MAKERS OF OTAGO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3996, 14 October 1930, Page 8

MAKERS OF OTAGO.

PIONEERS OF THE PROVINCE.

XL.—WILLIAM ALFRED MOSLEY.

1817-1889.

William Alfred Mosley was one of the very earliest permanent settlers at the mouth of the Molyneux River.

Born at Radford in 1817, he was the son of a Nottingham silk lace manufacturer. He received his early education in Nottingham, but owing to the death of his father he had to start early to earn his own living. Mosley married in 1842 Mary, daughter of the Rev. John Housley, a Wesleyan minister in Derbyshire, and shortly after their marriage they went to the United States, where their eldest chil 1 was born. After some years they returned to England, but still with the idea of emigrating in their minds, and in November, 1847, Mosley with his wife and three daughters sailed for Otago in the John Wickliffe, which reached Port Chalmers on March 23, 1848. Intending to be a country settler rather than a town dweller, Mosley at once took up a section on the beach at Kaka Point, Port Molyneux, but he resided at first at Halfway Bush in a two-roomed house, the walls of which were of slabs and the roof of saplings thatched by the

natives with rough grass. Though the section was rough and had to be dug over with the spade to make it pay, Mosley had the advantage while at Halfway Bush of being able to send his daughters to Miss Dunlop’s school. During this time also the eldest sou of the family was born, and he was duly christened by Bishop Selwyn. When the time came in 1852 for Mosley to settle on his country estate, he chartered the little schooner Endeavour (Captain Sinclair) to take his possessions there. When the little vessel came to her destination the weather was so rough that the captain feared to make a landing, and for 28 days he stood off the shore. Then Mosley was taken off by Maori boatmen, while the Endeavour returned to Dunedin without lauding the goods. Having set things in order and put up a hut on the section, Mosley returned on foot to Dunedin, and borrowed a sledge and a pair of bullocks from Valpy to carry his family to their new home. It was a very rough journey over trackless country, the leading ridge between the plains and the sea being followed as closely as possible. At the Taieri the family and goods were placed in a boat and the bullocks swum across, and then the journey was continued along the ridges. Heavy rain compelled Mosley to halt and erect his tent on the slopes of a dismal hill overlooking Tokomairiro, which he named Mount Misery At length he reached the Molyneux, where he crossed in a boat belonging to Redpath, and so reached the little hut where they lived for the next year. During this time they were largely dependent on the hospitality of the Maori, who provided them with pigeons and kakas and with potatoes at 2s 6d per kit. Mosley planted half an acre with wheat at Kaka Point, preparing the ground with spade and hoe. The soil was rich, but parrakeets were troublesome and pigs made occasional raids on the potatoes. No matches being available, flint and steel and touch paper had to be used in kindling fires. After the experience here Mosley always enjoined his family to treat the Maori with consideration in return for the manner in which they had befriended them. At length he engaged some of the Natives to go round and help to bring the Endeavour from Dunedin. When they brought her into Willsher Bay the first to swim out to her was the chieftainess Makaredie, who years earlier had saved the life of Willsher by throwing her mat over him. And so the goods were landed eight months after being loaded in Dunedin.

Though about a year (1852-53) was spent at Kaka Point, Mosley had already decided to make his permanent home on Inch Clutha, where he took up one 50tcre block of land at once, and others from time to time. No sooner had he settled the family down at Kaka Point than he engaged a Maori to help him to clear a site and build the new house at Inch Clutha, to which place they paddled up the river in a canoe. The flax was

acre block of land at once, and others was a tangle of tutu and many cabbage trees, so it was strenuous work getting the ground cleared, but the soil was obviously very fertile and well repaid in later years all that was done for it. The house was built with totara slabs split -with the axe, and was thatched with rushes. Once established there,- the greatest hardships of the pioneers were over, for the place each year developed and increased in productiveness. The first little patch of wheat (of the Golden Drop variety), for which the ground, was prepared with hoe and mattock/ yielded 60 bushels to the acre. It threshed easily with the flail, and brought 12s per bushel. Mosley ground what he needed for his own use in a little steel mill which he had brought out with him. After first digging the ground with the spade, he turned it over with a single-furrow plough, which he obtained from James Macandrew, drawn by two bullocks. In the early years Mosley made a practice of breaking in bullocks to harness, and he had a ready market for them at £75 to £95 per pair. The first cattle he purchased from John Jones, and they flourished on the rieh pasture of Inchclutha. Their first horses were acquired in 1862. The family now consisted of five daughters and one son. The son, John Mosley, who still lives at Stirling, was the first child born on Inchclutha (in 1854). A school was opened at Inchclutha in 1857, A. Gregor being the teacher. Mosley took an early part in public life, though his remoteness from settlement when he went to the Molyneux naturally prevented him from continuing. In the very early days, before going south, he took an active part in promoting the counter petition objecting to the prayer of the Presbyterian settlers that one-tenth of the lands should be set aside as an endowment for the Presbyterian Church. Naturally the failure of the original petition left the petitioners in ill-humour, but Mosley lived to see the unpopularity of the “ Little Enemy ” die out, and one of their number become Superintendent of the Province. In 1867 Mosley was elected to represent Matau in the Provincial Council, in which he sat for three years. He was also chairman in later years of the Inchclutha River Board, and was instrumental in inaugurating the first drainage scheme on the island.

Mosley’s first wife died at Woodside (the Inchclutha estate) in 1865, leaving a family of three sons and" eight daughters. He married again in 1868 Adelaide, daughter of George Jones, solicitor, of Croydon, Surrey, and they had a family of three sons and two daughters. He died at his residence at Ravensbourne, Dunedin, on October 23, 1889, and his wife died at Waimumu, Gore, in 1927. Both are buried in the North Dunedin Cemetery. The property on Inchclutha is <4:11 in the hands of the family.