NINETY-FOUR YEARS AGO

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1935, Page 6

NINETY-FOUR YEARS AGO

NEW PLYMOUTH REJOICES THE AMELIA THOMPSON ARRIVES. TARANAKI DEFINITELY SETTLED. RELIEF TO EARLIEST ARRIVALS. Ninety-four year’s ago to-day, on September 3, 1841, the ship Amelia Thompson anchored in the roadstead of New Plymouth. Her arrival brought much relief to the handful of settlers who had arrived six months earlier in the ship William Bryan. There were but 138 passengers, 70 of them children, by that first ship, which had slipped away from Plymouth while the clouds of official hostility still hung around the Lakefield emigration schemes. The first settlers arrived to find scarcely a European to welcome them, the winter ahead, and some anxieti f existed for the leaders lest provisions should not hold out until the next ship arrived. The Amelia Thompson had a more joyous departure. Her passenger-list contained the cross-section of society it was Wakefield’s desire to transplant to new colonies. In the “cabin,” or as it would be called in a passenger steamer, the first saloon, there were 24 passengers, of whom the adults had come from “good society” in Great Britain. Eight passengers travelled in the “intermediate,” or second saloon, and there were 156 in the steerage, to there were the landowning class in the first saloon, the trading or minor professional in the second and the wage-earners in the steerage, nearly every one of whom had left England in the hope of owning his own farm or business, or of giving his children a chan- - to do so. For the “landed gentry” who emigrated by the Amelia Thompson, and those who aided them, took their duties seriously. Every emigrant, except the children, had been carefully selected by the “squire” whom he knew d respected, and even the wives and families were scrutinised as to their suitability for a pioneering career oversea. What Taranaki owes to the care used in the selection of the early settlers is almost impossible to calculate, for in the early years of the settlemen# there were difficulties and disappointments sufficient to have damped any ordinary collection of individuals finding themselves in untamed territory . and amidst strange surroundings. DEPARTURE FROM PLYMOUTH.

There was no slipping past authority about the departure of the Amelia Thompson. Downing Street had given its blessing—in the meantime —to the Plymouth Company’s settlement. So the ship’s departure was celebrated by a dinner to tne first saloon passengers, where speeches were made envisaging a New Plymouth to be as famous in New Zealand as old Plymouth had become in Great Britain. As the ship sailed down the lovely Plymouth Sound on March 25 she was cheered on her way by the whole ship’s company of one of the Queen’s men-of-war with the band playing the National Anthem.

To add to good fortune the ship had a pleasant if somewhat prolonged voyage.. She put ip at Bahia, South America, early in May for water and stores, and reachedWellington harbour, or Port Nicholson as it was then called, on August 2. After 11 days at Wellington the Amelia Thompson left for Cloudy Bay, where she took in ballast, and it was not until a month had elapsed after her arrival at Wellington that the ship anchored off New Plymouth. Her passengers were soon introduced to the vagaries of Taranaki spring weather. On many occasions the ship put to sea when the winds blew and the sky threatened, and private letters have revealed the exasperation caused by the delays in unloading cargo that were occasioned by the seaman’s precautions of Captain Dawson, the skipper of the Amelia Thompson.

But her passengers found a warm welcome awaiting them from the earlier emigrants. One or two “company” buildings, several thatched raupo huts, cleared patches of fern along the foreshore and further inland showing the lines of future streets and roads were the outward and visible signs of six months’ European settlement. A bridge had been built over the Huatoki stream, sawyers were busy cutting timber, and several gardens had been established.

It is hard to visualise those early days. One fact stands out, however, in all the communications, private and official, of that period. Every emigrant, rich or poor, had faith in the land of his adoption and was prepared to rough it until that land had been brought into cultivation. In one respect there has been little change in the 94 years that have elapsed since the Amelia Thompson arrived. It is safe to say the 70 children from the William Bryan who welcomed the children from the second ship were glad to do so. They had new experiences to relate, new accomplishments to display, for had they not been the reM, the very first, pioneers from the Old Country of which some of them were already losing their clearest memories? With over 100 children to fraternise and make plans it is safe to say that New Plymouth was neither quiet nor dull on that spring day 94 years ago.