Background to NOWHERE

Cue (NZERS), Issue 15, 15 January 1945, Page 4

Background to NOWHERE

QI AMU EL Butler, author and artist, kJ is one of the more interesting ■ characters connected with early New Zealand. Certainly he had no effect upon the political development of the country; his fame is based on what he wrote afterhe had returned to England and not upon his experiences in Canterbury. He came to New . Zealand with the inflexible purpose of making, money; he made the money he required in the short space of five years and he departed. Nevertheless he. is not unimportant from our point of view for he left some excellent descriptions of life in the back country in the early ’6o's, and in his search for land, he was responsible for some of the earlier exploration in the Southern Alps.

Born in 1835, he was educated at an English public school and at Cambridge University. * His father, who was a Bishop, intended him for the Church, but he developed doubts and after a dispute with his father left for New Zealand on October 14, 1859, in the "Roman Emperor" and arrived at Lyttelton on January 27, iB6O, after a voyage which sounds uncomfortable enough but was probably nothing unusual in those days. He had his first meal ashore at the "Mitre” where he records that he was "much grieved to find beer, sixpence 1 a glass ” After a look around Christchurch (and it is interesting to note that it reminded him of the plains of Lombardy') he " set off in search of a suitable, run. At this stage 'the bulk of. the land on the plains and the foothills had been taken up, and the ambitious were forced to penetrate deeper into the main ranges in their quest for suitable sheep

country. He tried first the Rakaia without luck and then the Waimakariri where he was no more successful, though he came within an ace of crossing Arthur’s Pass, being deterred only by the fact that there was no one to hold . his horse. He was much impressed by the scenery but the place continued to have drawbacks from his point of view. He says: "How one would like to come occasionally across some little auberge (hotel) with its vin ordinaire; (plonk) and refreshing fruit." He then explored the Rangitata, and it was in the Rangitata back-country that he finally settled on the station still known as Mesopotamia, the name he gave itBefore he finally decided, he did also try the headwaters of the Hurunui. Much can be learned about the difficulties and hardships of the early settlers from his book "A First Year in the Canterbury Settlement" — how they struggled for two hours through the, snow to reach the " grog, only to return in error with the vinegar, an so on. But it is not by this book that he is best known, but by another w 1$ can lay claim at least partially to a New Zealand background. Wrltt and published after his ret y™ England in 1864, "Erewhon ( _ here” reversed) was an account 0

imaginary country on the western side of the Southern Alps. The imaginary country, it must be said, bears no relation to the West Coast as we know it, but the earlier chapters of the book give an account of the Southern Alps which is by no means ■ the worst which has been published. ’’Erewhon” itself makes good reading and is well worth a browse through especially for the New Zealander. The story is an attack by Butler on what he considered to be the abuses and absurdities of his own age. Butler’s career after leaving New Zealand is of interest. He went to live at Cliffords Inn in London for the rest of his life. The money which he made in New Zealand he promptly lost, for he was by no means the keen business man that he liked to suppose. Fortunately, on his father’s death, he came into a fortune, which, together with what he made by writing, enabled him to survive. His writings, which were many, were not, with the exception of ” Erewhon,” successful during his life-time and it was not until'after his death that the value of his work became recognised. He was closely associated with Charles Darwin, principal proponent of the

Theory of Evolution, and produced some notes on this subject printed originally in the Christchurch " Press." He did not entirely agree with Darwin and propounded a theory of his own, reintroducing in his opinion 'some idea of purpose into the development of the Universe. -

He concerned himself also with the Classics for he was a man of wide interests, and he .was a keen lover of the mountains. He spent many holidays in Northern Italy among the Italian Alps, and accounts of these he committed to writing in more than one book.

Both as a philosopher and as a writer; it seems likely that his work will survive. He tried his hand as a painter and as a poet. Although one of his pictures hangs in the Tate Gallery, his painting has no great merit, but his short poem "Psalm of Montreal" is to be found in many anthologies of verse. He died in 1902.

While not a New Zealander, either by birth or prolonged residence, as an early settler and as a recorder of New Zealand conditions in iB6O, he claims our attention even though his significance for the future is not connected with his brief residence with us.