DEATH OF MRS JAMES FULTON

Otago Witness, Issue 3400, 14 May 1919, Page 41

DEATH OF MRS JAMES FULTON

Mrs James Fulton, of Ravenscbfre, "Woodside, who died on the 7th in her ninetieth year, was the third daughter of the late Judge Valpy, of th© Honourable East Company's Service, and was born in England. She was educated at Home and on the Continent. Owing to failing health, Mr Valpy and his family camo to New /realand in 1848, arriving at Port Chalmers. After four years' residence at Forbury, near St. Clair, Miss" Valpy married Mr James Fulton, and went' to live at the west end of the Taieri. In the early days Mrs Fulton started a Sunday school, and this she superintended without a break, and with undiminished love and ardour, till Sunday, March 13, 1916—50 years' patient and rich servio3. This work began with a class in her own dining room, and was continued subsequently in a little mission house erected at Woodside village. She started cottage prayer meetings for women in the district, became a collector for the Bible Society, and accepted presidency of the Women's Christian Temperanoa Union in Dunedhr. This position she occupied for many years, and rendered invaluable help m connection with the women's franchise. During her husband's term of public life, both as magistrate in the district and as member for the Taieri in the House of Representatives, Mrs Fulton was associated Prominently with social progress. In 1591 Mr Fulton died, and thereafter Mrs Fulton surrendered much of her splendid public work. She had eight grandsons, one son-in-law, seven grand-nephews, and many kinsmen fighting for her King and country. Mrs Fulton is survived by three sons, three daughters, 25 grandchildren, and four greatgrandchildren.

To the above brief outline of a long and full life, whose influence for good was far reaching, a few additional particulars of the family may be added. Catherine Henrietta Eliott Fulton was the third daughter of Mr W. H. Valpy, who, after serving for 25 years in India, returned to England and set about the education of his family. They lived for many years at Burton-on-Trent, and afterwards at bt Boniface near Ventnor on the Isle of "Wight. Mr Valpy's father was the Kov. Richard Valpy, D.D., a well-known divine and author of Valpy's Latin Debutes, Valpy's Greek Grammar, etc. He was head master of Reading Grammar School and well-known as a very strict disciplinarian, not at all averse to using the "birch." In educating his daughters Mr W H. Valpy used to take annual visits to the Continent, his health being indifferent and his tours to Belgium, France, the Rhine Valley, Switzerland, and Italy materially benefited him and at the same time gave his daughters a much broader outlook on life and knowledge pi the world. In travelling, he generally took his own carriage, hiring horses as he went, and in this way they visited many of the Cathedral Towers of Holland, Belgium, and France, his daughters gaining a good first-hand knowledge of French and Italian. His daughter Catherine, even at this early date (who was only 16) began to keep a daily diary, which contains a very detailed account of many European journeys, and has been kept from her arrivel in New Zealand up to the present day. is still in existence and may some day be of great historical value and interest. In 1848 Mr Valpy deoided to migrate "to the new colony of NewZealand, and selecting Otago, embarked m the Ajax in September of that year. In January, 1849, they arrived at Fort Chalmers, and his daughter described it m a letter to a son many years after. He wa3 detained in a fog in August, 1886 when travelling from Lyttelton to Dunedin in the Te Anau. "Just before we entered the Heads a dense fog suddenly obscured the land and we had to he to, the fog horn being blown at intervals. We were very close to the cliffs when the fog lifted and I was able to see exactly where our old Ajax had anchored on our arrival at the Heads in January, 1849. I pictured again to myself the boat that came round to our little snug bay and boarded us. How many of that party have now passed away. W. H. Valpy, Mrs W. H. O. Robert Fulton, Richard Filleul, Mary Harrison and her brothers, Frederick and Henry Jeffreys, John Forbes, and many other passengers not related to us." They boated up from Port Chalmers to Duned'in and the boats grounded in shallow water near where the Bank of Australasia now stands, and the passengers were carried ashore to about where Jacob s tobacconist shop now is. Mr Valpy had a house built for him before he arrived, and he occupied it for some time, and then settled on one of his suburban selections at the Forbury, now St. Clair. Among his 23 "selections" was one at Caversham (this ho named after Caversham, near Reading, where he had lived in his boyhood days). One of his sections was afterwards the little cemetery at the back of the late Mr M. Barron's property, now purchased for a Children's Convalescent Home. (There Mr Valpy was buried in 1852). Among others was the Grange Property, afterwards sold to Mr Hyde Harris, at the foot of Albany street and later owned by the late Mr James Small. Still another was Chingford, in the NorthEast Valley, and for sometime he hesitated whether to settle in the North-East Valley or go to the Forbury Beach, but finally decided on the Forbury as this was named after his father's old residence at Reading. In 1850. Mr Edward Lee, a colonist with a good deal of capital went home to England, and crossing to Germany purchased, and brought out in 1851, a number of valuable Saxony merinos, and being told that the young Fnltons, then living at West Taicri were reliable men, approached them and offered James the opportunity of taking his sheep "in thirds." The fact that the Fnltons had an experienced shepherd, Robert Harvey, who had come out with them, was a great advantage to both parties, and James Fulton took over the valuablo flock, his sheep run being practically the whole West Taieri from his homestead down to tho river, and as far west as the pasture extended until it met swamp. The land was magnificent, grass, flax, tussock, toi toi. The bush came down to the back of his settlement and teemed with birds of all kinds. The sheep throve splendidly, and James Fulton became _ at once a prosperous voung man, and married Miss Catherine Valpy in September, 1852. At that time there were no other settlers near them. Traces of the Maoris were all around them —trees barked for five or six foot up; remains of Maori whata or storehouses in considerable numbers around them; a decaying old Maori's canoe against one of tho totara, trees, and many

koppa maris, or Maori ovens with bones cockleshells, numerous stone adzes, etc., were turned over with the plough. (There was a Maori pah or tilri'c on the ban Its of the Taieri seven miles away.) The young couple lived here, journeying to town as occasion arose by bullock dray or old horse sledge, and many a time was Catherine, or Kath as she was known to everyone asked why she had left her father s comfortable home to live in a three-roomed hut in the midst of a wilderness. She used to laugh at her sisters when they taunted her with her privations—meat and milk were scarce, and all luxuries were absent—" Never mind, dears, someday you will see this as a beautiful place," and those who know it as it is to-day will know it when the prediction was fulfilled. After a time Mr and Mrs Fulton built a large house, which stands to-day as a land mark which can be seen under the bush from the Harvey's Flat road or road to Traquair. The young couple had many strange experiences, and one of the most startling was after the discovery of gold at Gabriel's Gully. By this time the house was enlarged and many visitors came from town —the house was opened to all who passed that way. One evening in summer, when the inmates were playing and singing, the windows all open, some on the grass lawn, and many in the drawing room, an Inspector of Police with troopers rode up and said, "I advise you to go inside and look all your doors as the notorious Garrett, the bushranger, is in your immediate neighbourhood; in fact we have reason to believe he is hiding in your bush. He has not so far resorted to homicide, but is a desperate robber." There was "soatteration" of . visitors and many precautions were taken. A few nights later the Fultons Were wakened by loud knocking at the back, and the young husband went out and opened the side door. Here he found a large number of men, and his first thought was terror for his wife and tiny children —"The Bushrangers." The men were white, cold, and terrified however, and filed into the kitchen when they told us their tale. They were diggers returning from the diggings with their swags and hard-won earnings when they were "bailed up" by Garrett and his gang of several armed men. Sit ripped of most of their clothes and of all their valuables —a considerable sum of gold in the aggregate —they were tied up carefully to trees and left to escape, as they eventually did by one of them untying the rest. He Was left with one hand more loosely tied, so that after some hours wriggling he was able to free himself and then his mates. Young Fulton had nothing for them in the house —there were over "a dozen of them—but potatoes, salt, tea, and sugar. A large caldron of potatoes was put on and the half famished, almost frozen, diggers ate to repletion. The young "couple's relief from anxiety can be imagined. Later on, Mr Fulton was appointed Resident Magistrate, Registrar, Commissioner, first captain of the West Taieri Rifle Volunteers, and in 1879 entered Parliament for the Taiei;i<.>.cons ! tifcueney. He died in 1891, and his'Mtfidow' lived at her residence Ravencliffe (formerly called Ravensbourne) until her death in 1919. Mrs Fulton was keenly interested in the Temperance movement, and was for years President of the W.C.T.TJ. She went to the poll at the recent referendum,.where she triumphantly "explained to the chief polling clerk that she "wished to vote for prohibition, though she strongly disapproved of the principle of compensation." She drove a 3 far as the Taieri River Bridge in her son's motor car as recently as the 25th April, being always easy in her mind when the chauffeur was her grand-daughter, Miss Ngaio Fulton (the daughter of Mr H. V." Fulton). Her mind and memory were very clear to the last, and on the first of this month, May, 1919, in talking of some of her experiences, she expressed herself as so thankful that her mind was untouched by time. She leaves three sons— James Edwai-cl Fulton, civil engineer, Wellington; Hubert Valpy Fulton, sedretary Agricultural and Pastoral Society, Dunedin; Robert Valpy Fulton, medical practitioner, Dunedin; nnd three daughters —Miss Caroline Arabella Fulton, of Ravenscliffe; Mrs R. R. M. Sutherland, late of the manse, Kaikorai; and Mrs L. E. Barnett, of Stafford street, Dunedin. She was buried in the family burial ground at West Taieri Cemetery on Friday, 9th inst., the coffin being taken into the church where a service was held by the Rev. T. Bates and Rev. R. R. M. Sutherland. The coffin was carried from the church to the graveside by her four grandsons— Julius Fulton (son of Mr H. V. Fulton), Arthur Sutherland (son of Rev. R. R M. Sutherland), Noel Fulton (son of Dr Fulton), and Geoffrey Barnett (son of Dr Barnctt).