EARLY MARLBOROUGH.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 260, 2 November 1929, Page 8

EARLY MARLBOROUGH.

The little South Island province of Marlborough celebrated its seventieth birthday on November 1. Throughout the province the banks and business premises close, and picnickers improve th 6 shining hour. For the diminishing band of old-timers there are memories of far-off days when the district was known as the Wairati and was variously mispronounced, while such names as Marlborough, Blenheim and Picton simply did not exist on any New Zealand map.

Seventy years ago the infant province was a wild and picturesque place inhabited by a few hundred shepherds and practically.without roads. The fertile valleys of the Wairau and Awatere Rivers had been divided up into sheep runs, but the squatters were mostly absentees who lived in the adjacent, settlement of Nelson. The towns of Blenheim and Picton were represented by a few shacks and the usual means of travel to'the outer world were by the rough overland track to Nelson up the Wairau Valley, or the sea route to Nelson, or Wellington from the mouth of the Wairau. Little cutters and schooners began coming up the Opawa, a branch of the Wairau, as far as the-tide would allow, to load wool. A wool store at this point, then a blacksmith's forge and a grog shanty for the sustenance of thirsty carters, then a few stores—until a little township, the future Blenheim, gradually grew up on the river bank. Such were the beginnings of Blenheim, but the collection of wooden shacks was not then called Blenheim, but was known as the Beaver, or Beaverton. Tradition has it that during a flood in the 'fifties a party of pioneer surveyors had to seek refuge from the waters that invaded their camp, and there they were "perched up on the roof of a partly-submerged building like a lot of beavers," as someone related. The story was circulated in Nelson and the name "Beaver" stuck to the little • township on the Opawa until 1859, when it was officially christened Blenheim, to match the name of the province.

As for the name Marlborough, it seems to have been chosen by the official world of early Auckland, in the days when Auckland had not yet been shorn of the glory of being the capital Of New Zealand. No doubt those responsible for the choice argued that as the new province would have Wellington and Nelson as its next-door neighbours it was only reasonable to complete a trio of patriotic names by perpetuating that of the great Duke of Marlborough. The announcement issued by the Governor, Sir Thomas Gore Browne, and his executive council on October 4, 1859, stated that the new province was to be carved off from Nelson provincial district on the following November 1, and called Marlborough, with Waitohi, henceforth to be known as Picton, as the capital. The name Blenheim was an afterthought. It is said that the inhabitants of the Beaver were sensitive about the unfortunate name applied to their township with its legend of terrible floods, so they petitioned the Governor to bestow on them the eloquent name Blenheim. Picton keeps green the name of Sir Thomas Picton, one of the Duke of Wellington's generals, and as the port is only a short distance across the strait from Wellington it is a most appropriate name.

Dissatisfaction with the treatment of Wairau affairs by the Nelson Provincial Government prompted the settlers to seek .independence. There were only 164 electors in the district in 1859. They were canvassed by a Mr. Earll, who had received his political ideas from the London Chartists, and as a consequence was ready to embrace any proposal to give people greater liberty. Only a few would not sign, and in after years Mr. Earll used to speak with justifiable pride of the part he had played in securing the independence of the province. But though the little province now had a name, its few hundred inhabitants could not agree on the question whether the port of Picton or the inland centre of Blenheim should be the capital. A bitter war raged for the next five years over this capital issue. The casualties of the struggle are shown by the list of superintendents of the province who held office for a year or two and then resigned or dissolved their councils. On one occasion when party strife waxed high Mr. Arthur Beauchamp, father of Sir Harold Beauchamp, spoke for ten hours and forty minutes in a valiant effort to stonewall the Blenheim faction's motion to make Blenheim the permanent capital. It was an effort in defence of Pieton worthy of Sir Thomas Picton himself. Yes, they took their politics seriously in the desperate 'sixties. —A.J.S.