THE ALBERTLANDERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 125, 29 May 1925, Page 3

THE ALBERTLANDERS.

HEROIC SETTLERS. 1 STORY OF A GREAT VENTURE. Sixly-Uiree j-eare n K o to-day tlicro was a wonderful send oil in the Eirnt Jndia. Docks, London, tn two hun<lsomc nhips full nf picked people fining out to found a special colony in fur Now Zealand. The ships were the .Matilda Wattrnlmc-li and the Hanover, mimes that are household words in hundreds of homes to-day, and (he emigrants were the first nnrtV of the Albertland settlement organised, to commemorate the Xoneoiiforinist bicentenary. These people who left England so full of optimism went through .some terribly hard experiences, and the. story nf the attempt to found "Albertland" in the wilds nf die Kniparn is one of the most thrilling in the v hole annals of colonisation in New Zenlund. This sixty-third anniversary of (he departure of the Alliertlnnders from the Old Land i* to ho marked l.y the first of a series of articles in tlie Aiii'khuid "Star" Supplement triviii;; the history nf the movement right from the germ of tho idea with William Rawson Jiraine in Birmingham, the voyage mil to Xew Zealand, the nrrivtil in Auckland, tho painful awakening of the would-bo settlerH, their iidventmcs in 11-\ injx to find their land i" Hie most innrressible Kaipara, and what happened wlien these misled people rruuliifl tlieir imsli or fern-clad soetions, isolated, with n<. msirketß, and si TI tliey c. >■ i i<l >,; ■ ivere ;, 11 the elements of niter failure. I'.nt. the settlers were picked men and women, and from eh:,.,., they u-,.n order mid eventually Bellied the land they had found little better than a wilderness.. The story will begin in the "HUr" Supplement to-morrow, and will he continued weekly. The editor (Mr Henry Brett) is collaborating with Mr. Henry Hook and the Albertland Records Association and the result i« an account of unique interest.