HISTORY RECALLED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17407, 4 November 1930, Page 5

HISTORY RECALLED

DE THIERRY’S “KINGDOM” ANNIVERSARY OF LANDING (Special tn tiie Herald.l AUCKLAND, this day. One of the most interesting and picturesque stories in early New Zealand history is that of Baron de Ihierry, and his pseudo-kingdom. To-day is the. anniversary of his dignified landing at llokianga on November 4, !807, when he unfurled his flag in a parody of royalty. Baron de Thierry brought with hiuq a preliminary colony of 93 followers, including the heads of various departments of his Government, “a motley rabbage, says Mr. Shrimpton, ‘‘collected for the most part in Sydney and furnished with very little provisions and less money. Disappointment and misfortune met the aspirant to royalty at every turn. White settlers whose land claims were in conflict with his regarded his pretensions with scorn and derision. His followers, discovering his poverty, were enticed from him, and the natives, who despised him as a puhunoa, or a pretender, repudiated the sale of land on the score that full payment had never been made. He ultimately found himself in possession, through the kindness of None, of a paltry 300 acres on which, at a point called Mount Isabel, be hoisted his discredited flag, and established his lilliputian kingdom. His hopes finally fell to the ground on the establishment. of British sovereignty in 1840.

De Thierry lived for many years in comparative obscurity, and ultimately died in Ponsonby Convent in 1897,