ALFRED DOMETT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 24 April 1937, Page 10

ALFRED DOMETT

POET AND STATESMAN ASSOCIATED WITH BROWNING A compilation of matter relating to the Wairau Massacre was made by Allred Domett in 1843. The section reterring to Captain Arthur Wakefield appears in lull in another page of this issue under the title "Founder of the Nelson Settlement.” "What's become of Waring since he gave us all the slip,” wrote Robert Browning of his friend Domett. "Chose land-travel or seafaring, Boots and chest or stall' and scrip, Rather than pace up and down, Any longer London town?” Anri Browning also wrote:— Who's have guessed it from his life, Or his brow's accustomed bearing, On the night lie thus*took ship, Or started landward?—little caring For us, it seems, vjjlio supped together (Friends of his too, I remember) And walked home thro’ the merry weather, (The snowiest in all December). I left his arm that night myself For what’s-his-name, the new prosepoet, , Who wrote the book there, on the shelf— How, forsooth, was I to know it,

If Waring meant to glide away? Like a ghost at break of day? Never looked he half so eav.

Browning's "Waring” was on the ship Sir Charles Forbes and landed at Nelson some six months after the settlement had been founded, and settled more or less near the Wairoa river, which later when Browning knew his whereabouts, was the subject of this wonderful line: "How rolls the Wairoa at your world’s far end?” Domett farmed his land, but soon took a prominent part in other spheres, serving first on a school committee, and as early as 1842 declaring for “free, secular and compulsory education.” Later his views were expressed before the New Munster Provincial Council in 1349, before the Legislative Council in 1869, and embodied in the Education Act of 1877. That Domett loved Nelson may be judged from the fact of his frequent visits when living in other parts of the colony. He named his son Alfred Nelson. on his return to London, he lived in Nelson House, and many references in his descriptive poem, “Ranolf and Amohia.” are thought to be of Nelson. Domett was Premier of New Zealand in 1862-63