“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
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!
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