A Fascinating Account of Early Colonial Days “Station Life in New Zealand"

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 81, Issue 5, 15 November 1950, Page 487

A Fascinating Account of Early Colonial Days “Station Life in New Zealand"

ONE of the most fascinating accounts of early colonial life, Lady Barker’s “Station Life in New Zealand” has just been reprinted by Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. It is the story of a woman’s activities and observations while living on a Canterbury sheep run in the 1860’s. Early exploration had opened up the middle west, past the plains and the foothills, and the roving pioneers were beginning to settle down permanently, building homes and bringing their wives from Britain to share their isolation. Lady Barker married in England and came to Canterbury as a bride, and her letters home were collected to form “Station Life in New Zealand”. A resume of the book is given here by Helen Paine, Rural Sociologist, Department of Agriculture, Wellington, for interest in Lady Barker’s story has recently been revived. “Station Life in New Zealand” has great value as a record of the social and historical background of the Canterbury settlers, and as such is very readable.

A HAZARDOUS journey from EngA land was the common experience of most of New Zealand’s pioneers, Lady Barker emphasised the worst aspects of such a voyage in the opening chapters of her book: “. . . and oh, the monotony of that time!—-the monotony of it! Our decks were so crowded that we divided our walking hours, in order that each set of passengers might have space to move about.” The people kept up their spirits with concerts and plays, and it seems to have. been these amusements they remembered long after the miseries of the storms and crowds had bppn fnrwrffpn Np vprth al e<s<s th P been „+° en ‘i Neveitneiess, rne moment they landed was one for which all the travellers were grateful when they realised that their weary days and nights at sea were over.

Most ships stopped for a short time in Melbourne, and here Lady Barker marvelled at the rapidity of growth in the new town, but she scarcely had time to look around before she embarked again for New Zealand. The most dangerous and difficult passage in the whole voyage was across the Tasman in a small mail steamer; they landed at Nelson and Wellington before coming to the end of their journey and disembarking in Lyttelton. Almost as soon as they landed the passengers set out on the last lap of their journey and crossed the lulls |° Sumner and ,S n Christchurch, La dy Barker could find no complaint of « any co ldness or want of welcome to m y new home”, and as soon as she had rested she determined to enter into the social life of the thriving town. “Christchurch is a great deal

more lively and bustling than most English country towns, and I am much struck by the healthy appearance of the people. There are no paupers to be seen; everyone seems well fed and well clothed; the childen are really splendid.” First View of Station Life Station life began at once for Lady Barker —not at her own home, but at Heathstock, 65 miles north of Christchurch, where she and her husband enjoyed a holiday for their first few weeks in New Zealand. While staying at Heathstock she was warned not to expect to find* its comforts the rule, in case they gave her “a very erroneous impression of station life”. In the letters of this period she describes the delight in things around her— delight which seems to have been intensified

by the long months at sea. Everything was new to her, from the domestic duties of the lady of the house, whom she assisted, to the flower gardening and energetic picnics in the bush. She watched farm procedures with the keen eye of a learner and at Heathstock observed the organisation of one of the finest woolsheds in the country. “I was much impressed by the silence in the shed; not a sound was to be heard except the click of the shears, and the woolsorter’s decision as he flings the fleece behind him. . . . All the noise is outside; there the hubbub, and dust, and apparent confusion are great.” After resting, Lady Barker and her husband returned to Christchurch to supervise the construction of their house, the parts of which were being built there for assembly on the station. In Christchurch she had her eyes opened to the servant problem, for in a young country where wages are high and opportunities are plenty most people prefer to work independently, and women were at a premium in the Canterbury of the 1860’s, so that any “nice tidy young woman is snapped up as a wife”. Many of the settlers hoped to live in New Zealand just as they had. in England and were very disappointed if help was not forthcoming in their homes and ( on their farms. Lady Barker was lucky enough to begin her station life with two servants, and though periodic exchanges took place during her 3-year stay, she was only once left entirely without assistance. It was in one of her letters during this period in Christchurch that Lady Barker made some general comments about the sort of people she found there. Each family in New Zealand, she thought, was most concerned in providing its own daily wants and cares, though they had plenty of leisure for doing a kind turn for a neighbour. In this routine she observed that people lost the sense of larger and wider interest; “they have little time to keep pace with the general questions of the day”. It was a determination to prevent this narrowing of interest that guided Lady Barker’s life when eventually she moved from the town to her isolated home in the Malvern Hills. ,

The Daily Routine ' ' The hnneo ™ nwriv finkw when th a nrcnnant<? wnvpd in so the? cnffprpd nanp of the hard«hin<j of fhoqp who had to build thoir hnmpq fhpmqplvpq- in fart pvprv+hinp' in the E WAS dpeXibPd aZ nrpttv and oomfortablp a fpw months affpr rhev had settled in. They had planted trees outside “to obtain, shelter from our enemy ‘the nor’-wester’,” but until these had grown it was not possible to cultivate a garden.

Lady Barker wrote home at this time of .her daily duties. To feed the fowls and ducks and pigeons and receive “a morning greeting from all . the livestock about the place” was her first task. Then prayers were followed by breakfast at nine, after which she issued the day’s orders and instructions in the kitchen; “but generally I find that practice is much better, than precept, and- I see to the soup myself, and make the pudding the joint can take care of itself”,

When the “little fussings about the house” were finished she began what she regarded as her real work, for both she and her husband spent much of their time writing and reading, and this occupied them for the rest of the morning. After dinner the fowls had to be fed again and' then the afternoon was free for walking or riding. They would gallop as far as 12 or 15 miles to have a cup of tea with a neighbour and. then come slowly home in the twilight. Lady Barker had lived in India where her first husband was stationed, and after that enervating climate she found Canterbury invigorating and the air on winter evenings particularly fresh and crisp. Though her day’s work does not sound like the hard labour of some women who lived in the backblocks, she enjoyed being energetic and knowing for the first time in her life “the satisfaction of feeling that I am of some little use to. my fellow-creatures”. Her first experiences of practical cookery cost her some anxious moments, “for”, she says, “a cookery-book is after all but a broken reed to lean on in a real emergency”; but washing soda in the soup and a tough omelet seem to have been the extent of the damage. Extraordinary Adventures ; Having described her home and her daily routine, Lady Barker’s letters became an account of one extraordinary adventure after another. Those afternoon rides often had an unexpected ending, and sometimes she and her husband would set out with a party of friends to hunt pigs in the back country or organise a skating or a sailing party, according to the whim and the weather. The climate of Canterbury played many tricks with

these expeditions, until Lady Barker became accustomed to arriving at a hospitable house and being shown into the kitchen because her streaming habit was unfit for the drawing. room. Many of the adventures were dangerous, but she preferred to accompany her husband on them rather than remain alone conscious of her isolation. “I can get on very well all day, with my various employments ing the chickens, taking the big dogs out for a walk, and so on: but after the house is quiet and silent for the night, and the servants have gone to bed, a horrible lonely eerie feeling, comes over me; the solitude is so dreary, and the silence so intense, only broken occasionally by the wild, melancholy cry of the weka.” Loneliness caused some anxiety, but a greater dread was the fear of a north-west storm. They regarded this wind as almost a personal enemy. “It is hardly possible to give you a correct idea of the force and fury of the wind. Not a glimpse of the mountains was to be seen; a haze of dust, as thick as any fog, shut everything out. The sheep had all taken refuge under the high banks of the creeks. . . . The trees bent almost flat before the hot breath of this hurricane.” , The Great Snowstorm One of the most exciting letters Lady Barker ever sent home was that containing the news of the great snowstorm in 1867. For her family it was a period of extreme privation, for their stores were at a low ebb and about to be replenished when the snow began to fall. The first night’s

fall covered the sheep and the cows, the fowl house, and the pig sties; every scrap of wood disappeared and only the back door was accessible. Breakfast the first day consisted of weak tea and a little mutton; later coloured water was all they could extract from the teapot, though they used up every scrap .of tea dust. Dinner the next day finished up the last tin of sardines, the last pot of apricot jam, and a tin of biscuits. “There were six people to be fed every day, and nothing to feed them with.” The next breakfast was “a dis- 1 covered crust of dry bread, very stale, and our dinner that day was rice and saltthe last of the rice in the storeroom.” The snow still fell. The same state of things continued: “a little flour had been discovered in a discarded flour-bag, and we had a sort of girdle-cake and water.” They were all “more than half starved, and quite frozen”. The servants retired to bed, feeling that they might as well die warm, and the rest of them. sat about with the same thought uppermost in their minds: “ ‘Where are the sheep?’ Not a sign or a sound could be heard.” After four days the position was alleviated by a deluge of rain, and they were able to find the fowl house, kill a few fowls, and make some attempt at a hot stew that tasted more like soup. Then at last the wind changed to the north-west and that enemy became a friend, as all immediate apprehension of starvation was removed. “We forgot all our personal sufferings in anxiety about the surviving

sheep.” They worked furiously to save what stock remained alive, but they could expect no help from their neighbours, who were all in the same plight. Then it was discovered that on many of the back-country stations “the tragedy of the creeks was enacted on a still larger scale”. The sheep had sheltered under the high riverbanks and had been snowed in; then, as the snows melted, the rivers flooded and burst their banks, drowning the helpless, frozen animals. “Not only were sheep, but cattle, found dead in hundreds along the fences on the plains. The newspapers gave half a million as a rough estimate of the loss among the flocks in this province alone.” Customs and Traditions In the face of this disaster and other misfortunes not so great these English settlers expected to keep up the customs and honour the traditions of their country. Sunday was always reserved as a day of worship and rest. The shepherds and neighbours came long distances to Lady Barker’s house to join the services which her husband conducted. Christmas too was celebrated with much visiting and being visited. The summer was enjoyed tc the full with picnics and long journeys almost every day, and each new trip opened Lady Barker’s eyes to the beauty of her surroundings. After an energetic night’s dancing, which had begun at 10 o’clock — may be truly said to have been kept up with great spirit until four o’clock: it only ceased then on account of the state of exhaustion of the unfortunate five ladies, who had been nearly killed with incessant dancing” Lady Barker went for a walk, of which she wrote: “Tired as I was, I shall never forget the beauty and romance of that hour the delicious crisp new feeling of the morning air . . . every moment added to the lovely dawn around me, and I enjoyed to the full the fragrant smells and joyous sounds of another day in this fresh young land.” The extent of travelling at this time is amazing in view of the state of the roads and tracks and the uncomfortable modes of conveyance. These people would spend a week skating at Lake Ida,, or ride for miles to Lake Coleridge for a sailing excursion in the summer, and twice during their stay in New Zealand they took long —one along the great south road to Waimate and another to the head of Lake Wanaka. Minor accidents often happened on these long journeys, but the unfortunates usually recovered when they reached their destination and the unfailing hospitality of an isolated household. The stories of a long ride while suffering the agonies of a broken shoulder; of a dangerous pig hunt when her horse was attacked by a wild boar; and of an occasion when the horses broke loose and the riders had to make the 8-mile return journey by —these and other tales fill Lady Barker’s letters with interest. Her book is worth reading as an adventurous story of pioneer days alone, but “Station Life in New Zealand” has become more than a personal narrative; it is a valuable social and historical record.

[From the Alexander Turnbull Library photographic collection. A Cobb and Company coach fording a river. "These conveyances," wrote Lady Barker, "have a world-wide celebrity as Cobb's coaches, both in America and Australia, where they are invariably the pioneers of all wheeled vehicles, being better adapted to travel on a bad road, or no road at all, than any other four-wheeled 'trap'. They are both strong and light, with leathern springs and a powerful brake; but I cannot . conscientiously say they are at all handsome carriages; indeed I think them extremely ugly and not very comfortable, except on the box-seat next the driver." Their motive power she described as "four good strong horses, bearing less harness about them than any quadrupeds I ever saw; a small collar, slender traces, and very thin reins comprised all their accoutrements."