Artist: Sarah Greenwood (1809-1899)
"Woodland House" was set up in a two-storeyed brick residence built in 1845 on Section 340, Bridge Street, by the Maitai River and next to a footbridge. Although it no longer exists, it stood on the corner where Tasman and Bridge Streets join by the current Bridge Street Bridge. For a time this house served as both home for the Greenwood family and a private school for girls - both day pupils and boarders - which was run by Sarah Greenwood and her daughters between 1866 and 1872, while her husband Dr Danforth Greenwood was occupied at Parliament in Wellington. The name "Woodland House" was a nod to the Greenwoods' former well-known home in Motueka, called "Woodlands".
"Woodland House" (known by locals as "The Brick House") was leased from Hugh Martin, a substantial local landowner who established "The Hayes" estate in Stoke, originally a 50 acre block which had expanded to 270 acres by the time of Martin's death in 1892. He also had property in the Wairoa Gorge area, farmed by one of his sons. The Bridge Street house had been Martin's first home in Nelson after arriving with his family on the ship "Himalaya" in 1844. His connection to the Greenwoods possibly dated back to the founding of Nelson College, of which Dr Greenwood was on the first Council of Governors and served as Headmaster from 1863-1865. During this time his wife Sarah and daughters joined him at "College House", the Headmaster's residence. Hugh Martin's son Charles was a founding pupil when the College opened on 7 April 1856 and 2 other sons, John Packer and George Freeman, also attended the College. Martin's daughter Alice became a "Woodland House" pupil, and an already cordial relationship between the Greenwood and Martin families was further cemented when two Greenwood sons, Frederick and Graham, married respectively Clara and Isobel, two of the Martin daughters.
Sarah gradually lost her assistant daughters to Wellington - three set up a school of their own in that city and were followed by various sisters who had married Wellingtonians, thanks to their father's connections in the city. The Nelson school was closed and Danforth & Sarah Greenwood retired to "The Grange", their son Fred's home on the outskirts of Motueka.
In 1873 "Woodland House" was passed on to a Greenwood friend, dentist Henry Freer Rawson, and for a short time it became his dental surgery. Rawson took the eldest Greenwood son, John, into his practice as a trainee dentist, and when later situated at a surgery in Hardy Street the two achieved notoriety by accidentally burning down the building and pretty near the whole block after an experiment with a volatile mixture in their surgery went spectacularly awry. Fortunately no one was hurt, although one imagines that they were not the most popular pair in town at the time!
References
Neale, June E., "The Greenwoods: A Pioneer Family of New Zealand", first pub. 1984
Article at the Prow website
Image: Painting of "Woodland House" by Sarah Greenwood,
Nelson Provincial Museum, ref. AC271.
No comments:
Post a Comment