ALFRED DOMETT

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21391, 6 February 1935, Page 17

ALFRED DOMETT

* First Years, in Nelson EDUCATIONIST AND POET (SPBCIAi.LT WRITTEN FOR THE PRESS.) [By JEAN STEVENSON.] Wild Nelson lay full under the summer sun when the first settlers arrived there by the sailing ship Fifeshire 93 years ago, on February 1, 1842. The scene was still wild enough, but the summer's fullness had given place to the sprigs of early spring, when the settlement received its first poet, Alfred Domett, towards the end of August. He sailed into a blue harbour in the Sir Charles Forbes, and saw the many greens of the valleys and hillsides, the small huts and partially built houses and offices that made up the six-months old settlement of Nelson. Law and Potato-Growing •" Alfred Domett was young—he was 30 — anf j f U n of enthusiasm in those days; he had left the English Bar, as if he would shake his shoulders free of the close staidness of life in London and he hoped, we are told, to practise his profession in this new, small settlement. There is not much evidence to show that he ever did practise law in Nelson; probably he never did; probably he did not wish

to when he felt the earth under his hands in his first potato patch. There are echoes of gleeful boastings of the delights of pioneer-farming in the letters written back to him from London. He settled a few miles from the town site and half a mile from the little Wairoa river, which was then wild and rugged and turbulent enough to merit description to which Browning could reply with the question: "How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?" Beside this river Domett began hi? farming experience in New Zealand; here, too, he began his writing. A; go-ahead band of pioneers had established a newspaper in the settlement early in its history: the "Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle," first published March 12, 1842. Soon after his arrival Domett began his contributions, odd descriptive pieces and letters of some distinction. While lie farmed his potatoes, went on exploring expeditions, and served on the committee of management for the first Nelson School, he gradually became the thorough-going colonist of the old days. The Educationist Within a week of his arrival, Domett was called to act on a school committee; he was appointed honorary inspector, and from his first residence in the district was in a position to understand its educational affairs. This is interesting when it is considered that he became not only New Zealand's first educationist, but also the first man—and as early as 1842 to advocate free, secular, and compulsory education. The ideas he expressed on these subjects in committee at Nelson in 1842, in committee in I the Provincial Council of New MunI ster in 1849, and again in the Legislative Council in 1869, were at last adopted, and Domett was vindicated when the Education Act was passed in 1877. If the education system adopted in 1877 was regarded as advanced, it was regarded as absurd by many when it was first fully set forth in 1849. Yet the address in which Domett explained his views to members of the New Munster Provincial Council in 1849 must be regarded today as a document setting out sound educational doctrine. Nelson Adventures During the 29| years Domett was in New Zealand he made his home successively in Nelson, Wellington, Napier, Auckland, and Wellington again. The greater part of the time was spent in Nelson, for he returned there from time to time even after he had settled elsewhere. The late Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson remembered him as a distinguishedlooking man who was often to be seen in Nelson in the 'sixties. And, proof that his heart was there, he named his son Alfred Nelson Domett. Also, he named the house in which he lived when he returned to London (18711872), Nelson House. There is not much of Domett'R poetry to be seen dealing with the scenic charms and delights of Nelson; it is probable that these are part of the body and soul of the long descriptive poem "Ranolf and Amohia," which was published after Domett's return to England. Any other pieces are as woefully lost as the letters to Browning; there have been many curses dropped on Browning's dead head for his carelessness —or carefulness—in destroying the correspondence of his friends. But one important poem was written at. Nelson describing, very bitterly, certain events there. The Wairau tragedy has been the subject of controversy in many places. Even today, historians and other writers will quarrel over the views they take of the affair. The Maoris were wholly to blame, or the white settlers were wholly to blame, or the officers in charge of the survey expedition were wholly to blame. That was the way of it in the early days. Domett was bitter; his friends had been killed and the attitude of the Government after the affair—a most insufficient force was supplied for the protection of the southern settlers—infuriated him. With Governor Fitzßoy, he had no patience, and look pains to show it; his articles in the "Nelson Examiner" —he had become editor after the death of G. R. Richardson, the first editor and a special constable at the Wairau—were only lqss furious than the long poem he wrote to Browning on the subject of Fitzßoy and his halfhearted dealings with the Maoris, and punishment of the Wairau natives. This poem is a more or less doggerel affair of more than 100 lines, with some clever and apt quotations from Dogberry and Verges in "Much Ado About Nothing." It is entitled "Recantation: Or an humble petition from the Gentlemen and Inhabitants of Nelson to the High and Mighty Prince Fizzig the First, one of the Kings of the Cannibal Islands." The whole is I an exaggerated account of Fitzßoy's cowardly measures against Te Rauparaha and Rnngihaeata and future possible trouble in the Nelson settlement. It is only fair to say that Domett did write ox compile a full and de-

tailed account, which he termed "Narrative of the Wairau Massacre," published in the "Nelson Examiner" of December 23, 1843. This narrative was as fair as was possible at that time and in that place; but Domett was too close to the tragedy and had suffered with the Nelson people. His account cannot stand as an authority to-day. Neither can that of Robert Fitzßoy who, after he was recalled in 1845, published an account of affairs in New Zealand at the time he left. This included an account of his dealings with the Nelson settlers; his account is less worthy than that of Domett in his remarkable document—which was never used for its original purpose—"Petition to Parliament for the recall of Governor Fitzßoy." For the history of the years in the Nelson settlement to 1845, this document is invaluable. Domett's work for Nelson was wide and varied; he was one of a band of extremely energetic and gifted men— Alfred Saunders, Edward William Stafford, and Dillon Bell among others —who made Nelson's name famous in eatly New Zealand government history. No one would claim genius for him; neither can he be described as a mere politician; he was an enthusiast of high intelligence and wide education, who threw all his energies into the work of colonising. Nelson has rightly been proud of him for many years.