Hanson-Allen Family

George Frederic Allen's Reminiscences

Prepared for a meeting of St Andrews Kilwinning, but not used.

Notes: This article is undated, but pre-dates G.F.A.'s departure from the Wanganui area in the early 1900s. It is copied in this instance from an imperfect  typed sheet (complete with holes punched through a couple of words), which in turn is copied from G.F.Allen's original pencilled notes presently held in the Wanganui Museum. 

The article, which excludes the author's name, is clearly in G.F.A.'s handwriting. It belonged to his son Ralph Allen, and was conveyed to the museum by Trevor Hoskings, formerly Ralph's neighbour in Palmerston North.  It is typed almost exactly, having been broken into somewhat smaller paragraphs than the original for this mode of presentation. Occasionally obvious errors in the typed version have been corrected. Sometimes commas have come or gone, while rarely a word has been 'corrected' or an underlining of a word has been dropped - the original having been prepared as speech notes. 

As the typed version may not have been perfect in the first place, cautious researchers should either quote this web-based version as their source, or refer to the original at Whanganui Museum. Comments in bold type are mine. The spelling "Whanganui" is most certainly G.F.A.'s, and the original may prove to have a few more example's of "Whanganui" (the correct spelling) instead of "Wanganui" (the 'modified' spelling). The only likely museum reference shown is Historical Record Vol. 14, No. 1, May 1983, p. 17-19. - Val Burr (2/1/2001)

I arrived in Auckland by the good ship Egmont on August 7, 1860; and soon after then, went to the Great Barrier Island 45 miles northeast off Auckland where I worked hard for about 18 months, spent £145 on my work, and came back to Auckland, owing £20, and having £5 in the Bank. I got employment as assistant in the Auckland Church of England Grammar School for a few months, when an opening occurred by which I was able to return to my own profession as an architect and surveyor.

In conjunction with a Mr James Orme Barnard I gained a premium of £20 in a competition against 5 other architects, for a design for the first St. Matthew's Church, a building which is now as sound as ever, being built of Kauri, and is now used as the Parish Hall.

Soon after this Mr Barnard and I were offered by the Premier, Mr William Fox, appointments in the Province of Wellington as District Surveyors. We had worked 16 hours a day and had earned, in the six months of our partnership £350, and we were loath to leave Auckland. But the certain salary of £300 each decided us to accept. In the winter of 1862 my partner, Mr Jas. Orme Barnard and I were appointed District Surveyors and we came to Wellington, where I joined the Pacific Lodge of Freemasons, being introduced by Bro. Jonas Woodward, Provincial Secretary. In October 1862, Mr Barnard was sent to the Wairarapa and I was sent to Whanganui "for the summer months" - and I have been here practically ever since.

I came up from Wellington on the dear old Stormbird, then rigged as a topsail schooner, as handsome as any yacht, indeed she was one, having been built for the King of Sweden. (She was the sister to the Wongawonga [= 'the pigeon'] and one of the two was supposed to come to Wanganui from Port Nicholson (Wellington Harbour) every month to bring the English mail.) The Stormbird, on that occasion of my travelling by her, after getting a quarter-mile away from the Wellington jetty, suddenly turned round, and made back to it. As we came alongside a man through an overcoat on board. This was the property of Mr Barnabas Rhodes - commonly spoken of as 'Barney Rhodes' - and, to oblige that magnate the S.S. 'S' had returned.

We left the jetty again at about 5 p.m. and were alongside the old commercial Wharf, opposite Wilson St. about 8 the next morning. Early as it was, all Whanganui were there, for the arrival of the mail-steamer was THE event of the month.

I made straight for the old Commercial Hotel, then run by Mr George Howe, which was immediately opposite the wharf. This was afterwards called the Ship Hotel. Adjoining the hotel was a little theatre in which a performance was given the same night by a company which came up with me from Wellington. At ten o'clock, I went to the Survey Office, and reported myself to Mr David Porter, the District Engineer in Charge.

Mr Porter was an excellent specimen of an English gentleman. During the three years and three months of my, almost daily, association with him, we never had a cross word. He was Captain of the Victoria Company of Volunteer Riflemen, of which Mr Jas. Davidson was the Lieutenant, and John Peake the Ensign. Very soon after my arrival I joined this company and continued in it for about four years when all Volunteer companies were dissolved, and all the men put into the Militia.

All the business in Wanganui was, in those days, concentrated in Taupo Quay, in the lower end of Victoria Avenue from Maria Place to the river, and in Ridgway Street between St. Hill Street and Wicksteed Place. The only piece of formed and gravelled road was in Victoria Avenue, from the Rutland Hotel to London Street. All the other streets were in their native state of pumice or sand or swamp. Mr Parkes (?) when running the centre-line of the Avenue, got bogged. His men got him out but his long boots are there to this day.

There was not a house on the riverbank further up than the old hospital (where the present baths building stands) up to about the place where the Aramoho Tea Gardens now are, where Mr Murray had a farm. Hence up-river, there were only eleven houses occupied by Messrs David Stark Low, Mrs Gibson, Mr Henry Claylands Feild, Mr John Walker, the Brothers Craske, the sisters Jones, 'Old Small,' Mr Meredith, Major Cooper, Captain Smith, and Mr Charles Smith.

On the left bank of the river were the Putiki Mission House, Mr Montgomerie's dwelling and the Red Lion Hotel. The house of Major Durie, Resident Magistrate, stood back from the riverbank, up the Purua Stream, and so did Major Nixon's, up the Mataogaonga Stream. Half a mile above the Kaimatira karaka grove was M...allie's (?) cottage and, on the Kukuta Flat were the abodes of Messrs Fox, Stephen Henson and David Atkinson. The last pakeha abode was that of Mr Caines, a mile above the Upokongaro Stream.

On Taupo Quay, beginning at the lower end was a house, occupied by Mr Henry Ireson Jones, which had bullet holes in it fired by the Maoris before the Battle of St. John's Wood. On the up-river corner of Wilson St. was the Commercial Hotel and Theatre, and then one or two cottages. The Custom house and Post Office stood on the up-river side of St. Hill Street. Next to it was Mr H.I. Jones book and stationery shop which had a corner window for seeds - Mr Jones being always a notable gardener.

Then came the abode and shop of Mr William Thos. Owen, Chemist & Druggist, and the extensive premises of Messrs Taylor and Watt. The senior members of this firm were: Mr Thos. Ballardie Taylor, generally known as 'Skipper Taylor' to distinguish him from the Rev. Richard Taylor commonly known as 'Missionary Taylor' and from Mr J.O. Taylor of the Wanganui Chronicle, usually known as 'Editor Taylor.' The junior member was Mr William Hogg Watt, generally spoken of as 'Willie Watt.'

T & W's buildings stood on three sides of a yard, opening onto Taupo Quay. As you entered from the Quay, the offices were on the left, the retail store on the right and the wholesale store at the back. In the offices would be found Messrs Edward Lewis, Findlater, Scott and Mr Edward Broughton, variously called 'The Duke,' and 'God's Head & Shoulders.' In the retail-store Messrs Marton and Tommy Trice, and in the wholesale store Mr Signal and Timothy Moon the carter. Taylor & Watt did a large business and two-thirds of the settlers in the Wanganui, Turakina, and Rangitikei Districts were largely financed by T & W.

Messrs Taylor & Watt owned: "The Fast and Favourite Schooner, Tyne, Coppered and Copper-fastened. A Regular Trader Between Wanganui & Wellington."

For T & W, afterwards was built by Messrs Robert Law and Andrew Gilmour in front of Taupo Quay a fine topsail schooner called The T.B. Taylor; and, on the same day that she was launched, was also launched the two-masted steamer Tongariro, which was built in front of Taupo Quay by (?ask Mr Law).

At the down-river corner of The Avenue was Mr Thomas Water's store, whose managing man was Mr Albert Barns. The up-river corner was vacant, and so were several sections above it. Then came Davidson's Steam Packet Hotel, where now is Foster's Hotel, and a little further up-river The Prince of Wales Hotel, kept by Mr Rapley, then another vacant corner section. At the up-river corner of Taupo Quay and Wicksteed Place was a store kept by the mother of my good friends, brothers John and Jas. Stevenson, and further up, the stores of Mr Edward Howe, Mr Edwin Wood and Mr George Beaven, and the auction-room of Mr Thos. Wayth Gudgeon.

Going up the Avenue, on the left side was the hospitable house of Mr Thomas Garner, "The Father of Wanganui" and one or two other houses, most of the sections being vacant up to Ridgway Street, except the corner one occupied by Mr Wm. McNiven's store. Where the P.O. now stands, was a house occupied by Mr Thos. Hudson Davis, schoolmaster and organist of Christ Church, father of Mr Robert Taylor Davis, Mr William Davis and Mrs John Russell. On the same block was the shop and abode of Mr Andrew Tod, 'Tui-plate worker' ("Ted the Tinker"). I think there was no other shop on the left side of the Avenue except that of Mr Thos. Hughes (father of Bro. Robert Hughes) the painter.

On the right side of the Avenue was the bakery of Mr John Hurley, the Officer' Mess of the 57th Regiment, and the book shop of Mr Henry Hurley which later adjoined the general store of Mr David and Peter Bell, two young men who had lately come to Wanganui. Then came Mr Burnett's confectionery and pastry shop, to obtain access to which you had to ascend 4 or 5 wooden steps from the native pumice of the Avenue. Next was a vacant section at the Ridgway St. corner, and opposite was the old Rutland Hotel, one of the best hotels in the Province of Wellington. This was destroyed in the Rutland Fire of Xmas Day 1868.

Then came the English Church Sunday School, and the small hall in which the Temperance Society met, and the old Christ Church, which had a dumpy tower with a leaning flagstaff. This building was seated for 100 people, and when 'Missionary Taylor began to build it, the folk complained "Who does he expect to walk all that way for Church?"

At the corner of Maria Place in 1862 stood the Victoria Hotel, run by Mr Edward Hackett and opposite to it, the R.C. presbytery and St. Mary's Church, a pretty building in the French country-style, designed by Father Pezant. Further up was the Presbyterian old church, and next to it the Common School, afterwards dignified with the title of 'The Grammar School', at that time in charge of Mr Alexander McMinn, recently on the staff of the Auckland Star. I think there was no shop further up the Avenue. The Wesleyan Church stood in Ridgway Street nearly opposite Nixon Place. The four abovementioned churches were the only ones existing in Wanganui in 1862.

Soon after 1862, Taupo Quay was gravelled, but it was not formed to its present width till the time of the Railway Reclamation. From the Market-place (now Moutoa Gardens) you could go upriver only as far as Park Place, the Harrison Street drain having been cut down through the pumice, and so formed a stream which got called 'Soulby's Creek', after Mr Soulby, who formerly had a flourmill upon it. Hence going up-river, the traffic had so worn down through the pumice that a sort of canal had been formed for nearly a mile, in many parts 2 or 3 feet deep in wet weather.

One evening there had been a party at the Parsonage (then at the upriver end of Glasgow Street), and half-a-dozen young people, of whom I was one, were returning to town and, in order to avoid the canal, we were blundering and stumbling over the hundreds of holes formed by the pigs among the fern-covered flat. Miss Louisa Campbell, afterwards Mrs Richard Thos. Shield, suggested that we should make a short cut to the Avenue by a track she professed to know. She led us into a paddock thro a gap in its furze-hedged, and contrived to slip away in the darkness, leaving Albert Owen and myself, two new chums, to get out of the paddock as best we might. We wandered about for the best part of an hour before we found that the only exit was the gap by which we entered.

I came to Wanganui (as I said just now) by the old Stormbird. Another passenger by her was Mr William Fitzherbert then Commissioner of Crown Lands, and he came for the purpose of selling a lot of sections called 'Campbelltown,' which had formerly been set aside as a public reserve for Wanganui. The Wanganui folks had offended the Wellington magnates by electing Mr John Peake and Mr James Hewitt to the Provincial Council in opposition to Featherstone, Fitzherbert and Co. So they sold the Campbelltown reserve to spite Wanganui.

May I mention here that, at the last session of the Wellington (Provincial) Council's existence, it voted £5,000 for Wanganui Harbour, and £55,000 for Wellington Harbour. As Wanganui was the Port at which all the wool and other produce from the Turakina and Rangitikei Districts was shipped, thus providing about two-thirds of the revenue of Wellington Province, this manifestly was very unjust, and great were the rejoicings here when the Abolition of the Provinces Act was passed.

The first pile of the Bridge had been driven about a dozen years previously, but the Wellington Council had refused the money to pay for building it, and that pile stood solitary till it was pulled up at the time of the building of the present Bridge. So year by year up to 1871 the river had to be crossed by a ferry at the Bridge-site which employed two boats for foot-passengers and two boats for vehicles, horses, cattle and sheep. There was, during a year or two before the bridge was opened, a second ferry from the market-place to the Sugar-loaf where Hatrick's steamer works now are. I may say here, that I was the first person to ride across the Bridge, before it was officially opened.

The River-bank Road on the Town-side was formed as far as Captain Smith's opposite Upukongaro. On the left bank there was no road at all beyond Nixon's and people wanting to go to Kukuta or Upokongaro had to go thro paddocks and over the hills at Kaimatira at Kukuta. From Upokongaro they also had to go inland half-a-mile and get back to the river at Ruapatiki.

Much of the settler's up-river traffic was performed by canoe. When I went up to survey Mr Charles Smith's land at Te Korito opposite Kaiwhakaiki in 1883, I hired a canoe belonging to privates of the 57th Regiment, the old 'Die-hards', with four soldiers to row it and one to steer. This canoe, like others belonging to the 57th, was provided with outriggers formed of old oil-kegs, without which outriggers, no soldiers were allowed afloat. I paid and discharged my soldiers and in the afternoon went over to Kaiwhaiki then the abode of King Maoris.

When I and my chainman were going up the bank, we were stopped by a Maori sentry with a fixed bayonet. Angry expostulations, only caused him to call out the guard so we retired in good order. In the evening Mr Chas. Smith sent his man Martin with me over to the Pa, where after being introduced to old Te Oti Takarangi, the chief, I was rather begrudgingly allowed to be present at a meeting in the Kiritahi Whare runanga.

About two hundred men, women and children were assembled, and the place was intensely hot. Not a man of the lot wore two garments. Some were clothed only in a shirt. Others only in a pair of pants. Each speaker marched up and down the central passage, speaking at the top of his voice, and occasionally indulging in a song. The meeting got very much excited, and curses against the Paheha authorities were numerous. "Mea to Kuini!" "Kakino te Kawanatanga!!!" Tama to Kawana!!!" Martin said it was all safe, but I told him the place was all too hot for me - so he pleaded that excuse, and we made our exits as gracefully as we could. I wasn't sorry when we got over to Mr Charles Smith's side of the river.

Kaiwhaiki was, in the early '60s, the assembling place of all Southern Maoris who were desirous of enjoying a little fighting up in Taranaki. They used to arrive in small parties from Turakina, Rangitikei, and further south, and wait at Kaiwhaiki till 40 or 60 had got together, all going in for many hours drill every day and finally marching northward, thro Mr Smith's land, keeping inland from other Pakeha settlers. Their theory was that they were at war with the Taranaki 'Tribe' of Pakehas, but at peace with the Whanganui 'tribe'. And they carefully refrained from any robbery or other outrage among the Whanganui settlers. The British authorities wisely winked at this state of affairs, as it confined the war to one district - Taranaki.