THE WAIRAU MASSACRE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 83, 2 January 1930, Page 10

THE WAIRAU MASSACRE

DEATH OF A VICTIM’S DAUGHTER.

Dominion Special Service. Auckland, December 30. One of the oldest surviving Europeans born in the South Island passed away when Mrs. H. Allport, of Mount Eden, and formerly of Nelson district, who was within a fortnight of completing her eighty-seventh year, passed away.' Her death severs a. link with the stirring incidents of the days of the early colonisation in New Zealand, the fortunes of her early childhood being closely interwoven with the Wairau massacre.

Mrs. Allport’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Smith, arrived at Nelson In August, 1842. Their daughter, the late Mrs. Allport, was born on January 14, 1843. In June of that year Mr. Smith was a member of the unfortunate party organised by the Nelson Police Magistrate (Mr. H. A. Thompson) to proceed to Wairau with the object of. arresting the Maori chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata on a charge of arson arising out of the burning of a hut erected by members Of the New Zealand Company’s survey party. Mr. Smith was one of the special constables massacred. The late Mrs. Allport was only five months old at the time of the tragedy and her widowed mother had not reached woman’s full estate, being only 20 years of age. The residence of herself and her husband .where her daughter was born was a primitive structure on what afterwards became known as Church Hill and on which Nelson Cathedral now stands. After the massacre when the residents of Nelson lived in daily dread of an incursion of Maoris from Wairau, rude fortifications were hastily thrown up on the hill and Mrs. Smith’s abode was within the entrenched area. The anticipated attack by the natives never came.

Mrs. Smith afterwards married Mr. Benjamin Lusty, an early Nelson settler, and four generations of their descendants are now residing in various parts of New Zealand. Mrs. Allport’s husband died 10 years ago at the age of 86. Of a family of 12 there are seven survivors —four sons and three daughters. There are 43 grandchildren and 36 great-grandchildren, making a total of 86 surviving descendants.