously ill, and this occasioned a visit by her aunt Annie, her mother's older sister. Annie took Ivy with her back to Rotorua, where she was successfully treated using Rongoa Maori (Maori medicine). As a result, Ivy became very interested in Rongoa Maori herself, and her studies proved very useful when years later she used it in turn to save her son Jim after he became dangerously ill as a child.

Annie, who had travelled out with her parents to New Zealand by ship as a young girl, had an eventful life, marrying three times, not always with happy results. 

Her first marriage took place at the Wesleyan Church at Lower Hutt on 8 October 1890, when she was wed to 54 year old Irishman William Daniel Egan, known as Daniel. Although described as a contractor, Egan was well known to the Wellington constabulary as a wastrel, often picked up for drunken and disorderly behaviour. His first wife, Bridget, whom he had married in 1874, had divorced him on grounds of his abusive behaviour in 1889. After Annie gave birth to their son, named George Nathaniel, on 22 August 1891, her husband promptly deserted her, heading for places unknown.

Thomas & Annie (nee Lee) Gordon seated together far left middle row
at a Gordon family gathering, date unknown, likely early 20th century.
 The little girl at Annie's feet is thought to be their daughter, Lenare.
Thomas' brother George is seated far right.

She had much better luck the second time round, when she took up with Thomas (Tom) Gordon (also known as Tame Kotene Gordon). He was the oldest son of John Benjamin Gordon and Rena Te Akau (also known as Ellen), who was related to Te Rauparaha. John Gordon, originally from Chester, England,  had arrived at the Kapiti Coast in 1854,  and set up as a carpenter and builder at River Bank Road, Otaki. This business was known as Gordon & Sons, Carpenters and Builders, after his sons Thomas and George later joined him. Annie and Thomas settled at Whiteman's Valley and they had a family of four-  a daughter, Lenare Elizabeth, born in 1897, and 3 sons -  Albert John, born 1900, Victor Thomas, born 1903 and Reuben Benjamin, born 1909. Thomas Gordon also adopted Annie's first son, George, who became known as George Egan Gordon. As Daniel Egan couldn't be located, Thomas & Annie were unable to marry until evidence that Egan had died in 1909 was located. Their marriage took place at the Hamilton Registry Office on 11 November 1911, indicating that they were staying at the time with Annie's parents. 

 Rangiatea Anglican Church and Cemetery

100th Anniversary celebrations, 1950.

The couple had by then moved with their family to Rotorua, where Thomas had a number of relatives already living, and remained based there. Theirs appears to have been a happy marriage, but sadly, Thomas later became ill and knowing that time was running out, he chose towards the end to return to his ancestral home at Otaki, where he died aged 52 on 15 December 1920. Following a graveside committal, he was  buried at the Native Cemetery at Otaki Beach attached to the Rangiatea Maori Anglican Church. Annie, now a widow for the second time, continued to live in Rotorua following Thomas' death.

Meanwhile, Annie's younger sister CIara was having her own dramas. In July 1916 she was staying in Auckland at Orakei Road in Remuera. Was this Alfred's home away from home or where Ivy and Elsie were lodging? To help their mother keep the farm afloat, her two oldest daughters had left home early, taking up work as Land Girls and then in the city, sending as much money as they could spare back home. Alfred and Clara's relationship appears to have hit a new low by this stage. The breaking point came during this stay in Auckland with the discovery that Alfred, now aged 45 and clearly in the grip of a mid-life crisis, had posed as a wealthy doctor under the alias Hector Ernest McDonald and entered into a bigamous marriage with an 18 year old girl he had met at an Auckland matrimonial agency. Showing a distinct lack of nous, he had then taken his new "bride" on honeymoon to Matamata, where everyone knew who he was! What a shock for his family - their embarrassment must have been immense as the scandalous news was spread like wildfire throughout the country by the daily newspapers. Alfred and Clara's oldest daughter Ivy was even called as a witness during the court proceedings which followed and questioned about the state of her parents' marriage ("loveless" according to her father). Alfred was sentenced to a prison term of 18 months with hard labour and Clara petitioned for a divorce, which was granted in 1917.

Alfred had hit the slippery slope, and found his true calling. From being a respectable citizen (well, mostly - there was that earlier matter of false pretences in 1893, charges luckily for him later withdrawn) he came out of jail a fully-fledged fantasist and career criminal, using various aliases and his talents as a scamster to successfully swindle a number of people in both New Zealand and Australia out of their money. He wasn't as good at keeping ahead of the law though, and was invariably nabbed by the police somewhere just down the road while busily blowing his ill-gotten gains. Consequently, records show him constantly in and out of jail in both countries until his trail runs cold in 1925. He is last recorded as re-entering Goulburn Gaol in Sydney after a period out on parole as a "Prisoner Released on Licence", which ended abruptly in Berridale Court on 28 October 1925 when his licence was revoked after he took a lounge suite from a furniture shop home "on appro", using the alias "Alfred Marshall", and promptly sold it to someone else  before doing a bunk. He had a better run than usual at freedom that time but, as ever, was eventually nabbed. Great-grandfather Alfred was clearly a lost cause!

Clara Mitchell
with her parents
Richard & Martha Lee (seated)
at their Hamilton home.

Clara meanwhile remarried in Hamilton on 10 May 1922 to 49 year old Edward Charles Hopkins, son of a West Coast goldminer, and seems to have found a measure of happiness and stability. Her parents Richard and Martha Lee had retired to Tawa Street in the Hamilton suburb of Melville, and Clara spent time there with them whilst sorting out her affairs following her divorce. She was on one of these visits when a remarkable coincidence took place. She was sitting in the old outdoor dunny at the end of the garden path, which her father had supplied with a pile of "NZ Herald"s cut into neat squares for use as toilet paper. Suddenly an advertisement in the "Personals" column on one of these squares caught her eye: "Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Martha Lee (nee Hicking) would you please contact Mrs C. Sexton of Cobden, Greymouth". 

And so a link was forged with Connie Sexton, daughter of Martha's long-lost sister Mary Ann (nee Hicking) who had married Allen Haigh (cryptically noted as "a very nice man, her opposite") and settled on the West Coast. With her own family growing, Connie had decided to advertise in an attempt to find her Aunt Martha, whom her mother had lost track of at Wellington all those years ago and had often told her daughter about. Sadly, over the years this connection has once again become lost.

Richard & Martha Lee's
headstone at
Hamilton East Cemetery

Time went by. Richard Lee died in 1931 and Clara and Charles alternated for the next few years between her parents' Hamilton home and the Okoroire farm. so as to keep an eye on her widowed mother.

Clara's widowed older sister Annie Gordon also joined the Tawa Street household, where she was staying in 1935, and it was probably during this visit to Hamilton that she met the man who would become her third husband, Arnold Ripley William Jacomb (known as Ripley). Jacomb had been twice divorced and was unfortunately another poor choice, a case for Annie of second time unlucky. However, the couple settled at Annie's home in Rotorua, where for some years they ran a fish & chip shop in town. Annie died on 3 September 1949, aged 81, and was buried at the  Rotorua Cemetery, joined by her husband Ripley Jacomb  in 1952.

Martha Lee had died in 1938, but neither Clara nor her husband Charles outlived her by many years - Charles dying in 1940 and Clara the year after. They are all now part of the family enclave at the Hamilton East Cemetery - Richard and Martha Lee, with their daughter Clara, along with Clara's second husband, Charles Hopkins, and their son Henry (Harry) with his wife Annie Robina (nee Telfer). A memorial there also commemorates their youngest son, Arthur Lee, a WWI veteran who was cremated in Auckland, where he had settled after his marriage to Irene Vickers in 1931.

Son Frank and his wife Lavinia May (nee Thornhill) lie at the Tirau Cemetery, closer to their Okoroire home. Richard and Martha's other son Fred had moved around the North Island, spending time in Hamilton, Auckland and Rotorua before settling in Tauranga. He lies at the Tauranga Anglican Cemetery, along with the ashes of his wife Annie Kathleen (nee Wallen). Furthering that family connection, Annie Kathleen's younger brother Herbert Leslie Wallen had married Fred's niece, Elsie Mitchell.

Alfred and Clara's oldest child, Ivy, was working in Auckland, with her waist-length blond hair and big blue eyes an attractive young woman much in demand, when she met Thomas James Sheppard. Born on 19 September 1883 in Greenwich, London, and 12 years her senior, Tom was a divorced former ship's cook who had served with the merchant navy and sailed around the world many times before settling in New Zealand about 1910 (his grandchildren found his tall tales, sailor's tattoos and glass eye fascinating). Tom had a certain roguish charm which worked on Ivy, plus he had a lovely singing voice and often performed at concerts. Like her mother Clara and grandmother Martha, Ivy was an accomplished pianist, so she and Tom shared an common interest in music. This was a recurring theme in the family, and their only son, James Sheppard and his wife, Ngaire nee Matthews (my parents), were also both talented pianists. Tom and Ivy married at the Auckland Registry Office on 11 September 1924. Soon afterwards they took the coastal steamer to Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, where Tom was offered a role as manager of a high-end hotel, something right up his alley. However, Ivy put her foot down as she didn't want any children they might have growing up in a raffish hotel environment. Tom instead bought a block of land at Gate Pa which had originally been granted to a veteran of the New Zealand Wars. Sheppard Street in Greerton now marks the border of one side of the family farm, divided up and sold in blocks between 1940 and 1950 for suburban development.

Tom & Ivy Sheppard's family at their 
Gate Pa farm
L-R: Jim, Marie, Shirley (rear) & Fay.

While Tom continued to work in the hospitality business as a chef and barman, eventually owning his own seafood restaurant in Greerton (named after Lt-Col. Greer) on Cameron Road (named after Lt-Gen. Cameron), he at the same time developed a citrus orchard and large poultry farm at Gate Pa. A congenial man, he  played in the Tauranga Municipal Band and joined the Tauranga Masonic Lodge, was on the committee of the Tauranga Racing Club and belonged to both the Tauranga Citrus Growers' Association and the Tauranga branch of the Poultry Producers' Federation.

He  had a passion for all things fast and rarely missed a horse race - if he couldn't attend himself he would cosy up to the radio, listening intently to what his grandchildren jokingly called "the geegees", and for many years he would make a point of travelling up to Muriwai to watch the beach motor races held there. 

It was at the Gate Pa farm that my father James Thomas (Jim) Sheppard and his three sisters grew up, attending Greerton School, running around the the old redoubts and the Gate Pa reserve, not situated on the original site of the pa itself, which had unfortunately been levelled by vengeful settlers and later became the Bowling Club grounds. Joined by their step-sister Ruth, daughter of their father's first marriage, they led a carefree rural life amidst an abundance of every imaginable type of fruit tree - plums, peaches, cherries, apples, with citrus and kiwifruit (Tom Sheppard being one of the first to experiment with kiwifruit, then known as Chinese gooseberries, as a commercial crop) which along with poultry raised from chicks provided the family with an income. Their father Tom kept bees for honey and they ran a house cow and heifer, taking turns at separating out the cream to make their own butter. As an inquisitive young boy, my father once experimentally blew up the barrel of liquid manure brewed by his father for use as fertilizer -  an unpopular move, not repeated!

Jim Sheppard & his father 
Tom in 1948

With the Second World War advancing into the Pacific, Tauranga went into nightly black-outs and cyanide capsules were stashed away against the worst-case scenario of Japanese invasion and capture.  Horses were replaced by soldiers as the Greerton racecourse was transformed into a military training camp, and the local girls would serve them tea and cakes, under the eagle eye of the commanding officer's wife. The Sheppard family had a new playground - the earthworks created by their father as a way of hopefully deflecting the force of Japanese bombs, a ploy common at that time. As they played hide-and-seek among these trenches and dugouts they may have little understood the threat they represented or the horrors of war - either the conflict then spreading out towards Australasia or, much closer to home, the bloody past when as a corporal with the 68th Regiment of Foot, Allen Haigh had battled fearsome Maori warriors face-to-face in the trenches and dugouts at Gate Pa and survived to marry the Sheppard children's lost great-aunt, Mary Ann Hicking.

Hear the birds calling

Resting on the branches of your family tree

Hear the rain falling

Down upon the leaves of your family tree.

***

Opening and closing quotes from the song "Family Tree", lyrics by Barnaby Weir.

From the album "Fly My Pretties: Live at Bats".

Note: In reference to Allen Haigh's service at the Siege of Lucknow, a journalist from the "Grey River Argus" 
quoted the words, "Dinna ye hear it? Dinna ye hear it?" This was a line from John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, 
"The Pipes at Lucknow", inspired by the story, popular at the time, of Jessie Brown. A Scottish woman said to 
have had the Second Sight, Jessie was amongst those trapped at the Lucknow Residency, and raised the spirits
of all when she "heard", well in advance of their coming, the skirling bagpipes of the 79th Highlanders who

were even then marching to their rescue.


Acknowledgements: The Matamata Historical Society for information and useful suggestions, cousin 

Michael Morgan for identifying the sites of the Okoroire farm and the Sheppard Greerton subvision, and those

wonderful women who took the time to record family reminscences: Elsie Wallen nee Mitchell (my gt-aunt) 

& sisters Fay Morgan nee Sheppard and Marie McWhannell nee Sheppard (my aunts). Thanks also go to 

Lindsey Carew for information about the Gordon family into which Annie Lee married and alerting me 

to her third marriage to Ripley Jacomb..

References

Ancestry.com.au. Note that Allen Haigh's christian name is sometimes spelt "Allan", but given that it is 

written "Allen" in his baptismal and military records, I have taken that as being the correct version.

Censuses of England 1841 &1851

Ellis, Marie.  Victorian Elland

Indian Mutiny Medal Roll: Private Allen Haigh, 84th Foot (York & Lancaster)

Ellott, Gerald J. (2017) The 68th (Durham) Light Infantry.

Osborne, Dr John (2014) The Tauranga Campaign of 21 January 1864 - 21 June 1864.

Battles of Maketu, Gate Pa, and Te Ranga.

Hughes, Hugh & Lyn (1988) "Discharged in New Zealand: soldiers of the imperial foot regiments who took 
their discharge in New Zealand, 1840-1870". Section 14: 68th (Durham) Light Infantry. See Allen Haigh, pg 107

Naval and Military Settlers and Volunteers Land Act
Settlements agreed in I892 as entitlements for military service. See Allen Haigh, Nelson, pg 310

Up-River Diggings: Allen Haigh & Co application for extended claim at Cariboo Creek.

"Grey River Argus", 20 October 1870, p2

Resident Magistrate's & Warden's Courts, at Half Ounce : Application for land at

Noble's township granted to Allen Haigh.

"Grey River Argus", 17 April 1874, pg 2

Passenger list, "Cartvale"  1874 - London, England to Wellington, NZ

Matiu/Somes Island human quarantine station

Walton, Tony & Nester, Richard (2001) Department of Conservation

Ship "Cartvale". currently in quarantine -  public advised not to approach the Quarantine Station at Somes Island.

"Evening Post", 12 Oct 1874, pg 3

Notice given that the "Cartvale" immigrants have now been released from quarantine.

"Evening Post", 19 October 1874, pg 3

Electoral roll for Wellington 1880-1881: Richard Lee, Whiteman's Valley, at Part Section 8 Mungaroa.

County Tenders and general news

"Grey River Argus" 10 December 1884, pg 2

Special Claim for land at Mosquito Creek, Waipuna for the purpose of goldmining

"Grey RIver Argus", 12 August 1891, pg 2

Noble's Educational Difficulty:  A letter to the editor from Allen Haigh

"Grey River Argus",13 May 1898, pg 4

School matters at Noble's: A letter to the editor in response to Allen Haigh's letter.

"Grey River Argus", 27 May, 1898, pg 4

Veterans' Home- list of those invited to take up a place

"Grey River Argus" 4 November 1903, pg 3

The Last Post: The Late Allen Haigh

"Greymouth Evening Star"15 May 1917, pg 5

Territorials & Cadets called to parade at Allen Haigh's funeral

Grey River Argus" 17 May 1917, pg 1

"800 acre Farm for Sale or Lease, 20 miles from Wellington
Apply Alfred Mitchell, Whiteman's Valley.
"Evening Post" 28 August 1907, pg 10

Farmer's Co-operative Auctioneering Company Ltd of Hamilton, plaintiff, v Alfred C. Mitchell & his wife 
Clara Mitchell, defendants, re costs relating to the sale of Section 66, Block XVI, Tepapa Survey District, in 
the Provincial District of Auckland, and being the whole of the Land comprised in Lease No. 589, registered
 in Vol. 191, Folio 89, of the Register Books in Auckland.

"Waikato Argus" 20 Dec 1913, pg 4

New Zealand Post Office Directory 1935
Okoroire: Clara Hopkins (formerly Mitchell), farmer.

Sentenced for Bigamy: Term of Eighteen Months

"New Zealand Herald" 11 July 1916

Charge of Bigamy: Ivy Mitchell called in the bigamy case against her father Alfred Mitchell.

"New Zealand Herald", 1 July 1916, pg 9

"New South Wales Police Gazette & Weekly Record of Crime", 19 March 1924, Issue No 12, pg 154.

Warrant issued in Sydney for A. Marshall (alias for Alfred Mitchell) arrested for stealing a quantity of furniture.

"Trove:" Australian Online Research Portal.

Obituary: Mrs Martha Lee, Hamilton.

"NZ Herald" 21 May 1938, pg 18

Obituary: Mr Richard Lee, Hamilton.

"NZ Herald", 4 June 1931 pg 10

Family accounts: 

Elsie Wallen (nee Mitchell), Marie McWhannell (nee Sheppard) & Fay Morgan (nee Sheppard).

Notes from Nobles: Marriage of Cornelius Sexton & Constance Haigh

"Grey River Argus" 29 September 1903, pg 4

Image credits

Victorian Elland

The Relief of Lucknow, 1857

This painting, completed in 1859, included portraits of many of the actual

military men involved in the Indian Rebellion campaign.

Artist: Thomas Jones Barker (1815-1882)

Battle of Gate Pa

Artist: Horatio Gordon Robley (1840-1930) who fought at Gate Pa

as a Lieutenant with the 68th (Durham) Light Infantry.

Letter written by Allen Haigh to the Naval, Military and Land Forces Land Claims Commission 
stating his preference for cash in lieu of land as the gratuity for his military service in New Zealand.
Archives NZ, Archway.

Noble's Township

Photo published in the "Otago DailyTimes" on 2 June 1900

West Coast Recollect website.

Church Street, Ripley, Derbyshire.

Ripley & District Heritage Trust

Somes Island Memorial

Public Health; Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

Richard & Martha Lee with their family

From the book "Through the Mists of Tarawera", author Gaylene Preston.

Courtesy Kelly Ennis.

Wellington Harbour in 1874

Aleander Turnbull Library, ref 1/1-000699

Sluicing for gold.

This scene at the Howard River in Tasman was one to be seen 
wherever gold was to be found.

Alexander Turnbull Library, ref 1/2-015790

Greymouth between 1900-1910, a postcard

West Coast Recollect website

Courtesy Maye Dunn

Recollect: Opening of the Whiteman's Valley Bridge 1904

Upper Hutt City Library, Heritage Collections

Mitchell family at Wiri

Courtesy Marie McWhannell (nee Sheppard)

Section 66,Blck XVI, Tepapa Survey District
part of the Selwyn Settlement.
The Mitchell property at Okoroire.
Courtesy Matamata Historical Society

Okoroire Sanatorium

Photographer : George Dobson Valentine

Alexander Turnbull Library, ref 1/2-150982, F

Thomas & Annie (nee Lee) Gordon at a Gordon family gathering, date unknown

Ex family photo collection, courtesy Lindsey Carew

Clara Mitchell with her parents Richard & Martha Llee

at their Tawa Street, Hamilton, home.

Courtesy Marie McWhannell (nee Sheppard)

Richard & Martha Lee's headstone

at Hamilton East Cemetery

Courtesy Robyn Heyne.

The family of Tom & Ivy Sheppard at their Gate Pa farm.

Courtesy Marie McWhannell (nee Sheppard)

Jim Sheppard and his father Tom (my father & grandfather) in 1948
Anne McFadgen, personal photo collection.