Nurse Mabel with baby Frank Strachan

Taken at Mrs Davidson's private lodging house in Grove Street, Nelson, this photo shows midwife Nurse Mabel seated on the verandah with her most recent charge, baby Francis Alexander Cochrane Strachan, whom she had helped deliver a few days earlier on 5 June 1985.

However, this midwife was no ordinary woman - she was from one of Nelson’s more socially prominent families, and never led an ordinary life. Her name was Mabel Atkinson, and she carried the infant Frank and his mother off to stay at her grand family home, “Fairfield House” until they had grown strong enough to handle the bumpy four-hour carriage ride back to their own home, a farm called “Manawatane”, at the head of the road in the Orinoco Valley named for their family, Strachan Road.

Alice Mabel Atkinson (always known as Mabel) was born in New Plymouth on 3 November 1864 to lawyer Arthur Atkinson and his wife Jane Maria (nee Richmond), who came to Nelson as refugees during the Taranaki Land Wars and stayed on. They were part of a much larger inter-related family group (known among themselves as “The Mob") who had emigrated to New Zealand, and included Atkinsons, Richmonds, Fells and Hursthouses, a number of them playing significant parts in Nelson affairs (one, Richmond Hursthouse, was elected Motueka’s first mayor when the town became a borough in 1900). Mabel’s parents were unusually liberal for the times in their approach to women’s education and lifestyle choices. Independent Mabel went to England and trained there as a midwife, gaining experience helping families in English slums.

She had returned to New Zealand not long before Frank Strachan’s birth and was living at “Fairfield House” when WWI broke out in August 1914. Although almost 50 years old by then, she almost immediately took ship for England, where she registered as a nurse with the VAD and spent several years nursing in France, driving a field ambulance as part of her duties. Mabel Atkinson, who never married, returned to Nelson in 1921 and remained there until her death in 1935, being much involved with the Plunket Society and the Girl Guides. She was buried at the family plot at Wakapuaka Cemetery. 

A more comprehensive account of her life can be found at the Nelson City Council website, written in association with the Notable Women Walks series.

See: Alice Mabel Atkinson (1864-1935)

And baby Frank Strachan? He grew up on the family farm at Orinoco surrounded by friends and relatives, much loved by all, the only son and pride and joy of his parents, Alexander Cochrane Strachan and Mary Rebecca (nee Bowden). Like his friends at Ngatimoti, he trained with the local Territorials, later enlisting with the 12th (Nelson & Marlborough) Company, Canterbury Infantry Battalion, during the war. Frank left New Zealand on 31 May 1916 with the 13th Reinforcements of the NZ Expeditonary Force on the troopship “SS Willochra”. After training at Sling Camp in England, he was deployed to France and sadly, was killed at the Somme on 12 November 1916, aged 21 years, struck by an unlucky random enemy shell before he had even seen action. His death was a devastating blow for his family.

His mother put together a book dedicated to Frank, with letters, entries from his diary and reminscences of his life. This haunting little piece from her book, written as she struggled to come to terms with her son’s death, must surely have echoed the feelings of bereft mothers all over the country throughout those dark years.

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Yes, God gave them to us, those beautiful infant forms, fresh from his Hand, to love and care for, to caress, to feed and clothe and guide – for Him. We watched day by day as they grew in strength and beauty till our babes reached manhood and could care for us as we had cared for them. And then they were gone - called to higher service – and for us silence – blank emptiness".

Frank’s story can be read here:

See: Private Francis Alexander Cochrane (Frank) Strachan (1895-1916)

WWI Service no 24117, 12th (Nelson) Infantry Regiment, NZ Expeditionary Force.

Photo taken from the privately published book, “Our Boy” complied by Mary Strachan, courtesy Miss G. Guy.

"House at the Haven, formerly Captain Wakefield's"

 

"House at the Haven, Nelson, formerly Captain Wakefield's" 

Painted by William Fox, its occupant at the time. Site today is 403 Wakefield Quay, though the current house is not the original, which later burnt down and was replaced with a new one.

Having made harbour with the three ships of his Preliminary Expedition sent out to establish the New Zealand Company's Nelson colony, it's recorded that on 6 November 1841 Captain Arthur Wakefield pitched his tent on the hill at the Port. Maybe the magnificent outlook inspired him to set up his house there, though as a naval man, he would of course have been aware of its perfect position as a lookout, a place to keep an eye on any shipping activity, whether it be friendly or hostile. Fox, later Sir William Fox, was appointed Nelson agent for the NZ Company following Captain Wakefield's untimely death at Tua Marina on 17 June 1843 during the Wairau Affray.

Fox noted that the house had been brought out from England, one of a number of homes which had their origins as prefabs made in England, carried out on board immigrant ships, and constructed on arrival in New Zealand.

This house would be home to two future Premiers of New Zealand - Fox himself and Sir Edward Stafford, Colonel William Wakefield's son-in-law, who bought it from the by then defunct New Zealand Company in 1849. 

It was known as "Stafford House" when later bought by prominent early Nelson hotelier and businessman Edward Everett, Mayor of Nelson and founder of the long-running Everett Bros' all-purpose drapery store, which traded under the name "Victoria House" and had branches in Motueka and Collingwood. 

Everetts' Nelson store was sold in 1913 to William McKay, an entrepreneurial Scottish tailor who in the 1860s had set up a successful business in Hokitika, getting his start by making sturdy clothing for the diggers, and later adding a branch in Greymouth. Everett's former store was then  renamed "Wm. McKay & Son", though always known simply as "McKays". Said son, the equally entrepreneurial William Jnr, set up several branches around the South Island, the largest being in Christchurch where he lived, and put in reliable managers. Many years later, the Nelson branch of McKays would be taken over by yet another long-running Nelson institution, H&J's Department Store.

The property where Captain Wakefield once lived has stayed pretty much intact over the years and was the subject of much interest when it went up for sale in 2016.

See article at the "Stuff" website, published 1 Oct 2016 at the time of this sale.

"The Property where Captain Arthur Wakefield settled in Nelson up for sale"

Image credit: Hocken Pictorial Collections, ref.11,731 a3608

How the Grove Track became Queen Charlotte Drive

Intrepid Motoring, 1915 Style!

Jack Love of Picton (seen here at the wheel of his Overland Model 90) takes the first motor-car over the Grove Track, with a little help from his friends. Now better known as Queen Charlotte Drive, the Grove Track connected the township of Picton to Havelock via The Grove. Sited in the Marlborough Sounds at Okiwa, The Grove was named for the extensive kahikatea forest that covered the area before the Pakeha moved in. Work started on the track in 1861, when pioneer Alexander Scott Duncan settled at The Grove and established Marlborough’s first steam sawmill there. By the time the mill was moved to Tennyson Inlet in 1870, it’s thought that around 18 million feet of timber had been shipped out from the Grove wharf.

There was early pressure to have the track upgraded from a notoriously rugged bridle trail to at least a cart road, especially after The Grove became the main access point to places like Cullenville and Mahakipawa during the goldrush period. (It was down the Grove Track that Hiram Harris hurried in April 1864 on his way to Nelson to claim on behalf of his party the finder’s bonus for their discovery of Marlborough's first payable goldfield at Wakamarina). However, disagreement over which body should pay for the work meant minimal improvements were made over the years, and those mostly done by unemployed men on various work schemes in 1864 and 1898.

The road still hadn’t been upgraded much beyond the classification “stock route” when Jack Love made his ground-breaking and no doubt bone-rattling trip on Sunday, 3rd October 1915. Because it was subsidised by the Government, significant work was done on the old Grove Track by Public Works gangs during the Great Depression and the road was declared a highway in 1936, but it wasn’t until 1965 that the question of funding was finally resolved sufficiently to have the track developed into a fine scenic road, sealed for its entire length.

Photo and adapted info from Henry D. Kelly’s “As High as the Hills: the Centennial History of Picton"

 

See also "The Grove Okiwa" at the Prow website:

https://www.theprow.org.nz/yourstory/the-grove-okiwa/#.ZGrWnS9Bzq0

Alexander Le Grand Campbell: Riwaka Settler, Artist, Explorer, Public Servant.

“Motueka Valley, near Nelson, showing Mt Arthur” (1863)

Artist : Alexander Le Grand Campbell (1819-1890)

Lithograph produced by Arnold Meerman, Munich, Germany, for inclusion as Plate 9, pg 472, in Ferdinand von Hochstetter’s “New Zealand: Its Physical Geography, Geology and Natural History”, German edition published 1863, English edition 1867.

Alexander Le Grand Campbell, second son of Sir Alexander Campbell, fourth Baronet of Auberchill & Kilbryde, and his wife Margaret nee Coldstream, was born on 18 July 1819 at the family pile, Kilbryde Castle, near Dunblane, in Perthshire, Scotland. What sort of education he had is unclear - possibly the Campbell family employed a private tutor - but he was a talented artist and had likely received some formal instruction from a drawing master. After his father died in 1824, his older brother James inherited the baronetcy and the castle, and his mother, the Dowager Lady Campbell, later removed with her younger children to an upmarket terrace house at 5 Windsor Street in Greenside, Edinburgh. Described as a gentleman of independent means aged 20, this is where Alexander was living when the census was taken in June 1841. Perhaps adventure called - at any rate, on 6 November 1841 he departed Liverpool, England, for New Zealand, travelling cabin class on the ship Martha Ridgeway, which arrived in Nelson on 7 April 1842.

He bought a section on Trafalgar Street, Nelson, where he lived for a short while before becoming, along with surveyor/explorer Thomas Brunner, one of the first resident landowners in the Motueka-Riwaka district. He freeholded a block of four sections in central Riwaka in early 1843, and was elected a member of the management committee of the Riwaka Co-operative Store, established in December that same year as an aid for Riwaka’s newly arrived group of NZ Company workmen turned small farmers. This useful enterprise later collapsed after the appointed storekeeper, John Ballard, was accused (falsely as it transpired) of cooking the books, Alexander Le Grand Campbell being the only member of the Management Committee to take Ballard's side.

In 1848 Campbell gifted an acre of his land (Pt Section 52) near the present Riwaka Domain and Memorial corner for a public school, and set up the Campbell Trust to administer it. In time the administration of the Campbell Trust fell for a number of years to Le Grand Campbell's son, Alexander Jnr. Classes were at first held in the home built for the schoolmaster, followed by a schoolroom in the 1860s and a schoolhouse in 1879. Today's Riwaka School, stands on what was Section 27, behind the original school acre.

In addition to building a timber-framed cob homestead and developing his farm, called "Fernhill”, Campbell took an interest in exploration and surveying work. 

Through November and December 1848 he ventured into the Maungatapu with fellow Riwaka settler Thomas Brunner and two Maori guides, Askew and Kehu, in an arduous attempt to find alternative routes between Nelson and the Wairau. This entailed going up the Maitai and thoroughly exploring the surrounding area, before descending into the Pelorus Valley. They pushed through heavy bush and fern, camped in pouring rain, contended with flies and mosquitos, and made a raft from flax flower stalks to float down the swifly flowing Wakamarina River. That night they camped near the Kaituna Pah, where they had to set up their tent in thick mud and provided a royal feast for the local bugs. Campbell recorded the following day that "Our last night's lodging equalled in misery anything of the kind I have yet experienced.." 

From the mouth of the Pelorus River they went up the Kaituna Valley, losing their way and scrambling over steep ridges before reaching the Wairau on 25 November. At one point they had to cross the Pelorus River, which entailed wading up to their armpits in water.

In a masterpiece of understatement Campbell noted "I must confess I did not feel very jolly in the circumstances, having never attempted anything of the kind before... on gaining shore I was completely exhausted."

Campbell was described as “an amateur surveyor”, suggesting that he had no formal qualification, but had maybe spent much time in Scotland tramping around the countryside, gaining inspiration for his sketches and paintings. Brunner’s report about this expedition was published in the “Nelson Examiner” on 28 September 1850. This is unfortunately not available to be read online, but a journal Campbell kept during his explorations with Brunner ( from which his above comments are quoted), and including sketches he made at the time, was passed down to his grandson Alan Le Grand Campbell, a career soldier who attended Nelson College, served as a Captain with the 23 (Canterbury- Otago) Infantry Battalion during WWII, and upon retirement became an orchardist in Stoke, Nelson. This journal is now held by the Nelson Provincial Museum. Campbell is also known to have made a journey from Riwaka to the top of the Pikikiruna Range (Takaka Hill) in 1852.

On 26 July 1855 Alexander Le Grand Campbell was married at Motueka to Hester Ann Copeman, a daughter of merchant banker Edward Breese Copeman of Coltishall House, Norfolk, England, and his wife Elizabeth nee Jones. Hester had arrived in Nelson on 24 October 24 1852, having travelled out from London on the barque “Stately”. The Rev. Thomas Lloyd Tudor, Vicar of St Thomas Church, Motueka, conducted the wedding ceremony.

The Campbells settled for several years at “Fernhill” and their five children were all born during this time - Margaret Jane (1854-1943), Alexander Bulwer (1855-1938), George Frederick Colin (1858-1937), Caroline Hester Mary (1859-1942) and Catherine Coldstream (1862-1948). Both sons attended Nelson College and played rugby for Nelson and Wellington. Alexander Jnr qualified as a barrister and solicitor and had legal practices in Wellington, Auckland, and latterly Napier, while George was a civil servant based in Wellington, rising through the ranks to hold the office of Controller and Auditor-General of New Zealand between 1922-1937. Margaret married Dr Walter Edward Hacon from Christchurch at St Paul’s, Wellington, on 1 September 1884, but her two sisters never married.

It must have also been while he was living at “Fernhill”, that Campbell painted the scene used in Hochstetter’s book. Someone may correct me, but I feel that the description "Motueka Valley" is somewhat generic and that this view is in fact of Mt Arthur as seen end on from the plains of Riwaka, and possibly depicts Le Grand's own "Fernhill" homestead and farm. Hochstetter is known to have visited the Motueka and Riwaka areas during his scientific survey around the Nelson province in 1859, and was very taken with the region, later noting in his book:

“At the foot of the Western ranges are the fertile plains of Riwaka and Motueka, which, but fifteen years ago a perfect wilderness, now present the most charming sight: luxuriant meadows with magnificent cattle grazing upon them; thriving fields and orchards, interspersed with the dwellings of the settlers. The white glistening snow-peaks in the back-ground remind us of the most charming valleys of our Alps”. 

The above lithograph taken from one of Alexander Le Grand Campbell's paintings was used to illustrate this text. 

As an amateur explorer himself and local bigwig, Alexander Le Grand Campbell would almost certainly have met Hochstetter when he visited the Riwaka area, and perhaps even hosted him at "Fernhill". It’s not beyond the realms of possibility to suppose that Le Grand Campbell might have gifted Hochstetter the painting later used as an illustration in his book.

Around this time Alexander Le Grand Campbell turned his attention to civic affairs and in effect spent the rest of his life employed by the NZ Government as a Public Servant, his somewhat rocky service beginning in 1859 when he was appointed Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for Motueka, a position he held till 1873, when it was taken over by Joseph Foord Wilson. In 1859 Campbell was also appointed Registration Officer for the election of members of the House of Representatives for the electoral district of Motueka and Massacre Bay (later known as Golden Bay). He was appointed Returning Officer for the Electoral District of Moutere in 1861, and in 1862 became Returning Officer for the Electoral District of Motueka. The same year he was gazetted a Justice of the Peace for Motueka.

“Fernhill”, a farm of 150 acres with house, stable and orchard, was advertised for sale in 1866. In 1867 the family moved into the township of Motueka and were living on what is now Greenwood Street (next to number 27 where Nurse Darkin ran a nursing home) when Campbell took up the post of Clerk of the Court in 1872. Making a shift further south, in June 1876 Alexander Le Grand Campbell was appointed a clerk in the office of the Resident Magistrate for the District of Oamaru and the Campbells went to live in Temuka. Late the following year he became Resident Magistrate for Ashburton and Geraldine and also Deputy Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.

Although he was clearly seen by the Government as a useful functionary (and from an aristocratic family as well - bonus!), his style seems to have been somewhat quixotic, and controversy attended Campbell’s career at times over the years. In September 1871, during an inquiry into various issues known as the “Motueka Election Case”, Alexander Le Grand Campbell was questioned as to whether he had misused his power as Registration and Returning Officer for Motueka. Consequently he lost his position as Returning Officer for Motueka, though less for any wrongdoing than for erratic record keeping. 

There was opposition to his appointment as Resident Magistrate for Oamaru in September 1878 - the Minister of Justice being memorialised by the barristers and solicitors of Ashburton, requesting a public inquiry into Campbell’s official competency and conduct of the Resident Magistrate’s Court during his tenure in Ashburton. This appears to have led to Campbell’s transfer instead to the post of Resident Magistrate and Warden for Collingwood, in Golden Bay. This is where he was based and acting as Returning Officer in September 1879 when he caused much consternation by deciding that the votes for the popular winning candidate, William Gibbs, should be disallowed on a technicality. After obtaining legal advice Campbell did change his mind, allowing the votes for Gibbs to stand, but not before “great dissatisfaction” had been stirred up in Nelson.

Possibly this episode marked the beginning of the end of Campbell’s career. At any rate, a programme of Government retrenchments saw him made redundant in August 1880, with all future judicial work for the area to be centralised in Nelson. He was granted a pension and retired with his family to Wellington, where they moved into a residence on Tinakori Road in the suburb of Thorndon. It appears that he had kept up his interest in painting, as he entered a watercolour, painted in 1880 and titled "A view in Queen Charlotte Sound", at the first exhibition of the Fine Arts Association held in Wellington in March 1883. Alexander Le Grand Campbell died at home on 2 February 1890 and was buried at the Bolton Street Cemetery in Thorndon, Wellington, his widow Hester joining him there in 1894.

Photograph of Alexander Le Grand Campbell taken ca. mid 1850s

Nelson Provincial Museum, Davis Collection, photo ref no. 380

Photograph of Captain Alan Le Grand Campbell, Alexander Le Grand Campbell's grandson through his son George Le Grand Campbell and Annabel (Amy) nee Pike.

Nelson Provincial Museum Photo Collection ref no 163688

References

Papers Past

National Library of New Zealand

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

Neale, June E. "To Nelson by Sailing Ship - March 1842 - June 1843: Pioneer Passengers"

First pub. 1982, reprinted 1989. Printed in Nelson by General Printing Services Ltd, Anchor House, 258 Wakefield Quay, Nelson.

See Alexander le Grand Campbell, pp 17-18

Hill, Hollis J.P., Compiler. "Riwaka School Centenary 1848-1948: The First Hundred Years"

Printed by R.W. Stiles & Co., Ltd, Rutherford Street, Nelson.

First Riwaka School, pg 12

Lash, Max D. "Nelson Notables (1840-1940): A dictionary of regional biography

Pub.1992 by the Nelson Historical Society Inc., P.O.Box 461, Nelson NZ.

Profile of Alexander Le Grand Campbell at pg 36.

The Mystery of the Painting in the National Library of Australia

A watercolour painting labelled "The Motueka Valley, near Nelson, Mount Arthur in the Distance, New Zealand" is amongst the catalogue of art works held by the National Library of Australia. (Click on image to enlarge)

This painting is dated in the Library's catalogue as ca 1835 and attributed to Thomas Bernard Collison, a versatile English soldier/surveyor/engineer/draughtsman who worked on various projects in NZ from 1846-1850. However there is no evidence that he ever visited the South Island and there were certainly no settlers living in either the Motueka or Riwaka Valleys in 1835! When compared to the above lithograph based on one of Alexander Le Grand Campbell's original watercolours, and keeping in mind that his painting was somewhat romanticised during the lithographic process, it is strikingly similar in style to his work. It's likely that Le Grand Campbell painted a number of watercolours around the area where he lived, perhaps painting a version especially to give Hochstetter. A query sent to the National Library of Australia about this painting's provenance got an unhelpful and exceedingly chilly response!

When the Norwegian Flax Traders visited Golden Bay

"Aorere, Golden Bay", painted around 1843 by an unknown artist,

and believed to depict the Maori Pa at Wainui Inlet.

Norwegian flax traders visited Golden Bay in 1825 - who knew? (Half of Golden Bay, maybe?) An art installation by Toy Murchie displayed at the Golden Bay Museum in 2019 brought to light a fascinating tale behind the discovery in July 1976 of a number of skeletons unearthed at Pohara Beach during excavations for a new subdivision there. There was much confusion about this find as the remains included European-style coffins and a mix of both European and Maori artefacts.

A story once well known to Maori and early European settlers emerged. In 1825 a Norwegian ship had come into Golden Bay to obtain a cargo of flax. After the ship had been loaded, the ship’s boats went ashore near the mouth of the Motupipi River to fill casks with fresh water. A westerly blew up and as they attempted to return to the ship, the heavily-laden boats were overturned and several sailors drowned.

There being an onshore wind at the time, most of the bodies washed up on the beach and were retrieved by their ship-mates. A burial was conducted in accordance with both Maori and Christian rites at a nearby Maori urupā. The ship only carried a couple of emergency coffins, but local Maori donated woven mats with which to wrap the bodies of those sailors who had no covering. Arrangements were eased by the presence of a Maori language speaker carried by the ship as an interpreter.

A couple of Norwegian ships’ boys who survived this accident later returned to the area during the time of the Aorere goldrush and tried without success to find the graves, which they wrongly recalled as being near Patons Rock.

Local residents were reminded of these burials in the 1920s, when there was erosion around Patons Rock and they were warned by old-timers to watch out for human remains.

Unfortunately, because the developer of the subdivision put pressure on to expedite the process, the relics unearthed at Pohara Beach in 1976 were reburied within three days at an unmarked site at Rototai Cemetery, and as they weren’t forensically examined, an opportunity for further examination was lost. A coffin accidentally broken open during this transfer revealed the intact skeleton of a man in uniform and boots, perhaps that of the ship's officer in charge of the shore party.

Further information about this Norwegian visit and its tragic outcome can be found in Hilary & John Mitchell’s “Te Tau Ihu O Te Waka: A history of Nelson and Marlborough” Vol 1, pp 232-233.

Local historian Jeff Newport went over to Golden Bay in 1976 to check out the mysterious discovery. He later reported his findings in the article linked below, written for the "Nelson Historical Society Journal" in 1982. Note that D'Arcy McPherson, the Golden Bay identity mentioned by Newport, gave around 1834 as being the date of this event - 1825 is now believed to be correct.

"Information concerning graves unearthed  at Clifton, Takaka, July 1976."

As you might expect with a story passed down in oral tradition, there seem to be a few other minor variations on the theme. How many boats were sent to collect water - one or more? How many ship's boys survived the accident - one or two? Were they/he Norwegian or Swedish? Take your pick I have gone with the Mitchells' version.

Image: "Aorere, Golden Bay", painted around 1843 by an unknown artist (very likely to have been James Swinton Spooner, the NZ Company surveyor for whom Spooner's Range is named) and believed to be of Wainui Inlet - geographically out, but the closest I could get to a Maori settlement in Golden Bay in the early days  

Credit: Alexander Turnbull Library.

 

The Brunner Mine Disaster, 26 March 1896.

 

                           

                       The funeral procession to the Stillwater cemetery following the disaster. 

The above photo, courtesy of the West Coast Recollect history site, is of the funeral procession following the disaster, with miners coming to the West Coast by train from all over the country to attend. There was a mass burial at the cemetery in the township of Stillwater, with an estimated 6000 mourners in attendance, walking several abreast, making this procession over half a mile long.  

Sadly, working men's lives came cheap in those not-so-good old days and the mining company refused to acknowledge any responsibility for the disaster and therefore any requirement to pay compensation to bereft families. It was those same fellow miners who generously dug deep into their own pockets to help out the bereaved widows and children of the men who had been killed.

Today marks the anniversary of the Brunner Mine disaster on the morning of 26 March 1896 at Brunner, a coal-mining township 8 miles north-east of Greymouth, during which 65 lives were lost, so I thought I'd share the following piece written by witness Bob Henderson. As a teenaged Post & Telegraph messenger boy based at Brunner, Bob had the tragic job of helping to identify victims of the Brunner Mine disaster (as a post office employee he knew everyone) and of delivering the many telegrams around the district informing families of the fate of their loved ones. 

“A strange thing happened at the mouth of the Brunner mine that morning in 1896. Did the four pit ponies have an instinctive premonition of danger?

Brought out from the depths of the tunnel after every shift, the animals were stabled on the hillside a hundred yards directly above the entrance. They were well fed and housed and were valued at twenty pounds each. At 7.30 a.m. the groom, Paddy McInerny, opened their loosebox doors and, as usual, chased them down to the tunnel, where their young drivers were waiting to take charge.

A few yards from the gaping entrance the ponies hesitated, snorting, ears pricked. Then, defying the efforts of the lads to control them, they wheeled and galloped back to the stable. Never before had they behaved like this, and the surprised Paddy again hunted them down the hill, but before the boys could catch them they again baulked and sped up the rise.

This performance greatly amused the surface workers, as well as the miners starting to make their way underground. At length, each boy led his pony from the stable down the hill, and backed him, snorting fearfully, for a distance into the tunnel. Turning, ponies, drivers and miners together faced their doom. Sixty-five men were lost that morning, every living being underground.”

From the opening chapter of Bob Henderson’s book, "Friends in Chains". A jack of all trades raised on the West Coast, Robert Hugh (Bob) Henderson (1879-1966) was born in Reefton and married a Reefton girl. He became a well-known teamster, regularly driving supply wagons on the Buller run through the Upper Motueka Valley to Nelson, accompanied by his faithful dog, Dooley. At the age of 82 (and sill sharp as a tack), he published his reminiscences, a lively, engaging account, full of great characters both animal and human, of a world now long since passed into history, and well worth a read if you can find a copy.

Descendants of men working at the Brunner mine on that fateful day have confirmed that a few miners survived because they happened to be up top at the time of the explosion. These included one chasing his horse, which had made a frantic dash out and up the hill at the last minute, and another whose habit was to go up and sit outside while taking his break so he could read his Bible in decent light while having a bite from his snap tin.

(Note that this article was originally posted on Facebook on 26 March, 2021)

Reference

Brunner Mine Disaster Info

Ex Christchurch City Libraries

Murder Most Foul at Port Underwood

Original caption: "Port Underwood, with Jacky Guard's house (centre on shore) and behind it the grave of Rangiawa (Kuika), native wife of Mr Wynen. Jack Guard was the pilot of the "Pelorus".

This picture of what is now known as Kākāpo Bay, but was then known as Guard's Bay, was drawn by William Fox in 1848, four years before Marlborough briefly became part of the Nelson Province. Later Sir William, Fox served as the New Zealand Company's second Nelson agent after Captain Arthur Wakefield was killed during the Wairau Affray in 1843, and later became New Zealand's second Premier, a position he held on four separate occasions during a turbulent period in New Zealand's political history. In his earlier years he was an inveterate traveller and often accompanied various surveyors and explorers on their arduous expeditions. He invariably took his trusty sketchbook with him, leaving a fascinating legacy of images of the places he visited, now held in the Hocken Collection at the University of Otago in Dunedin.

James Wynen was a local storekeeper and entrepreneur, whose story is told in the Prow article attached below. along with mention of the tragic loss of Wynen's family, a shocker even for the hardened Port Underwood whaling station, regarded by more civilised Nelsonians as a den of iniquity.

In December 1842, while Wynen was away on business in Nelson, his attractive young wife Kuika, a Māori woman of rank who was related to Te Rauparaha, was dragged from her home, attacked and raped, then both she and her 18 month old son murdered. Her 10 week old baby daughter was later found at the house in a distressed state and despite being tenderly cared for by Sarah Ironside, died soon after. A Pakeha  ex-convict, Richard (Dick) Cook, was eventually taken into custody. He was believed to have broken into the dwelling, thinking that no one was at home and hoping to steal Wyvern's rumoured fortune. As it happens, all that he had found in the house was a bag of coins of little value, and perhaps this led him to take out his frustration and disappointment on Wyvern's hapless family. In an attempt to hide his crime, Cook had later gone back to Wyvern's home with another Port Underwood resident, Mr N.B. Robinson, professing to be concerned that Kuika was home on her own and hadn't been seen for a while.  He then feigned shock and horror when they found the baby in a poor condition on a mat inside the house and a search around the property uncovered Kuika and her little son lying dead together outside in a patch of long, bloodied grass, so disturbed as to indicate a struggle having taken place, a harrowing sight as both had had their throats cut to the bone. Their bodies were carried into Wyvern's house to keep them from depredation by wild animals, and the alarm was raised. 

Wyvern returned home the following day to discover the tragic fate of his family.

 Cook was almost certainly the perpetrator - he was dobbed in by his own Māori wife, Kataraina, but her testimony was later disallowed on the grounds that her evidence was not equal to that of her Pākehā husband's. The call went out for utu, but the local Māori were dissuaded from taking matters into their own hands by respected Wesleyan missionary, the Rev. Samuel Ironside, who with his wife Sarah had established a church at Ngakuta Bay in 1840. Wanting retribution, James Wyvern pressed the authorities in Wellington to take speedy action, as did Ironside, who was concerned about growing local unrest around the event and the lack of action. However, time dragged on and it wasn't until March 1843 that a trial took place in Wellington.   

To the shock and dismay of Kuika's friends and family who had travelled by canoe up to Wellington to attend the trial and see justice done, charges against Cook were dismissed because he hadn't been definitively identified. The general bitter feeling amongst the Māori present (with justification) was that the whole thing had been a sham, with those conducting the trial having been of the opinion that Māori lives didn't matter, confirmed by the Magistrate's overheard aside that "it was only a native girl, after all". 

The resentment engendered by this case was amongst factors resulting in the Wairau Affray. The Rev. Samuel Ironside, who from early on had sailed on a regular circuit around Tasman Bay, preaching and meeting residents (both Māori and Pākehā) at Golden Bay, Motueka and Nelson. (The European settlers who arrived at Motueka a bit later were on the whole fervent Anglicans and rather put out to discover that Ironside had initially beaten them to it in the conversion stakes). Ironside knew the settlers in these areas well, and had warned Nelson hotheads against taking precipitate action over what was on their part an attempted land grab. Not lacking in courage, when he heard wild rumours swirling around about a massacre of Pākehā at Tua Marina, he sailed to Port Underwood and tracked down the chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, whose wife had been the first person killed, possibly by accident.

 A fluent speaker of te reo Māori, Ironside asked them: "Why did you kill Captain Wakefield and the other gentlemen when they had given up their pistols and surrendered?"

"Well", said Te Rangihaeata, "They had killed my wife, Te Rongo, and they did not punish Cook, the murderer of Kuika".

Ironside then asked for their permission to decently bury the bodies of the Nelson settlers, to which the chiefs, morose because they knew they had gone much too far, rather grudgingly agreed, despite mutterings that they should be left to the wild pigs. Ironside then travelled on down to Tua Marina to bury the 22 victims of the affray, being rowed across Cloudy Bay in stormy weather by men from Michael Aldridge's whaling station, who braved the wild Wairau bar and carried on along the Wairau River to Tua Marina. 

Having reached the site of the Affray, and with help from his crew and several Nelson settlers who had soon arrived after hearing the bad news, Ironside buried the bodies found there, most of them, including Captain Wakefield, in a mass grave at the site where they had been killed, others singly as they were found. Knowing that the majority of the dead had been Anglicans, Ironside read the Church of England burial service over them. A memorial was later erected at the main grave site. However the Wairau Affray meant the end of Ironside's Cloudy Bay mission, as fearing retribution from British authorities, his congregation had slipped away, following their chiefs to safety in inland Manawatu. Ironside was then transferred to Nelson, where he continued his work as a Wesleyan missionary with both Pākehā and Māori until 1855, later describing this period as the happiest time in his life.

What happened to Richard Cook is unknown, but no doubt both thanking his lucky stars and fearing retribution at the hands of Kuika's relatives, he would almost certainly have made a quick exit after the trial and speedily moved to somewhere well away from the Cook Strait area.

Kuika's grave became part of the small private Kākāpo Bay Cemetery at the present Kākāpo Bay Scenic Reserve, where several members of the Guard family were later buried. This gravesite had become sadly neglected over the years, but in recent times has been comprehensively upgraded by Guard family descendants.

                      Guard Family Cemetery at Kākāpo Bay, with Kuika's grave at the back. 

 Note:

A number of the whalers had what were known as "Māori wives". Interestingly, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, who as part of his travels in 1840 visited Jacky Guard's whaling station known as Te Awaiti, at Tory Channel, later made the following comment in his book  Adventure in New Zealand, which covered his journeys around the country.

"A very important part of the preparation for the whaling season was providing the party with native wives for the season. Those who remained during the summer were generally provided with a permanent companion".

While Kuika and Kataraina had been officially married to their respective partners by the Rev. Ironside, it seems that a number of these "wives" were in effect "comfort women", regarded as a commodity. This was clearly a common arrangement, made through the various local chiefs in exchange for trade goods, with the women concerned probably having little say in the matter.

The Rev. Ironside confirmed this practice, noting after setting up his mission at Ngakuta Bay that Māori women were traded by their chiefs as temporary wives to visiting seamen in exchange for such as a keg of tobacco, and that these temporary wives sometimes found it difficult to extricate themselves from the persuasions of unscrupulous Europeans.

    

 References

Mitchell, Hilary & John

Te Tau Ihu O Te Waka / A History of Māori of Nelson and Marlborough

Volume 2, Chapter 2, The Coming of  Christianity. See pg 83 for Kuika's story

Chambers, W.A.

Samuel Ironside in New Zealand, 1839-1857, pub. Ray Richards, Auckland, in association 

with the Wesley Historical Society of New Zealand 

Ch 7, Pioneering in Cloudy Bay 1840-1843 pp 101-145. Includes details about Kuika's murder (pg 28) and the aftermath of the Wairau Affray. 

Sir William Fox

Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

James Wynen

The Prow website: Stories from the Top of the South

The Rev. Samuel Ironside

The Prow website: Stories from the Top of the South

The Wairau Affray

National Library of New Zealand blog post

John "Captain Jacky" Guard

Wikipedia article

See also the book "Guards of the Bay" by Don Grady (pub. 1978), a history of the Guard family, whalers and sealers in the Cook Strait area who founded the Port Underwood whaling station at Kakapo Bay.