Settlers in depression : a history of Hamilton, New Zealand, 1875-1894 / by H.C.M. Norris.
This is the story of a small New Zealand town over a period of twenty years. The story ends nearly seventy years ago. Though some of the events are within the memory of those still living, it seems indeed a remote age to the nineteen-sixties. At the beginning of the period there was no railway and s...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Auckland [N.Z.] :
Paul's Book Arcade,
1964.
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| Summary: | This is the story of a small New Zealand town over a period of twenty years. The story ends nearly seventy years ago. Though some of the events are within the memory of those still living, it seems indeed a remote age to the nineteen-sixties. At the beginning of the period there was no railway and scarcely any roads. The few roads were mud tracks with gorse towering above them. All goods came by river-steamer, and a coach, with relays of horses at wayside pubs, carried travellers. The military settlers of 1864 (thirteen hundred odd including men, women, and children) shrank at one time to 666. Those who had enough money to go away mostly went. The fifty-acre military allotments sometimes provided a resourceful family with food. Not one was enough in those days to provide a living. But some few, coming later and with a little capital, managed to presist, mostly as sheep farmers. The period shows the first attempts to start a dairy industry, and the persistence of a few enquiring minds who felt that somehow the proper way of getting the best out of Waikato land had still to be found. Gradually roads and bridges were made and life improved a little for the inhabitants towards the end of the period. But it was a period of poverty in which parents were able to offer their children often an education inferior to their own, and afterwards very few prospects of a career. Here is also the story of the Waikato Maoris mostly in exile behind the confiscation line. It tells the story of gradually improving race relations, the occasional visits of the King Maoris to the village of Alexandra (Pirongia) just over the border and finally the ceremonial laying down of arms by the Maori King Tawhaio in 1881 when he said "it means peace". It was a day of rejoicing at Pirongia ending with a touch of the absurd when Tawhaio was introduced to the telephone and heard the Postmaster at Hamilton greet him by singing a song over the wire. Such junketings did not of course mean the passing of Maori grievances. Maroi resentment at the confiscation of the whole Waikato valley not unnatrually continued - indeed still continues. Mr. Norris has told in detail the story of Hamilton and brought to life the impoverished community of eighty years ago, the towns people's efforts at tree planting, at running a hospital an agricultural show and a library. The town's first football team in the eighties was able to take Auckland on, and though defeated gave the big city a good game. Clearly life was hard, but also there was some resilience. It was a small community in which ankruptcies were common but which, when there was need (as there was when a very worrthy citizen died leaving a widow and young children) could raise the modern equivalent of a thousand pounds. |
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| Physical Description: | 246 pages, 4 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations, portraits, map ; 22 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |