‘My Beloved Mary’: The Intimate World of Thomas King1

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 30, 1 January 1997, Page 25

Margot Fry

‘My Beloved Mary’: The Intimate World of Thomas King 1

In 1856 Henry Richmond wrote of Thomas King, ‘his life and his wife have made him dry, but his little ones may improve him’.' To his contemporary and friend, King may have appeared easily categorised. He had arrived in New Plymouth in 1841 with the intention of establishing himself as an importer. He was well educated, reading Montesquieu in French as well as local histories in Italian. Richmond would later write of him as a man of clear intellect. T spent a long evening there last Monday and we discussed everything from fencing to free will and from the prospects of Taranaki to Socialism and flying machines.’ 3 In 1854, King represented Taranaki in the first General Assembly; later he would become the Provincial Treasurer. 4 He moved in the right circles. When Arthur Atkinson recorded in his diary that ‘a great concourse of people’ were at Merton, Thomas and Mary King were among them."

Like many settlers, however, Thomas King did not have a lot of money when he arrived in New Zealand/’ By 1856 he had experienced many of the problems inherent in establishing a trading business with a limited amount of capital. Not having sufficient funds to pay for merchandise in advance of sale, he relied on the credit of his London patron. Sir Henry Richardson paid for and shipped the goods, that ranged from milking pails to raisins and calico, to New Zealand, being reimbursed once they were sold. It was a system that worked reasonably well initially, although communication was problematic; King could wait up to fifty two weeks before he received a reply from London

with regards his business, and changes in the market could not be readily accommodated. A preference for better quality material and clothes as the settlement prospered, or a particular style of blanket, could result in unsold goods. By 1856 Thomas and Mary had moved twice, with all the disruption and expense which that entailed. They left New Plymouth for Wellington in 1847 when the New Plymouth/ Wanganui area appeared on the edge of war, returning to New Plymouth again a year later to commence farming, when the death of Sir Henry effectively stopped the access to credit and therefore the English goods. The initial period of King’s colonial life was demanding and difficult, financially and physically, and could well warrant Richmond’s description. King’s letter books and farming journals in this period attest to a man beset with the problems of financing his trading activities and obtaining labour to help clear his land.

If his life could be described as dry, what about his wife? Mary Chilman met Thomas King in Plymouth, England, as the friend of her brother, Richard. Two years after Richard and his wife Agnes emigrated to New Zealand, she followed and renewed King’s acquaintance. Just what she did to earn such an uncomplimentary epithet from Richmond is unclear. The two letters she wrote to Thomas when she was sent to Nelson in 1860 during the land crisis, indicate a woman absorbed in the minutiae of the daily affairs of her house and children, a woman more inclined to discuss the personal than the political. She was, like many colonial women, extremely busy with the continual grind of cooking, cleaning, washing and starching clothes and educating her family. 7 The scarcity of servants plus the King’s distressed pecuniary situation meant Mary had little respite, a situation Thomas regretted. When their situation began to improve, he wrote:

I cannot assist my darling in her many labours. I think darling if you cannot get any woman to wash for you at home, you had better try and put the clothes out. I don’t wish you to spend your youth in hard wearisome toil. Our circumstances have much improved and the only wish I have for increased means is that it will relieve my kind and gentle wife from that incessant toil which she has been subjected to since she took her Tom for a husband. I have really darling no wish for wealth. I should like to have around me as many conveniences as we can command and to be able to relieve my Polly from those disagreeable labours which I never expected she would have to ... when I offered her my hand. 8

The King Family Papers, housed at the Turnbull Library, comprises a variety of records; personal journals, farms records, letters to and from his parents and sister in London, business letters to Sir Henry Richardson and letters to his wife, Mary, each of which provides a view of Thomas King’s world. One interesting facet of Thomas’s correspondence was the way it was compartmentalised. The business

journals and farm diaries provide a record of Thomas King’s daily existence; the ships that arrived in Wellington or New Plymouth, the tasks and wages paid for farm labourers, the cost of clearing his land, or the current political situation. The only personal comments relate to the birth of his children and their experience of the Wellington earthquake of 1848. Mary is rarely mentioned. By way of contrast, Thomas King’s personal diaries and letters reveal a very different aspect from that which Richmond saw, an aspect which was anything but desiccated. They reveal a passion for his wife which appeared to be reciprocated, a love for and interest in his children, and a deep desire for the ordinary pleasures of conversation and reading in the security of his home environment.

The private world of nineteenth-century men and women has long interested historians. Publications such as Leonora Davidoff and Catherine Hall’s Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Classes , Michael Roper and John Tosh’s Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 and A. James Hammerton’s Cruelty and Companionship: Conflict in the Nineteenth Century Married Life , have begun to unravel the tangled world of the image and reality of social interactions in British society, while Charlotte Macdonald and Frances Porter both separately and together have contributed to the debate in terms of the New Zealand context. 9 This article considers a nineteenth-century relationship predominantly from the husband’s perspective. This is partly because of the nature of the correspondence; the collection is largely Thomas’s record and Mary’s voice is rarely heard. It is also aims, however, to contribute to an understanding of at least one part of what Jane Lewis called ‘the total fabric of men’s worlds’. 10 While not questioning that in many nineteenth-century families the father played the heavy paterfamilias typified by Charles Dickens or Edward Benson, who Tike most men of his class ... meant to be master of his own home as well as outside it’, 11 this paper throws into the debate one man, one relationship that did not have the concept of domination as its foundation. Specifically, it aims to place another view of nineteenthcentury marriage alongside Raewyn Dalziel’s analysis of the relationship of Donald McLean and Susan Strang. 12 While McLean’s love and affection for Susan is not doubted, their correspondence does indicate McLean expected his wife to conform to his taste and wishes, that she should become a ‘gude bush wife’ and be obedient as well as affectionate. Dalziel has argued that ‘Donald believed that his wife should be subject to his authority, follow him wherever he pleased to go and do her duty’. The correspondence between Thomas and Mary indicates another perception of the marriage state.

In the past, the relationships studied have often been problematic in some way. The correspondence of couples estranged or unhappy, of wives being beaten or ignored, has been a rich field for historians interested in this area. It has often been the only avenue open for those interested in analysing what women and men thought of each other. Relationships such as that of Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane, for

example, a marriage that was not consummated, or that of Edward Benson, whose enjoyment of his marriage has to be balanced by Mary’s recollection that ‘he restrained his passionate nature for seven years and then got me’, have provided one insight into marital relationships. 13 Not all women, however, were subject to their husband’s authority. Jane Maria Atkinson is one obvious example of a woman who enjoyed her world. Her ‘scrambling down a gully tearing [her] clothes nearly to pieces’ to let off steam as an alternative to baking ‘ten loaves or in making a dozen pounds of butter’ shows vitality and interest. 14 When she married her independence was more formally recognised by her brother William; she retained control of her inheritance. 13 Just as not all women were subject to the men in their lives, neither did all men demand such a condition.

A fragment of Thomas King’s courtship of Mary Chilman has been recorded on paper because of a specific circumstance. For a significant part of the period leading up to their marriage in October 1846, Thomas was ill with dyspepsia, to the extent that he was often unable to travel to Richard Chilman’s house on the Te Henui Stream, where Mary lived. The reading and writing of letters, therefore, played an important role in establishing what each expected. ‘My dear Miss Chilman, I am addressing you for the first time on a subject of this nature, I must crave your pardon for this hasty note, as the wind is blowing fair and in a few hours the Carbon will sail.’ 16 Thomas King’s proposal, at first glance, shores up notions of nineteenthcentury relationships. The subject of his marriage was crammed into business, of tides and winds. Moreover, although he confessed to a ‘regard’ for Mary that was of several years duration, the reason for asking Mary to marry him was also tied to convention. ‘My frequent visits to your brother’s house have been observed and commented on, and I should be doing you a great injustice by remaining any longer silent.’ The declaration appears diffident. Thomas wrote that lack of courage and opportunity had prevented his approaching the topic before, and that he hoped to see her in six weeks when he returned to New Plymouth.

Despite the somewhat awkward proposal that Thomas sent his Mary, the language changed immediately once he had received her letter of acceptance. Instead of the formal ‘Miss Chilman’ she became ‘My dearest Mary’. Mary became the antidote to the depression the ill suitor suffered from; she soothed, offered tranquillity and became the personification of purity. ‘Mary! Thy spell is over me in every thought and colours every idle fancy ... I have found thee by the sympathy that my soul has for thine ... Mary! Farewell till next we meet. Mayest thou be happy even as I am now and may care and trouble never visit thy calm brow, the throne of peace and love.’ 17 Interestingly, Mary did not respond immediately. Three weeks after writing to her, and despite corresponding to her regularly, Thomas still had not received a reply, although there was a steady stream of vessels plying WellingtonNew Plymouth route. Whether this was due to a disinclination (Thomas thought she reciprocated his feelings, although he admitted to a bias ‘for lovers will argue

favourably’), or whether it was because Thomas was not considered an eligible partner is not clear. Neither Thomas nor Mary were well off. Thomas later wrote of his ‘almost hopeless love, my fearful and desponding mention of you to your brother and your brother’s wise discouragement of my suit’. ls His position was volatile. In July 1846, he wrote to his patron in London that, while he was at present ‘lodging in the house of a very respectable tradesman on the banks of the Huotoki [Huatoki Stream] and opposite to the store I rent’, a store that had the capacity to contain 150 tons of goods, he expected soon to be able to remit in advance of shipments. 14 Not

only was he ordering goods from London, but he also chartered a schooner on a regular basis to ship goods from Wellington to the New Plymouth market. By the end of the year, when the colony’s economy was in a depressed state and business languid, Thomas was less sanguine. He fully expected to be reliant on Sir Henry’s assistance for a few years. ‘I cannot without your assistance compete with men much richer than myself.’ 20 He had also failed to obtain a permanent government position and wrote that he had Tong since abandoned any occupation but my legitimate one of trade’. 21

It also appears, from later correspondence, that some of Mary’s friends did not consider Thomas a particularly eligible party. There was a degree of hostility between Thomas and Mrs Webster and Miss Brown in particular. ‘The insults they heaped upon me have been described by Watt [a friend of Thomas’s] and were such as I never expected from a family to whom I have been ever kind and from whom I never expected anything but this unkindness. They ... insinuated that I had been supported by their charity when I was poor. ’ 22 The altercation between Mary ’ s friend and his was the cause of their first disagreement; he signed his name in full and wrote ‘ how true it is Mary that “the cause of true love never does run smooth” ’. When Mary did accept the proposal - and Thomas did not receive notice of that until he had returned to New Plymouth six weeks later-her acceptance appears measured. With regards her ‘note’ Thomas wrote: ‘I will carefully attend to your remarks and consult with you when I see you tomorrow evening.’ 23

Because of the nature of the surviving correspondence, the image we have of Mary is almost entirely from her husband’s viewpoint. The only two letters from Mary date from 1861, fourteen years after their marriage. It is therefore impossible to judge the extent to which Thomas’s philosophy regarding marital relationships translated into the day to day experience of living together. What is apparent, however, is that Thomas did not subscribe to the notion that marriage was a partnership of unequals. 24 Rather he drew on the ideas of those who challenged contemporary orthodoxies. In 1825, William Thompson attacked the manner in which men dominated the marriage contract, calling it an audacious falsehood. ‘Men enacted, that is to say willed the terms; let women like them or not; man to be the owner, master and ruler of everything, even to the minutest action’. 23 Whether or not Thomas King had read Thompson or British feminist writers who also publicly criticised the marriage contract is unclear, but he pointedly rejected the traditional terminology. He regarded marriage as a mutual agreement for mutual benefit:

I shall have frequent necessity to rely on your advice and assistance and it is the knowledge that I may do 50... that attracts me so strongly to you. I feel that more than one half of the miseries of this world arise from the servile debasement of one’s own mind to the dictation of others... I wish to impress this feeling upon you because I am very anxious my love that we should be happy and that we should respect and be respected by the

world around us and that can be gained only by first respecting ourselves and by satisfying our selves that we act justly and from correct principles ... I think Mary, in a household, a husband should always consider that his wife is equal to himself. I hate the term Lord and Master which should be banished from all well regulated minds, because when love exists no mastery can be felt. In this world we see that a weak minded man is ever governed by his wife and a weak minded woman by her husband, but when the minds are equal, harmony and peace should ensure... I look forward to the day when after the business of the day, I can fly to my Mary’s arms and in her cheerful and rationale discourse improve and cultivate my mind and forget the troubles which had annoyed me in the day. 26

For Thomas, to be single was to be alone. His financial situation forced him into a reasonably solitary existence. He wrote of having few intimate acquaintances and of rarely leaving his house. 27 He was also the only one of his family to emigrate. The picture the letters from King’s mother paint, in the first two years of his settlement, was of a man who was lonely, ‘ you must cheer yourself up as well you can’, who was in need of a wife ‘it would make you very happy ... I think you have no friend to sympathise with’ and who in fact was disappointed in the colony and considering returning to England, to the delight of his family. 28 The alleviation of loneliness was a powerful factor in his decision to marry. He wrote of being ‘heartily tired of a single life and find the evenings pass gloomily in the sombre wainscoted room in which I am sitting’. 29 Interestingly, he also considered that the state of marriage changed him and made his separation from England more complete. Of his marriage to Mary Chilman, he wrote, ‘I am now for the first time truly a New Zealand settler’. 30

Separation was an integral part of many colonial relationships. Thomas and Mary experienced the trauma of ‘severance’ only three times in their long marriage, although each was of some months duration. The correspondence of their first parting in particular, when Thomas was elected to represent Taranaki at the first General Assembly in Auckland in 1854, is notable for the frank language with which Thomas described his feelings for his wife of nine years, a wife who was three years older than him and whom he loved passionately. When he first left New Plymouth, a decision that Mary did not agree with, Thomas decided to write to his wife every day, ‘ not to keep my remembrances fresh, for that requires no stimulant, but I want to communicate anything that might interest you and to tell you from day to day whether I pass my time agreeably or otherwise’. 31 The result is a series of letter/ diaries, which provide detail of one who was considering political life as a means of employment, which track both his aspirations and his disappointments. Each letter is long, covering the period between ship visits, and were written more or less in a vacuum. The vagaries of communication and Mary’s lack of time in which to write, meant that he would write for weeks, without hearing from her or knowing her

circumstances. The letters chronicle his growing disillusionment with the world of politics, his homesickness particularly for his wife, but also for his children, and his despondency at the problems imposed by the distance, by his inability to return to his home, to talk over matters by their ‘own quiet fireside’. 32

The move to Auckland did not begin auspiciously. ‘I have got a horrid, bilious headache -in fact I have not been well since I left. ’ 33 It was initially, however, a place of wonder. His letters are a curious mix of sentiment and objectivity and served many functions. They informed her of what he was doing; he meticulously stated the number of hours he sat in the House or in committee, and who he had talked to and breakfasted with. This was both to inform and placate, for Mary clearly had not wanted her husband to go, a fact that Thomas acknowledged. To be busy, when Mary was busy and alone, was therefore important. Thomas King decided to enter the

world of politics for a variety of reasons. He considered it his duty to his country and his province to help establish a new form of government, to move New Zealand away from the ‘personal despotism’ of the Crown Colony Government to ‘responsible government’. 34 Furthermore, for a man interested in the political developments of his time, it was a unique experience. ‘By dint of listening, I am certainly getting a tolerably intimate knowledge of New Zealand politics and shall learn more in the present session than a life time of reading could give.’ 35 It was also an opportunity to mix with men who were considerably wealthier; something of a mixed blessing. On the one hand this could provide an opportunity to learn something to his advantage; on the other, living cheaply, expending as little as possible, was vital.

The letters informed Mary of the differences between Taranaki and Auckland. A keen botanist, Thomas wrote of the gardens he had seen, of the gravel walks bordered by Spanish Oaks at Government House or the purple figs he ate at Carleton’s garden. 36 He remarked on the difference in climate, which he found humid and not as agreeable as Taranaki, and the difference in situation. In particular the farms and buildings aroused his interest. ‘The villages are very pretty. I passed through one of them which I dare say is a type of the others. They consist of double and single cottages with an acre of land attached to each which is generally well fenced and tended. The whole country is beautifully divided into small paddocks generally with scoria walls and the number of villas dispersed around is very great.’ 37 As well as describing the different farming techniques, Thomas also wrote of prices of goods, of how much flour or cheese was selling for, things that clearly concerned her as much as him. Mary was to act as intermediary; to pass information on to her brother, as to the best time to send his butter to the Auckland market, as well as keep an eye on the man employed to look after the business and the farm.

Auckland society was less interesting. Partly because of his financial circumstances and partly from inclination, Thomas did not socialise a lot, although when he was invited to dinner, he described the room and meal to his wife. While he did not particularly enjoy the social world of the Auckland elite - he had to buy a hat but wrote that he did not think he would use it - he clearly did enjoy the frequent conversations he had with men like Edward Gibbon Wakefield. 36 Despite this, his correspondence reveals a growing disenchantment with the political world. At the beginning he referred to the ‘honest devotion of the members to their country’. 39 and of the ‘high tone of feeling which presides among the higher classes of this country’. Two and a half months later, he was ‘exceedingly’ annoyed with the business of the House, at the want of consent, and wrote of the ‘vile politics’ which had separated him from his wife. 40 ‘Polly, husband and wife should never be apart and we will not be severed again. My Polly is wiser than her Tom and he will pay more heed to her wisdom in future.’ 41

The letters Thomas King wrote to his wife Mary provide a view of Auckland politics, trade and society. They also provide a window into the intimate world of this

couple. Thomas wrote unreservedly because the letters were for her eyes only. He wrote phrases which he described as ‘warm’, designed to bring a blush to Mary’s cheek, in the expectation that she delighted to receive such correspondence. ‘Will it not be joy my love to resume that sweet dalliance which we have so often had together?’ 42 His concern was not that she would want to receive his praise, but that she would consider him ‘a silly little man, who employed his time in writing nonsense’. 42 Writing to Mary was, for Thomas, a means of coping with loneliness. Increasingly he found the separation from his wife and children, the lack of personal comfort and the wrangling of politics, unpleasant. He looked forward to a time when

my Polly’s lips will soon be pressed to mine and I shall revel in her countless charms. I shall feel almost crazy for love when I can inhale your fragrant breath again for I shall come back starved for want of kisses and shall have to return [not] to a blushing coy maid, but to a ripe joyous woman, one who will return my kisses with ardour and respond with warmth to my embraces ... I fancy now I can see your gentle eyes beaming with affection and beckoning your fond husband to your soft embraces. I can see the rich blood mantling into your rosy cheeks and your lips becoming ruddier and fuller as your Tom approaches. 1 feel your soft arms encircling me- taste your luscious breath and dissolve in all the ecstasy of love. 44

What Thomas thought of his marriage is clear, but what of Mary? To what extent do the letters indicate the degree of reciprocity by her? While there are no surviving letters from Mary from this period, there are two letters written when Mary and their three children were sent to Nelson in 1860, during the Taranaki land wars. Mary was not happy to leave her home. She had to find accommodation for her family and deal with all the problems that sick children could create. The two letters are very different in style. The first is calm, although despondent. It details how the children were, the problems their elder daughter Polly had with her knee, the illness of little Freddy. Her main concern was finding a suitable house and obtaining sufficient funds. She listed the goods that Thomas should bring with him when he visits; the looking glass for Polly, the crystal. 45 The second letter was written after Mary has learnt that Thomas will be unable to visit Nelson. ‘lt is so wretched going on this way. It is now going four months since we saw each other. I would rather endure poverty than comparative luxury and be apart.’ 46 For Mary, the separation was an ordeal. The inability to ‘chat’ over the family, the responsibility of looking after the children, coupled with the knowledge that their ‘nice’ house had been destroyed and fears that they would have to start again, were sources of grief. Their separation was, she wrote, vile. ‘Do dear Tom, tell me when you think we shall be united.’

The letters and records of Thomas and Mary King provide an opportunity to broaden our conception of what nineteenth-century men and women thought of each

other. They indicate a companionate marriage, in which equality of mind was important, to at least one party. Equality of mind did not necessarily mean that Thomas expected Mary to cross the boundaries between public and private, no matter how fluid they may have been. While she negotiated the lease of a house while he was in Auckland, and while he discussed prices and markets with her, encouraging her to make decisions without reference to him, nevertheless, the actual purchasing and even the disbursement of goods he suggested she leave until his return. They were part of his world. Similarly although he often expressed his wish to be at home, to provide help and support, that did not necessarily mean he would be involved in the household chores. He referred to the ‘quiet evenings when my darling was by and though I might be absorbed in some pleasant b00k... she was by my side and working with her patient industry’. 47 Rather for him, equality meant consultation, a partnership, rather than domination.

I do not consider my wife a toy, something to be cajoled and flattered and kept in ignorance. I wish her to have as much authority as myself and it has happened darling, that our feelings have not jarred and that we have not struggled for mastery. 48 This article does not pretend to provide a representative view of what nineteenthcentury men felt about their families or their wives, but it does indicate the complexity of this subject and places in the public domain one relationship that was not characterised by a sense of subservience. ‘His life and his wife have made him dry’? Apparently not.

Turnbull Library Record 30 (1997), 25-36

References 1 The author, during her tenure as the National Library Fellow for 1997, is researching and writing a book based on the love letters written by Thomas King to his wife Mary between 1841 and 1880. Thomas King was a prominent early settler in New Plymouth, at various times a bank manager, Member of the House of Representatives and Provincial Treasurer, as well as holding positions in local government. One of his sons, Frederic Truby King, later achieved prominence as founder of the Plunket Society. This article is work in progress and focuses on the early phase of Thomas and Mary’s relationship. 2 Richmond to C.W. Richmond, 21 June 1856, cited in Guy Scholefield (ed.), The Richmond - Atkinson Papers, Government Printer, Wellington, 1960, vol.l, p. 232. 3 Ibid. 4 Frances Porter, Born to New Zealand: A Biography of Jane Maria Atkinson, Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 1990, p. 135. 5 Ibid., p. 77. Merton was the New Plymouth farm of the Richmond/Atkinson group. 6 Ibid., p. 52. 7 Frances Porter & Charlotte Macdonald (eds.), My Hand Will Write What My Heart Dictates: The Unsettled Lives of Women in Nineteenth Century New Zealand as Revealed to Sisters, Family and Friends, Auckland University Press/Bridget Williams Books, Auckland, 1996, p. 146.

8 Thomas King to Mary King, 13 August 1854, King Family Papers, MS-Papers-5641-02. 9 Leonora Davidoff & Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Classes 1780-1850 , Hutchinson, London, 1987; Michael Roper & John Tosh (eds.), Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800, Routledge, London, 1991; A. James Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship; Conflict in Nineteenth Century Married Life, Routledge, London, 1992; Porter & Macdonald (eds.), My Hand Will Write What My Heart Dictates', Porter, Born to New Zealand. 10 Jane Lewis cited in Roper & Tosh, Manful Assertions, p.B. 11 John Tosh, ‘Domesticity and manliness in the Victorian middle classes: the family of Edward White Benson’, in Roper & Tosh (eds.), Manful Assertions, p. 48. 12 Raewyn Dalziel, ‘Making us one: courtship and marriage in colonial New Zealand’, Turnbull Library Record, v 01.19, no.l, (May 1986), pp. 7-26. 13 Cited in Tosh, ‘Domesticity and Manliness’ in Roper & Tosh (eds.), Manful Assertions, p. 58. 14 Porter, Born in New Zealand, p. 56. 15 Ibid., p. 72. 16 Thomas King to Mary Chilman, 28 March 1846, MS-Papers-5641-01. 17 Ibid., undated letter, MS-Papers-1004-01. 18 Thomas King to Mary King, 12 June 1854, MS-Papers-5641-02. 19 Thomas King to Sir H. Richardson, 25 July 1846, MSX-4345. 20 Ibid., undated, MSX-4345. 21 Ibid., 25 July 1846. 22 Thomas King to Mary Chilman, 13 July 1846, MS-Papers-5641-01. Emphasis in original. 23 Ibid., undated letter. 24 Porter & Macdonald, My Hand Will Write What My Heart Dictates, p. 257. 25 William Thompson cited in John R. Gillis, For Better, for Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present, Oxford University Press, New York, 1985, p. 224.

26 Thomas King to Mary Chilman, undated, MS-Papers-1004-01. 27 Thomas King to Sir Henry Richardson, 25 November 1846, MSX-4345. 28 Mrs King to Thomas King, 21 March 1842, MS-Papers-5641-08. 29 Thomas King to Sir Henry Richardson, 3 October 1846, MSX-4345. 30 Ibid., 25 November 1846. 31 Thomas King to Mary King, 28 May 1854, MS-Papers-5641-02. 32 Ibid., 15 June 1854, MS-Papers-5641-02. 33 Ibid., 26 May 1854. 34 A.H. McLintock, Crown Colony Government in New Zealand , Government Printer, Wellington, 1958, p. 377. 35 Thomas King to Mary King, 8 June 1854, MS-Papers-5641-02. 36 Ibid., 31 May 1854. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 2 June 1854. 40 Ibid., 13 August 1854. 41 Ibid., 21 July 1854. 42 Ibid., 4 August 1854 43 Ibid., 10 August 1854. 44 Ibid 45 Ibid., 22 March 1861, MS-Papers-5641-07. 46 Mary to Thomas, 6 April 1861, MS-Papers-5641-07, 47 Thomas to Mary, 22 June 1854, MS-Papers-5641-02. 48 Ibid., 21 July 1854.