ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 48, 11 August 1939, Page 2

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

NZW ZEALAND'S FIRST N E WS PAPER PUBLICATION IN LONDON N.nv 7 •• l."- H \st n wspnocr w.is :)üb) : -hen .'n L >n ! ;■» one "run-ire.l rs -•■iii). On '21st August' 1839 '-he I '.' ;>■)•).•t, d th,- firU nmnbey of what was to L-eeonv l >h.' fir t news')i!]vr printed in th infant colonv n .:id for many years a respected org. tn of opinion in the new country, so that, it is not altogether as Irish it sounds to record the Hr-:t np-oca-r-nce of the "'New Zealand Gazette in England. It cost 9d and was popular enough to have a, second edition on 6th September. As th's eonlnjns more matter than the first, it shall be used as the basis of our scrutiny. Prept'gsnds or Enthusiasm It is easy to discount much of the fervent preparation of thi« newsoaper for the first voyage out as dimply so much more company propaganda, but the genuine sense of n cQmmon community interest thai manifests itself throughout is the result rather than the instrument of company enthusiasm. Notices in this number tell us that a lady has financed the opening of an infant school to be l>ept by an experienced mar, h's wife and daughter assisting him. \ proposal is afoot to institute in the settlement a '"Public Library with a General Museum and Scientific Institution"' and to ''a Dispensary, or Hosp-tal, for the bene fil of the settlers iaid the Aborigines of the country." Another article "alls for subscriptions to endow an Anglican Parish.. Mo-t inmost art of ■dl 1s the '"First Colony of New Zealand, " an association of the larger landed proprietors, a bodv of overwhelming weight politically and socially. Emigrants Offered Frfce Passages. -All this denoted a high deg'-ce of co-orvration among the intending ee'onists, but it was a co-operation op the leaders rather than of the led. The labourers, avlio were to bear the brunt of the struggle in the new land, were at Last looked a"te-- with great solicitude. An advertisement in the Gazette calls for emigrants, preferablv between 15 and 30 years old. There were however. some snags, as one may learn from the regulation's. ''The marriage certificate must be produced." Only elrldren under one and over fifteen at the date of embarkation would receive a free passage, the others throe pounds each had to be paid, a measure designed to limit the number of children too young to be full producers in the hard work of begin..

ning the colony. Again ''a]] emigrants, adults as well as children, must have been vaccinated, or have had the small pox." The companv took very good .?arc of. the emigrants "on board tiie specially chartered ship. The surgeon was then* if they fell sick, and thr* victualling scale printed in the paper shews that there was little chance of there being too little good food. Advertisements, Among " the- commercial advertise, merits several show how completely the needs of the inhabitants of Port Nicholson—though it was not certain that this would be the location of the colony—had been visualised in advance. The Union Bank of Australia was to open a branch. Mr 1). Ramsay offered to provide portable cottages for immediate erection — Company itself as well as several individuals, did, Ave know, ship pre.built houses. Messrs Daniell ?,y:J Riddilord offered their services, as land shippers and genera] merchants. Messrs Xoakcs. in advertising family medicine chests, reassuringly mentioned that "full directions for the use and application of the medicines accompanied cacti chest." Steel wheat mills and bolting machines were also on the mai kct.

History Twopence Coloured. Tlv Company in number nf the Oazctt.-: dives its own version of tlin history of New Zealand up till and plentifully nnn'f.sts it.s dis taste for the Kvnn.uelie-d p-.irtv opposing proj:> -t •. Th-> Cora, nany was evidently of the o'Mnlo:r th;>£ tl'iouiih notions - y t-;< Ic louder than words, the w<r ds : •riK-. Mines blossomed into a I'on. With five large sh:ps ready for sea, it i'eil ;j eertr/n S/if-eonfek'me. Ihe (l:>vei nmi-nt h?.d ci;i;c nothing to prevent O'tiifr tne ;o'y or ■*. 11 'Moreover, the publication of thTreasury minute permitting; the ex.. If nsiojj of the boundaries of IVew

South Wales to include New Zealand . was an ind : cation that Britain ir- | tended to do something about this r,; oublesome problem. Ft!i' mo"'e .striking then 'lv Comnony's partp is the s'v>id.->n»y of the settlers. They already fcvl "h'ln-xlvcs a community, with a so•inl duty to one another -h?!: ind:_ cates the new spirit to be given freer '(■one in the new world. N.Z, Pi incess Sails For Home. When the New Zealand Company was sending rut its boatloads of emigrants in the I months of 1839, one passenger by the Coromandel excited the interests of the London "l'owds to a considerable dM'rce. "An 'mmense number of persons assembled in front of the Lord Tvvat publie house, in RatelifT highway, for the purpose of witnes ing the departure of a young New Zealand woman'" Tn those days Englishmen talked of New Zealanders rather than Maoris. The Company was sending out the princess with her whaler husband, Wilkinson v,*ho intended to open a store. ''A band of music and a vast concourse of persons aceofmpanied the New Zealand princess and her husband to Blaekwall, where they embarked on board a steamboat and were conveyed to G"nvesend.rhs Coromandel reached Port Nicholson in August, 1839, where the princess no doubt found her royalty a little diminished. The Bay of Inlands in 1839. The old saying tbout giving a dog i bad name and hanging it is proved true by the nearly unive r sal attitude to cfvly Koro v arekn. This v'llage. the favourite port of call of the whal ing fleet in Southern Pacific waters, is usually represented as a sink of iniquity unredeemed by any com pennoting virtue. One observer in 1839, 9r Martin nfterwards a member of Governor Hobson's Legislative Council, did not wholly endo'se the le. 'Jcnd of this depravity. Though Koro. rareka had grown prosperous largely through the elfo"ts of one man, a freed convict named Turner, the settlers of convict origin had already begun to leave the Bay for the South Seas under the influence of its increasing respectabilitv,. Another symptom of this was the formation in 1838 of a voluntary body to keep order in the the Kororarcka, Assoc'nt'on. This functioned fairly well; at least, it several times felt it necessary to tar and feather wrongdoers. The impart ; alily of its iustice cannot at all times have been perfect. s s one of the victims of this punishment was a trader who h.ul come from Sydney to collect a debt from a prominent member. Port Nicholson in 1839. Tn 1839 Pnrt Nicholson had a European population of one. A Scots sail or Joe Robinson, l'ved near the mouth of the Hutt River. His lot was not a happy one. When the Weslevan missionaries. Hohbs ind Mumby. met him. he was so disconsolate that he was' building himself a boat to get away to the whaling settlements at Akaroa • where he would at least have the pleasure of -ceing some white, o-- rear.white, ''aces. Joe had onlv a l:o"d saw and •ome i r on barrel hoops for putting his craft, together. He was laboriously me!t ; n g down the hoops in an att t'inpt to make nails for the boat. Ho was still engaged on .this task when the white settlers reached Pe--tone Beach. When it was finished lie i\ow had a better use for Lhe ? r aft. He engaged himself ferrying passengers to Wellington or up -the HTutt River for half a crown a. tri)j>. Fhis must, be what Jem'ngham Wake ielcl meant when he related his meet ng with Joe Robinson who, he says iad a Maori wife, and recounted that 'the boat earned many a pound in ater times by trading round Lhe oast."