HISTORIC FAMILY BRANCH

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 152, 13 June 1932, Page 5

HISTORIC FAMILY BRANCH

DEATH OF MRS. E. CHAPMAN. KING CHARLES AND THE OAK.

The descendant of a family that figures in oue of the most romantic episodes of English history, and herself a resident of New Zealand since the very early days, died at Hawera last week. She was Mrs. E. Chapman, in her 90th year. The death occurred at the residence of her son-in-law, Mr. A. T. Wills, Cameron street. The first two decades of Mrs. Chapman’s eventful life were spent in Hawke’s Bay, but for the last 50 years she has been a highly esteemed resident of South Taranaki.

In the very early sixties there arrived in Hawke’s Bay two young men called Powdrell, who after some time acquired land in that province. Shortly afterwards their parents sold the English homestead of Barhill Farm, Salop, Cheshire, and together with other members of their family, including Emma Powdrell, later Mrs. F. M. Chapman, sailed for the new country to join the two brothers in Hawke’s Bay. The holding they went to from Port Ahuriri was situated at Meeanee, and it was there that Miss Powdrell became Mrs. Chapman. The stirring days of the wars with the Maoris were spent at Poukawa, where Mr. Chapman had a large holding. Many were the tales that Mrs. Chapman could tell of the troubles with the natives, and she was personally acquainted with such men as Colonel Roberts and Majors Tuke and Gascoigne.

Mr. Chapman died in 1913 and Mrs. Chapman has lived with her daughter, Mrs. Wills, since then. Mrs. Chapman was a noble woman and many friends will mourn her passing.

Apart from their association with the pioneering life of New Zealand the Powdrell family have the distinction of being connected with one of the most romantic tales of English history—the hiding of King Charles 11. in the oak tree to escape the soldiers of Cromwell. It was in 1651, after the Battle of Worcester, that Charles sought refuge in the Powdrells’ garden. Honest Dick Pendrell, as history calls him, and his wife Elizabeth hid the King in a bushy oak and, although the Roundheads passed below the tree several times, he was not discovered. For some time Charles lay in hiding at Boscobel House, the home of this yeoman farmer, for he was still in danger. He lived in the house and, to get air and exercise, he used to pass from indoors to a summer-house at the bottom of the garden by means of a teunel, the entrance to which was gained by a secret door at the foot of the stairs.

For his prompt action and loyalty Pendrell received a Royal grant of land, the title of which was to remain in the keeping of the Pendrells for - The name became Powdrell when the xn.-Jly moved from Shifual to Salop, Cheshire, and took up residence at Barhill Farm, the difference in pronunciation by the people of the new county being responsible for its gradual change in spelling. In 1709 the Pendrells forged yet another link with the earlier history of England when the sixth Richard married a daughter of the Duttons, a family that had come to England with William the Conqueror. It was from Barhill Farm that Mrs. Chapman departed with her parents away back in the sixties when the venture of emigration was decided upon. The farm house in Cheshire and Boscobel House in Shropshire are still to be seen and, from time to time, different members of the family, now well scattered in Hawke’s Bay and South Tfranaki, have visited them.—Taranaki “News.”