Lambert Family In New Zealand, The
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Table of Contents.
1. As They Saw It.
2. A Pause For Reflection.
3. The Lambert Family in New Zealand.
4. The Family of Alfred And Sarah Lambert.
5. Appendix.
As It Was In The Beginning.
The Land Route.
The Cornwall.
The Saint-Hill Family.
Alfred Chapman Of Edenham.
Oakbourne.
Settlement At Wimbledon.
The Wimbledon School.
The Anglican Parish Of Porangahau.
Acknowledgement and Thanks.
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The story of the Lambert family in New Zealand begins with the arrival of the barque Cornwall on 13th August 1853 at Wellington. It finishes with the death of Eleanor Jane Morgans at Wimbledon on 21st of March, 1948. Alfred and Sarah Lambert were both born at Ardleigh in Essex, England. They married at the Ardleigh Parish Church. Four months later, they left Gravesend on the barque Cornwall to travel to New Zealand. The year was 1853.
Accompanying them on the trip were Henry St. Hill and Jessie St. Hill. Henry St. Hill had employed Alfred Lambert to work as a stockman on a property at Whangaehu, near Porangahau, in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. This property was to be leased from its Maori owners and negotiations were taking place. Alfred and Sarah Lambert arrived in New Zealand with one child. Seven more children would be born making a family of eight that we know about. (1)
This family would spend their entire lives living and working in the same area, never moving further away from Whangaehu than Porangahau, Wainui and Wimbledon. Like other early settlers of their era they would give birth to their children in their own homes and die in their own beds.
Their story is also the story of a European settlement from its beginning and it indicates aspects of life in those times. It is best told by those who lived at the time reporting it as they saw it, or through the family stories handed down over the years. It is only right that we consider them all before we come to conclusions of our own.
(1) Miriam McGregor in Petticoat Pioneers states that twins died young. Research has so-far failed to prove their existence but this cannot be discounted as the seven slabs of concrete at the family grave indicate seven burials where only five are known.
As they saw it.
The earliest recorded description of the area which would become home for Alfred and Sarah Lambert and their family comes from the diary of Captain James Cook on his first visit to New Zealand in 1769. On Monday, 17th October, 1769, he recorded: –
‘ …. We sailed along the coast near as far as 41 degrees South, but not meeting with any convenient harbour to anchor in, the land lying North and South, when we came abreast of a round bluff cape, we turned back being apprehensive that we should want water, if we proceeded Southward any farther. We saw several villages and in the night some fires burning upon the land. The coast appeared more barren than any we had seen before. There was clear ground and good anchorage, two or three miles from shore and from eight to twenty fathoms of water. This cape we named Cape Turnagain.’
Referring to the land between Kidnappers and Turnagain, he said,
‘… The land between them is of unequal height in some places it is lofty, next the sea with white cliffs, in others, low with sandy beaches:- the face of the country is not so well clothed with wood as it is about Hawkes’ Bay but looks more like our high downs in England:- it is, however, well inhabited, for as we stood, along the shore we saw several villages, not only in the valleys but on the tops and sides of the hills, and smoke in other places.’
It is evident from Cook’s description that the native population at that time was very large. A jutting shoulder rising sheer from the coastline got its name, Blackhead, from the fact that it was black with Maoris who had assembled to view the strange craft.
Cook visited New Zealand five times during his three voyages around the world and he named many places including Hawkes’ Bay, Blackhead, Cape Turnagain and Castlepoint.
An old local legend concerns the fact that Cook had a tooth extracted as the Endeavour sailed off Whangaehu and that as the surgeon held it up he remarked upon the similarity of the long ragged roots to the intriguing land-forms clearly visible on the shore … And so they got their names Cook’s Tooth, or The Teeth, names still used.
It was to this area that Alfred and Sarah Lambert came with their child, Alfred Ocean, in 1854, to live at the place they called The Kowhi, or Kowai at Whangaehu.
The story of the coming of Alfred Lambert is told by Robert James Sidwell in figure 1.
Gladys Sarah Douglas, grandchild, re-told the story told to her:-
‘ … Mr and Mrs Lambert came from England about 1853 in the ship, Cornwall. He was in charge of 500 Merino ewes owned by Henry St. Hill of Wellington. It took three months to travel from Wellington along the sea coast as the ewes were lambing on the journey. Pack-horses carried flour, food and luggage and a saddle-horse enabled Mrs Lambert with her small infant, Ocean, to ride at intervals. They were able to procure provisions along the coast at the Maori kaiangas.
At Porangahau, the Maoris built them a whare of thatched manuka, toi-toi reeds and flax with a large fire-place made of clay. Several flax mats covered the clay floor. Mr Lambert for some years shipped corn, potatoes, onions and pigs to Wellington by small craft which used to come up the Porangahau River. He loaded one such craft with a full load of flax,
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which he thought would bring in extra money, but the vessel was wrecked along the coast and being no insurance in those days he was a heavy loser. He later bought a small block of land of 150 acres at Porangahau where he lived with his wife and family until his death.’
Sarah Lambert told her story of the early settlers as follows: –
The early pioneers of this district suffered many hardships. They had to fell and burn the bush before being able to sow the land in grass to make their homes. Often after the houses, wool-sheds, and fences were erected bush-fires spread over vast areas, sweeping all before them, so the settlers had to start again and build new homes. There were no roads or bridges, only bullock-dray tracks cut through the dense bush. Provisions were brought by pack-horses from Napier, or along the sea coast from Wellington. When able to land at Blackhead, a boat would bring goods from Napier or Wellington and take away wool. A Maori canoe was used to cross the Porangahau River. The early settlers received their mail only once or twice a year. The nearest Doctor was based at Napier and had to ride over the rough hilly country, and through muddy tracks.
More often than not, he was too late. The first houses were built from slabs, clay or manuka, with the roofs and sometimes the walls thatched with toi-toi reeds, fern or raupo laced together with flax. To own stock was not necessarily to keep them. Wild dogs, and pigs would kill the sheep and lambs and the cattle frequently became lost in the dense bush. There were no fences for boundaries. Deep ditches were dug, and banks of earth laced together with flax were also used. Medicines were made from native herbs and trees and wild honey was used to sweeten the tea. Wheat was grown and ground into flour, wild turnips grew in the bush and along the river banks. Wild pork, native birds and fish were plentiful, the native birds being caught in flax snares and the fish in flax or nets. Tea was 7 shillings a pound, matches were 5 shillings a dozen boxes and clothing was difficult to obtain. Slush lamps were used for lighting purposes by placing some clay in the bottom of a tin and filling it up with fat, in the centre of which was placed a piece of rag for a wick.
Ian Longley, a great-grandson of Sarah and Alfred Lambert re-tells a story he says he has heard many times from his mother and grandmother, Jemima Amelia Hales.
‘… The Lamberts were attempting to cross the river into what is now Porangahau. The St. Hill brothers had no land there. The Maoris deeply resented this, and determined to kill them if they did indeed make the crossing. A Maori woman, high ranking in her community had heard of the white child and having not seen one previously she decided to go to the river and see for herself. There was apparently a very tense scene and the Maoris were actually attempting to physically remove the child from Sarah Lambert when the Maori lady, Rawenia, by name, intervened. She had been so impressed by the bond existing between the Mother and child and the fact that it was breast-feeding still, and being a mother herself she understood. She ordered the Maoris to help the Lamberts to cross the river and from that day she and Sarah Lambert were friends, helping each other in times of sickness and during their confinements. They lived, one on each side of the river sharing the child.’
From Arthur William Sharland Longley, son-in-law of Jemima Amelia Hales:-
‘… And the Maoris brought him up as their own, teaching him all they knew, and he spent his life in learning.’
Another version of the same story is given as follows:-
‘… Settlers were living in fear of the coming of the Hau-Haus.
Alfred Lambert decided to take his family to a place of safety further up the coast and had left on this journey. Sarah Lambert was pregnant and they had not travelled far when she went into labour and needed the assistance of a midwife. The only one available was Rawenia, a Maori lady, who asked the Maoris to assist the Lamberts to cross the river and she assisted at the birth. It was the first time that she had assisted at a European birth and once the child had been delivered there was no way that she would be parted from it. So they compromised.
The Maoris gave the Lamberts a small piece of land to live on, on the Flats near the river and across from the Pa and promised them their protection should the Hau-Haus come.
In this way both ladies shared the child.’
Murray Raymond Herbert, Great-great-grandson of Sarah and Alfred Lambert said: –
‘True to their promise, if danger was imminent, especially at night, a Maori friend would quietly cross the river and give the warning by running a stick along the side of the Lambert home.’
Brenda Sidwell, daughter-in-law of Mary Ann Eliza Sidwell confirmed: –
‘… and the Lamberts would stack their furniture against the doors and windows, barricading them in an attempt to protect themselves, while the Maori women and children concealed themselves in the flax of the river bank.’
Henry Hokianga, Porangahau Beach, in a discussion on the coming of the Lamberts to live at Porangahau said: –
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94
Memo
Alfred Lambert. Born in Ardleigh in the country of Essex, England, and arrived in New Zealand at Wellington in the year 1853 or early in 1854, his wife Sarah Lambert, nee Fenner, also born in Ardleigh, arrived in Wellington in the year 1854 or early in 1855, with our child Alfred Ocean, and they lived at Pencarrow Head for some months. Leaving there about the 1st May 1855 with a flock of sheep and arrived in this District at the Big Stone, on the Ranges West of Whangaehu on the 24th May 1855. Mrs Lambert having rode on horse-back behind the sheep the whole distance and carried the child. They then camped at a spot called The ‘Kowhi’ near the coast southeast of Porangahau about three miles, where one child was Thomas was born 1856. They then shifted to the Mangamaire and lived on the East side of the Mangamaire Stream opposite the Hill Station where the following children were born, viz. Henry Arthur in 1857, Mary Ann Eliza in 1859, Jemima in 1860, Eleanor Jane in 1863. The family then shifted to the Porangahau Flat area where Eunice Maud was born 1863, and Maria Charlotte in the year 1865.’
Copy of the Lambert History of the arrival in N.Z. as narrated by Alfred Lambert to his son-in-law Robert James Sidwell.
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‘The Maoris really liked and respected Alfred Lambert. When he had the misfortune to lose his boat and his wealth they were sorry for him, and they gave him a small piece of land to live on.
I think you will find there were no deeds or titles involved.’
Murray Raymond Herbert also said: –
‘After his move to the Porangahau Flats Alfred Lambert spent much of his time teaching the Maoris animal husbandry and farming skills.
A disastrous flood robbed him of almost all he owned and after it was over the Maoris came, bringing a sheep, or a couple of pigs, just what ever they had to spare and they set him up again.’
Morehu Smith, Porangahau, said that of all the Maoris at present living at Porangahau, she would be most closely related to the Lamberts through her descendancy from Rawenia. The Kurus are closely related through the same descendancy.
Morehu said that the piece of land given, was to Alfred Ocean Lambert, the child and not Alfred Lambert, his father.
On his death certificate, Alfred Ocean Lambert, 23 years old was stated as being a sheep-farmer, which implies that he owned some land.
Alfred Chapman of Edenham, a property some miles north of Porangahau called at the St. Hill property at Whangaehu as he was taking a mob of 320 wethers to Petone and had strayed from the regular route used by the coastal travellers.
In his journal of 16th and 17th January, 1856 he gave an account of his meeting with Lambert and of visiting him at his home, Kowhi, where he had tea. From Lambert he got a bottle of milk, some butter and some sugar before being shown a good road to the regular track the following day.
Before he left he sketched their dwelling, a Maori style whare thatched with reeds and toi-toi with a shed type building attached and hard against this the sheep yards.
Among the family papers found at Mary’s Vale, Wimbledon, was a slip of paper carrying the following note:-
‘Halstead is the name of the town where Gosfield Hall is … my father’s place.’
The E of the signature suggests that this was written by Mary Ann Eliza Lambert.
Murray Herbert said:-
‘It is believed that Sarah Fenner was the daughter of an officer who served with Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar.’
Before Alfred and Sarah Lambert left England, their family, realising that they were unlikely to ever see them again, asked them to choose something to take, to remind them of home.
They were having difficulty in making a choice when the baby in Sarah’s arms, put his arm out of his shawl and appeared to indicate a lovely Blue Boy figurine on the mantle [mantel] piece – and so that is what they chose.’
Laurie Eva Douglas Morgans, granddaughter of Alfred and Sarah Lambert wrote: –
‘Alfred Lambert was born at Gosphord Hall, Ardleigh, and he attended Eton College. He married Sarah Fenner and had one son Ocean before they left England for New Zealand. They arrived and stayed at Pencarrow with the lighthouse-keeper. His name was either Tennant or Bennett. They trecked from Wellington through the Wairarapa to Whangaehu droving the sheep.
They settled and Grandfather managed the farm for seven years. Then they moved to the Big Stone, opposite the land where Fred Sidwell lived later, then on to Porangahau, where he bought land and built a house in 1864. Eunice Maud and Charlotte Maria were born in Porangahau.’
From the family photographs and reminiscences emerge a picture of Alfred Lambert as a tall, broad-shouldered man, prematurely grey. He was a skilled stockman, always ready to give advice if asked, or to help anyone requiring assistance. Sarah Lambert was short and sturdy, blue-eyed, with brown hair high lighting bronze tints. It is from her that some family members have inherited their auburn colouring. She was honest and forthright in all she said and was, in fact, known in her family as a bit of a Tartar in her old age.
Carolina Lambert, known as Lena, recalls that after the death of Eunice Maud Doria, her husband’s parents lived in her house on the Flats at Porangahau. The second of Alfred and Sarah Lambert’s homes was still standing on the block not far away. It was a house constructed of logs, upright and rounded on the outside, but flat on the inside.
The inside walls were papered with the newspapers of the day. Inside a huge open fire-place hung hooks and on these were the camp-oven, kettle and billy.
Everything was as they had left it in their move to the third home close to the Beach Road. Lena said that she and her husband peered through the windows somewhat fearfully, aware that this was a tapu place. Living as the Lamberts had, in such close relationship with their Maori friends, they had adopted not only their language, but their beliefs and customs.
This explains too, why the family dead lay in state in their own homes with the family maintaining the vigil.
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It explains why Eleanor Jane Morgans packed her husband’s diaries and personal possessions into a tin trunk after his death and had them buried. It also explains why her own wedding dress and personal possessions were packed into a trunk and left in a locked room at Mary’s Vale until recent times. Managers of the estate after all the family had gone were forbidden to enter that room.
However, it was a pity that not all knew that the Lambert house was a tapu place as it was vandalized in the 1930’s.
A Pause for Reflection
It is 137 years since the Lambert Family made their home in New Zealand. It is too long ago for human memory, and the oral accounts have changed in the telling and the re-telling. Human memory is often unreliable. Indeed, written accounts have changed too, in the course of the years, but we must consider all that our family has believed to be true of the past, if we are to know the lives of the Lambert family in New Zealand.
If we study the map of Essex (Figure 2) we see that Halstead is in Essex. Gosfield, is close to Halstead and it is there that Gosfield Hall is to be found. Gosfield Hall is a Tudor courtyard house much altered in the 18th Century, and added to and restored in the 19th Century by the Courtauld family. It has a Tudor panelled long gallery, ballroom and hidden room.
Ardleigh is some distance from both Halstead and Gosfield.
Closer is Great Bromley and Colchester. Colchester, where the Romans first settled in England, is
Essex County Council
Colchester Registration District
1 North Hill, Colchester CO! 1DZ
Superintendent Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages
Telephone 72926 Date 17th March, 1976
Dear Sir,
The civil recording of births, deaths and marriages did not commence until 1837. I am, therefore, unable to supply you with birth certificates of Alfred Lambert and his wife. The only records of their respective births would, presumably be found in the baptismal registers of their churches.
I have been successful in tracing the entry of the marriage of Alfred LAMBERT and Sarah FENNER which took place on 23rd December 1852 at the Parish Church of Ardleigh. If you would like a certified copy of this entry you should forward [?] the fee of £2.50p, preferably through the […] bank draft drawn on a London bank.
Yours faithfully,
Superintendent Registrar
Mr D.V. Herbert
[…], R.D. 4
Herbertville, NEW ZEALAND
Map – Essex County
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England’s oldest recorded town. It was from here that the Superintendent Registrar wrote saying that the civil recording of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England did not commence until 1837, so that he could not supply birth certificates for Alfred and Sarah Lambert, but that he had been successful in tracing the entry of marriage. The marriage of Alfred Lambert and Sarah Fenner took place on 23rd December, 1852, at the Parish Church of Ardleigh.
It is from the death certificates of both that we have established that both Sarah Fenner and Alfred Lambert were born at Ardleigh.
In a letter written by Laurie Eva Douglas Morgans she states that her Grandfather was born at Gosphord Hall in Ardleigh. She named her own home in New Plymouth, Gosphord Hall, after her marriage. She also said that Alfred Lambert was educated at Eton College, adding that it was customary in those days for a family to educate the eldest son.
To be named for his father suggests that Alfred Lambert was the eldest son. If he was educated at Eton it would indicate that the family was not entirely poor. This may give credence to yet another family story of ‘Money In Chancery.’ The teller of this story wished to remain anonymous.
This story concerns Tim Neilson, son of Anna Margaret Neilsen, formerly Lambert.
‘Tim Neilsen was a tall, thin, really nice, old man who used to tell me stories about his bush days with the bullocks and my Grandfather. Tim heard that there was money belonging to the Lamberts tied up in England and so, sometime after World War I he went to England to see if he could lay claim to it. He took his wife, Chris and their two children, Pat and David. Alfred Lambert came from Ardleigh from a house called Gossford Hall and when he went there to find out about the money he had no luck. It was either only a story or the money was held in chancery!
While in England, the boy David, died tragically when they were travelling by train. He put his head out of the window and was killed – decapitated in fact.’
This story actually has two very sad endings, as the death of the child also signalled the end of the marriage. Chris and Pat stayed to live in England while Tim, poorer in every respect, returned alone to New Zealand.
At some time there has obviously been a connection with Alfred Lambert and Halstead and Gosfield Hall in particular. Alfred Lambert born about 1820, was the son of Alfred Lambert and Mary Ann Lambert, formerly Vince. He was born at Ardleigh. His father was a farmer. He may have worked at Gosfield Hall or Halstead. He was apparently a stockman of considerable ability which was, no doubt the reason why he was engaged by Henry St. Hill to accompany him on the journey to New Zealand in 1853.
Sarah Fenner was born at Ardleigh on 8th July 1822 (2) at Slough Farm. She was the daughter of a farmer.
(From each branch of the family we have received an account of the arrival of the Lambert family in New Zealand as told by Alfred Lambert. In each case the story is much the same, but the year of arrival varies from 1852 to 1855 and there are variations in other important facts as well. This indicates that either the narrator was old when he gave the information and had forgotten dates or that those who were told did not record the information when it was given, but at a later time when it was difficult to recall accurately.
The Cornwall left Gravesend on 10th April, 1853 and set sail for New Zealand. She arrived on 13th August, 1853. Unfortunately there is no passenger list for this sailing. There is, however, a newspaper list of passengers who disembarked from the Cornwall, published in the N.Z. Spectator, on 24th August, 1853, held by Turnbull Library.
There are also advertisements asking that goods carried on the barque be cleared as quickly as possible by the owners and also lists of the goods carried. These are interesting in themselves. Among the passengers carried were Henry St. Hill, Jessie St. Hill and A Lambert. There is, however, no record of Sarah Lambert and her child as having travelled on the Cornwall. This was not unusual for those who had not paid their own passage. It is unfortunate in that there is no proof of Alfred Ocean Lambert’s birth and it can only be presumed from his second name that he was born at sea at sometime between 10th April and 13th August, 1853.
If the age of 23 years is correct on his death certificate he would have been born in England as Laurie Eva Douglas Morgan’s letter suggests. There had been nothing in the advertisements regarding cargo carried on the Cornwall that suggested that there was livestock on board and it would seem probable that the long waiting period at Pencarrow, was due to a journey being made to Australia by the men to purchase sheep, while Sarah Lambert waited their return. Jessie St. Hill was no doubt at journey’s end and staying with James Henry St. Hill, Resident Magistrate of Wellington.
(2) From Gladys Sarah Hales birthday book, 1909. The marriage certificate suggests that the date could have been 1827.
The journey from Wellington to Whangaehu is reported variously as taking from three weeks to three months. Alfred Lambert in his own account has said that they left Wellington 1st May, (1854) arriving at Whangaehu on 24th May, (1854). (3)
(3) If the journeys of Jesse Herbert, following up the coast hard on their heels, and that of Alfred Chapman doing the journey in reverse from Lambert’s Kowhi to Petone in 1856 are studied, the time is likely to have been three weeks.
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It is difficult to establish exactly when and where the incident at the river would have taken place. The land route from Wellington to Ahuriri was well used by 1854. Colenso had recorded in November, 1843 as he travelled north from Akitio:-
‘Travelling by the coast, many a weary mile, over broken rocks, we reached Porangahau, a fenced village, well situated on the banks of a small river. There were seventy inhabitants.’
Donald Gollan, Fred Tiffen, and Edward Davis had been taking large flocks of sheep up the coast from as early as 1851 and must have crossed the Porangahau River to do so.
Chapman’s sketch of the Porangahau River in 1856 shows the schooner in the river with Campbell, its owner acting as ferryman for their gear and stock. It also shows Campbell’s whare which he described as ‘now falling to pieces’ which suggests that it had been there for some time!
If we consider the second version of the involvement of Sarah Lambert and Rawenia, we realize that the losing of Alfred Lambert’s wealth and his move to Porangahau did not take place until the 1860’s as did the threat of the coming of the Hau-Haus. The births of Eunice Maud and Charlotte Maria were at Porangahau in 1863 and 1865.
We do know that the family grew up speaking:-
‘Beautiful pure Maori, the like of which is not heard today!’
This was said by the Rev. Dan Kaa, a distinguished scholar, vicar of St Michael’s and All Angels, who visited Jemima Amelia and Eleanor Jane in their old age for the sheer pleasure of speaking in Maori with them. Somewhere between both stories the truth will lie.
Perhaps the most exciting of all discoveries in the search for our Lambert family has been the Chapman Journals, detailing as they do through written description and sketch, conditions as they existed in 1856 from the Porangahau River to Cape Turnagain and Wallace’s station at Tautane. It includes the first home of the Lambert family in New Zealand, built for them by the Maoris at the Kowhi, the place they lived for three years at least and where their second child, Thomas Gersham was born.
Ashton St Hill-Warren says that he knows where the site of that house is. Some years ago when he was bulldozing in the area of the swamp he uncovered the foundation of an old dwelling and some bricks. He also says that one of their paddocks is still called The Bridle Track because it was on the route followed by the early settlers.
STOP PRESS!
As we go to print, from England has arrived: –
1. A letter from Eton College saying that they have been unable to find among their records any evidence that Alfred Lambert had been a pupil at their school.
2. The marriage certificate of Alfred and Sarah Lambert.
[Image – Marriage certificate of Alfred Lambert and Sarah Fenner, dated 23 December 1852]
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The Lambert Family In New Zealand.
It was April 10th, 1853 when the Lamberts left Gravesend in England bound for Wellington in New Zealand.
The Cornwall, a barque of five hundred and eighty tons commanded by Captain Dawson, was an immigrant ship and had previously made other trips to the colony.
Alfred Lambert, aged twenty eight years and his wife, Sarah, twenty five years were newly married.
Accompanying them on the Cornwall was Henry St. Hill, seventy years of age and retired from a lifetime of service in such places as Barbados, Grenada, Demarara [Demerara] and Trinidad.
Jessie St. Hill accompanied her father.
Henry St. Hill had engaged Alfred Lambert to accompany him on the trip as a stockman. Several of his sons in New Zealand were negotiating the lease of land at Whangaehu, near Porangahau in Hawkes Bay. They had been in New Zealand for some years. Ashton had come in 1839 and Rev H. Woodward St. Hill had come in 1840.
The youngest, Windle St. Hill, came to New Zealand with the 65th Regiment and was on the Staff of the Governor, Sir George Grey.
It was fourteen years since Edward Gibbon Wakefield had brought the first settlers to Wellington in 1840. Since then there had been many more. One wonders what the thoughts and feelings of Alfred and Sarah Lambert were as they sailed through the Heads on that August day and headed towards Petone Beach before berthing and disembarking at Lambton Quay in Wellington.
In Wellington there was a waiting period of eight and a half months and it is believed that during that time Alfred Lambert accompanied some of his St. Hill employers to Australia where they purchased five hundred merino ewes and brought them back to New Zealand for the Whangaehu property and that Sarah Lambert remained in Wellington at Pencarrow.
Living and working in the Wellington or Hutt Valley areas were many earlier arrivals, immigrants and prospective settlers, waiting for land to become available or earning the money needed to buy and stock it. Some of these people were destined to become neighbours, friends and family through marriage when all were finally settled.
Negotiations with the Maoris for the sale of land often took years to complete because of the complexities of their system of land ownership. First land made available for settlement was in the Wairarapa and Central Hawkes Bay while land at Wainui and Whangaehu did not start to become available until much later.
For those travelling north to the Wairarapa or Hawkes’ Bay there were two options – either by sea and the small coastal boat, or by the land route up the East Coast on foot, or by horse.
Those who chose to travel the land route had to pass the lighthouse at Pencarrow so that the Lamberts staying there, would meet many who passed during the waiting period.
By the time Alfred and Sarah Lambert left Wellington on the 1st May, 1854 with Ashton St. Hill and their flock of 500 merino ewes they would have learned from the coastal travellers what to expect on their journey and how best to cope with the dangers of places like Cole’s Hole and Lake Onoke and where to procure provisions on the way. It would not be an easy journey.
At Castlepoint they would arrive at the store and accommodation house of Thomas Guthrie, positioned on the beach so that all must pass it.
It was there that most travellers sought either accommodation or the liquor that helped them to forget the rigours of the journey that they had encountered so far, and give them strength and courage to continue. (4)
Here they may have met Ann Guthrie, daughter of Thomas Guthrie, who in several years would marry William Henry Hunter and live her life at Porangahau as a neighbour.
They may have met Ann Guthrie, her mother who would spend her widowhood at Porangahau and eventually die there. They would pass the remains of the old whaling station at Castlepoint and clearly but faintly outlined in the northern distance would be Cape Turnagain signalling journey’s end.
We know that the weather in the latter part of 1854 was particularly bad making a journey by sea almost impossible for months at a time. The weather during that winter month of May could have been equally bad. One wonders how they coped living and cooking for three long weeks, setting up a shelter to keep warm and dry at night.
One wonders how Sarah Lambert kept her child warm and dry while travelling. He would be a vigorous boy in the vicinity of his first birthday. He was apparently still breast fed which would perhaps account for his survival.
One wonders too, how she coped with the napkin end. That must have been a real problem when it would not have been easy to wash, dry and air clothing.
(4) Letter written by John Groves at Castlepoint in 1855. He was the brother-in-law of Thomas Guthrie.
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She must have been really relieved when the best and easiest part of the journey was reached – the beach at Wainui and the rough rock of the Wairarapa coast was left behind. Stretching out into the sea was the Pa Kuku Reef and up on the hill beyond, the Kainakunake Pa. There were few timber trees to be seen, Karaka, and the native tree fern, the thorny scrub of the sea coast, fern, rush and coarse native grass.
Along the smooth, sandy beach to the north east was Cape Turnagain close and clear in the grey, Winter chill – the sandhills formed and reformed by the winds of the Roaring Forties.
And so they would pass, down the beach to the place that Joseph Herbert was soon to come and build his village. There at Tautane, the ridge impassable to man, they would turn and follow the valley of the Wainui River and the old Maori track. They would turn again at the place yet to be named Doctor’s Gully, and soon they would arrive at journey’s end.
Alfred Lambert himself left the account of their arrival at the Big Stone on the range west of Whangaehu on 24th May and camping at the spot called Kowhi near the coast about three miles south of Porangahau.
It was here that the Maoris built their first home – walls and roof thatched with toi-toi reeds, fern and raupo and laced together with flax. It was near the swamp and close to the track used by the land travellers making their journeys between Wellington and Waipukurau or Ahuriri.
At the time of their arrival at Whangaehu the surveying of the Porangahau Block had not yet been done.
In the winter of 1855 O.W.L. Bousefield would begin surveying the Porangahau Block, an area of 130,000 acres which extended from Blackhead Point along the southern boundary of the Hapuka Block to Takapau and south-west nearly to Cape Turnagain.
It was apparently a very wet winter and because of the difficulty of flooded rivers and streams and the boggy nature of some of the area the surveying took longer than expected and was not completed until 1856. By this time not only was Ashton St. Hill at Whangaehu, but John Davis Canning was at Oakbourne, J.D. Ormond at Wallingford, and Charles Grant Crosse was at Mangamaire.
They were occupying land leased from the Maoris and waiting for the time when the Crown would purchase it from its owners.
This eventually took place in 1857, the price being paid was the equivalent of about $6000 in today’s terms.
From the St Hill family history we read: –
The eldest son, Ashton, went to New Zealand in the early days and took up large tracts of land which proved very remunerative and might have been very valuable. But he and his brothers failed to make them freehold relying on their friendly relations with the Maoris and later the Government took over all Native Lands and they became leasehold.
Much later the St. Hill family was able to purchase 1,800 acres of land from the Maoris. Their fairness in dealing with the Maoris over land matters and their treatment of them was recognised and the ban on Maori land sales was lifted for this purchase.
However, when Alfred and Sarah Lambert first came to Porangahau area Whangaehu Station was a large one of 40,000 acres leased from its many Maori owners. It was high undulating land, fern covered, which swept down to the sea in the East and included part of the Mangaorapa block in the West. It extended from Tautane to the mouth of the Porangahau River. In those early days other settlers were arriving quickly.
Joseph Herbert was at Wainui shortly after the Lamberts arrived at Whangaehu. The following year Samuel Franklin with his wife Mercy and son Robert would land at Porangahau and make their way to Wainui to live at Crispen Grove. Robert Douglas Wallace came to Tautane.
E.S. Flyger was close to St. Hill. He may have had only a small property. Many came to settle or to work in the period leading to 1860.
Alfred Lambert himself had managed to obtain some land and became a grazier on his own account, fattening sheep and cattle. In his first encounter with Alfred Chapman he was mustering sheep – both his own and St. Hills which had got mixed and he was about to draft his own out.
After the birth of Thomas Gersham in 1856 the Lamberts moved from the Kowhi to Mangamaire where they lived on the East side of the Mangamaire Stream opposite the Rise Station. Here they lived under primitive conditions too. Cooking was done outside over an open fire or in a camp oven. Water had to be carried from the stream. They milked their own cow, making their own butter and Alfred Lambert grew a good supply of vegetables. Wild turnips in their season were plentiful. These came from the seed given by Captain Cook to the Maoris at Pourere on one of his trips. The wild pigs came from the same source and had established themselves so well that with the wild dog were pests which caused the early settlers real problems.
Birds, fish, and wild honey were also easy to obtain. Other commodities, however, like matches and tea were not only difficult to procure, but were very
Page 13
expensive as well. To obtain them settlers depended entirely upon the small trading boats.
Over the years access to Whangaehu would be mainly by sea. The coastal vessels anchored well out to sea while bullock drays took wool out to meet the surf boats which came up the channel by the long jutting reef. Boats collecting wool would leave large quantities of stores expected to last many months.
Clothing was particularly difficult and had to be made and re-made. Material from clothes was used again and again in different forms often finished at last as the wick of the rush candle.
Fat, like all else was carefully saved, to be spread on bread, salt and peppered when fresh, made into soap or used in a tin with a rag wick giving the light of a candle. It was used too, as the base for a home-made ointment called Boomieang.
Sarah, out of necessity learned how to cope with sickness and how to make her own herbal remedies. Dr Hitchings at Ahuriri, who qualified in 1856 was many miles of Maori tracks away. Although Dr English came to Waipukurau in 1857 the road at that time was little better than a rough track, barely discernible in places.
It wasn’t until after 1882 when James Edward Riddell set up practice at Wainui that those living at Porangahau had the services of a Doctor who was fairly easily available. For less serious requirements the vicar, Rev. F.E.T. Simcox was often called in.
Charles Grant Crosse and his wife, Elizabeth left Wellington in the same year as the Lamberts, but they went first to Napier by boat where they stayed for some time. They then made the journey to Mangamaire where they neighboured the Lamberts who lived at first seven miles away. They were closer when the Lamberts moved to Mangamaire in 1857.
The families saw little of each other. Both ladies were busy producing and rearing their many children.
It is said that Elizabeth Crosse did not emerge from Mangamaire for ten long years and in all that time had rarely seen another European woman, although it is known that Sarah Lambert assisted at some of her confinements.
At Mangamaire Henry Arthur Lambert was born in 1857. He was the third child born to Alfred and Sarah. Mary Ann Eliza was born on 25th January, 1859. She was their first daughter. Alfred Lambert made the trip to Ahuriri himself, in March, to register the birth. He went again the following February to register Jemima Amelia born on 15th January, 1860. On both birth certificates Alfred Lambert described himself as Grazier.
After the birth of Eleanor Jane on 8th May, 1862, Alfred Lambert appointed William Rutledge, a merchant of Napier, to be his agent and inform the Registrar at Ahuriri of the birth. He now described himself as ‘Overseer. Sheep-station.’
Travellers on foot or horse calling for food or shelter at the homes of pioneer settlers often brought or carried mail as well as news of the outside world.
In an account of her early life Eleanor Jane wrote.
‘I was born at Mangamaire, at Mr Barker’s (5) about the year, 1862.’
Alfred Lambert had traded with the Maoris for some years selling them his surplus supplies of produce such as Indian corn, onions, potatoes and pigs. Trade had been so profitable that he decided to extend the business by shipping supplies to Wellington using the small craft which at that time, were able to come up the Porangahau River. Finally an error of judgement prompted by the desire for greater gain resulted in the overloading of one such craft. It was wrecked and he lost all. He was so depressed by this loss which virtually amounted to his fortune as there was no insurance in those days, that he decided to give up not only the trading, but the care of sheep as well. Fortunately he had bought 150 acres of land when the town agricultural and suburban sections were offered for sale at Napier on July 3rd, 1860 and it was there that he intended to live.
A sale of town agricultural sections situated at Blackhead and Porangahau took place in Napier on July 3, 1860.
24 out of 66 sections at Blackhead town were sold at from three pounds to 13 pounds each.
18 sections at Porangahau (Suburban area) sold for 309 pounds for approximately 612 acres, which works out at ten shillings per acre.
The Porangahau electoral roll of September, 1861, contains these names of those whose qualifications were ownership of land at Porangahau or in that district.
Canning, Davis
Colenso, William
Fannin, G.T.
Flyger, E.S.
Gill, Thomas
Herbert, Joseph
Hunter, David
Hunter, W.H.
Lamb, Thomas
Lambert, Alfred
Luff, Andrew
Ormond, J.D.
Speedy, Graham
Sutton, Fred
Trihook, T.D.
Wallace, Robert D.
Watt, James
Wright, Edward
Speedy, William
(5) Eleanor Jane used “At Mr Barkers” to indicate a particular place, the northern Whawhakanga Block of Mangamaire, 6,204 acres taken up by T.E. Cross. It was managed by his brother-in-law John Barker after 1902 until the last leases expired.
Page 14
It appears that nine of these people were land speculators living in Napier and four were property owners living at Wainui.
The township of Porangahau developed during the 1860s. Thomas Lamb had opened the first hotel on the site opposite the present garage in 1859. The Post Office had opened in the hotel on 1st July of that year and Thomas Lamb was postmaster as well as publican.
William Henry Hunter was appointed the first registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages at Porangahau from 1st July, 1863. A store was opened by John White. Emma Hirtzell opened Porangahau’s first school in 1867.
During the 1860’s a lot of money was spent on the Wallingford-Blackhead Road as wool was shipped from the reef at Blackhead Point and stores and other goods landed there. Other roads were also under construction. A jurors’ list of 70 names of people working in the Wallingford area alone gives some indication of the numbers of people coming to live and work in the area. It was no longer as lonely as when the Lamberts had first arrived there to live in 1854.
Alfred Lambert built his first house on the Flats at Porangahau on the bank near the river. It was made of mud dug from the river bank. At first all water had to be obtained from the river as tides permitted. Being tidal, at certain times of the day the water would be saltier than at others.
Across the river lived their Maori neighbours and friends. An old fig tree still grows on the site of the first home, and is still fruiting after many years.
Later a second house was built a short distance from the first. This house was built of wood and had a roof of wood tiles.
Close at hand was a fresh water spring which fed into a well, which is also still there to be seen. The paddock next to the house was named ‘The Bullock Paddock’ and is still called that.
After the move to Porangahau Flats Eunice Maud Lambert was born on 30th September, 1863. Alfred Lambert was able to register the birth in Porangahau. It must have been amongst the first births to be registered there.
Whether her father, or the Registrar, could not spell, or for reasons which will probably never be known, that was the only time the name EUNICE was used for the person subsequently named UNICA MAUD on all documents of importance – her marriage and death certificates and on her headstone.
UNICA MAUD was the name on the certificates of birth and death of her children and her husband.
Charlotte Maria was the last child known to have been born to Sarah and Alfred Lambert. She was born at Porangahau on 1st June, 1865 and registered there. All her life she would be called MARIA CHARLOTTE and that names appears on her will and her headstone.
Alfred Lambert died on 27th April, 1900. His lifetime had been spent in a century that brought great change not only to Britain and her colonies but to the whole world. He had grown up in England during an era of extreme hardship for working-class people, many of whom felt that their best chance in life lay in emigration to the Colonies.
He had been courageous enough to take his wife and their new child so far under difficult circumstances.
He had been present at the very birth of Porangahau and had witnessed forty six years of its growth and development. He had experienced success and failure – his own and that of neighbours, friends and family.
He had experienced the accidents and tragedies and the violent deaths associated with the working conditions of pioneer times. He had known the anguish of many, unable to cope with the stresses of life of extreme hardship, who had suffered death by their own hand. He had known personal tragedy.
His first born child suffered the wasting disease for which there was no cure and was the first to die. Henry Arthur, third son had died of a fever when only 28 years old, and there were the grandchildren who had died so young, the three babies of Eunice Maud, four year old Henry Arthur Sidwell and fifteen year old Margaret Florence Hales.
He had known fear too, the fear of impending attack by Hau-Haus, the fear engendered by marauding Waikato tribes and the skirmishes at Pourere [Pourerere] and the fear instilled by the supposedly friendly visit of Te Kooti and his followers which terrified both Maori and Pakeha.
He had known the happy times, too. He had been involved in the obtaining of a Vicar for Porangahau and was a member of the first vestry of the Church of St Michael’s and All Angels.
The Church was built in 1880 and it must have been a happy day when his daughter, Jemima Amelia was one of the first European girls to be married in it on 23rd May, 1881. Several months later on the 14th September, Mary Ann Eliza was also married in the church.
For these weddings Alfred Lambert rode all the way to Napier returning with two bolts of material, one for each bridge, blue to Jemima and brown for Eliza, strong, durable, sensible material, designed to be worn for years to come.
Page 15
Two other daughters would marry in the Church of St Michael’s, Eleanor Jane on 16th July, 1884, and Eunice Maud on 21st January, 1887. There were too, the christenings of the grandchildren. Aware that death was imminent in April of the year, 1900, he bade them all goodbye in turn:-
In a letter to his sister, Eleanor Jane Morgans, Mary Ann Eliza wrote: –
Monday
Dearest Nell
just a few lines to say Mother is as well as can be expected father’s gone he had such a nice funeral So sorry Evan wasn’t there heeps of people the Mouries covered him up in mats lovely ones he was so pretty said goodbye to us all Kissed Jemima For you and was sensebil to the last he dide where you left him had a cup of tea with Tom and wanted to be put to bed but we could not move him I cannot rite more today
Love to all
E Sidwell
Jemima will tell you all.
OBITUARY.
Our Porangahau Correspondent writes: –
‘A very old resident of Porangahau passed away last Friday in the person of Mr Alfred Lambert, one of New Zealand’s early colonists. Mr Lambert landed in Wellington from the ship, Cornwall in 1853, having come out in charge of sheep belonging to Mr St. Hill, (father of Rev. Canon St. Hill).
Later, accompanied by his wife and Mr Ashton St. Hill he brought a mob of sheep to the station known as Whangaehu, and for the next nine years he filled the post of manager of that run.
Since 1864 Mr Lambert has been a settler of Porangahau.
The deceased gentleman was in his 81st year and leaves a widow, six children and several grand children to mourn his loss.
His burial took place on Sunday in the presence of a large number of people, the Rev. F.E.T. Simcox conducting the service. A noticeable feature was the large attendance of Maoris, who signified their great respect for their departed friend by laying Maori mats among the wreaths on the coffin.
Sarah Lambert lived for ten years after the death of her husband. They were ten difficult years, a mixture of great joys and terrible sorrows and ones in which her own health deteriorated.
On 18th July, 1901 George Fenner Sidwell was born. Laurie Eva Douglas Morgans was born on 17th September, 1902.
In 1903 there was the tragic death of Arthur Thomas Lambert and later the birth of Gisella Margaret Lambert, the first great-grandchild.
On 15th December, 1904, Ashton St. Hill (6), employer and old friend died and was buried in the St. Hill private burial ground at Whangaehu.
(6) In 1986 the headstone for Ashton St. Hill was restored and placed at the East end of the Church of St Michael’s and All Angels at Porangahau, the Church he served so well.
Arthur Alfred Lambert was born on 19th May, 1905.
On 3rd February, 1906 Robert Alfred Sidwell suffered concussion in a fall from a horse and died two days later.
On 19th February, 1906 Mabel Fanny Lambert married Archibald Cameron at St Michael’s.
Olga Thyra Gwendolyn Morgans was born on 6th April, 1906.
Constance Jean Cameron was born on 22nd November, 1906.
In the next year Esma Irene Lambert was born on 23rd October, 1907.
Eunice Mary Sidwell married Cowper Guy Powell on the 12th December, 1908.
Minerva Annie Sidwell married Francis Joseph Herbert on the 16th January, 1909.
In July of 1909 Thomas Gersham Lambert died by his own hand.
On 23rd December, 1909 Amelia Maud Hales married Arthur William Sharland Longley at Wimbledon School.
She had chosen to be married on the anniversary of the marriage of her grandparents, Alfred and Sarah Lambert. Blind and bed-ridden Sarah Lambert was only weeks away from death. Like the rag of the wick of the rush candle she had described all was spent, and was finally gone. She joined all the men of her family. There is no obituary for Sarah Lambert.
We have little to remind us of her –
a gold wedding ring, a pair of brass candlesticks, a Blue Boy figurine, a Bible, a sideboard and three chairs, a lock of brown hair and a white geranium.
We look at the photographs and marvel at the magnitude of the effort.
We hear the creak of the sails and feel the nausea,
the hurt of the rolling stones on the beach,
the bite of the blowing sand
and the cold drag of the salty wet skirt on the thick woollen stockings.
We feel the pain of the birth in the reed thatched whare,
the loneliness and the homesickness.
We smell the smoke of the cooking fire at Mangamaire,
and we can still see where she lived on the Flats,
on the bank of the Porangahau River,
the well and the old fig tree.
And so she died – Sarah Lambert,
On 18th February, 1910.
Page 16
The Family Of Alfred and Sarah Lambert.
Alfred Ocean Alfred Ocean Lambert remained a bachelor.
Born in either 1852 or 1853
Died 14th July 1875 at Porangahau
Aged 23 years
Thomas Gersham Thomas Gersham Lambert remained a bachelor.
Born c. 1856 at Whangaehu
Died c. 25th June 1909 at Dannevirke.
Henry Arthur Henry Arthur Lambert married Anna Margaret Madson at Porangahau on 17th April 1879.
Born c. 1857 at Mangamaire.
Died 23rd May 1885 at Porangahau.
Aged 28 years
Mary Ann Eliza Mary Ann Eliza Lambert married Robert James Sidwell at Porangahau on 14th September 1881.
Born 25th January 1859 at Mangamaire.
Died 30th July 1942 at Porangahau.
Aged 83 years.
Jemima Amelia Jemima Amelia Lambert married Thomas Charles Hales at Porangahau on 23rd May 1881.
Born 15th January 1860 at Mangamaire
Died 21st March 1948 at Wimbledon
Aged 66 years
Eleanor Jane Eleanor Jane Lambert married Evan Morgans At Porangahau on 16th July 1884.
Born 8th May 1862 at Mangamaire.
Died 21st March 1948 at Wimbledon.
Aged 86 years.
Eunice Maud Eunice Maud Lambert married Victor Doria at Porangahau on 21st July 1887.
Born 30th September 1863 at Porangahau
Died 13th October 1930 at Porangahau
Aged 66 years
Charlotte Maria Charlotte Maria Lambert was engaged to Alfred Wells but never married.
Born 1st June 1865 at Porangahau
Died 17th November 1936 at Porangahau
Aged 71 years
ALFRED OCEAN LAMBERT
b. c. 1853
d. 14. 07. 1875
We know little about Alfred Ocean Lambert, first child born to Alfred and Sarah Lambert. We can only presume that he was born at sea at some time between 10th April, and 13th August, 1853 on board the barque Cornwall.
He never married. He was a sheep-farmer, so may have owned some land.
He died of the wasting disease known as tuberculosis or consumption, for which there was no cure in those days, when he was 23 years of age. He was the first of the Lambert family to die, and he is buried in the Porangahau Cemetery. Later in time his grave would be shared by his two brothers and his parents.
THOMAS GERSHAM LAMBERT
b. c. 1856
d. c. 25. 06. 1909
Thomas Gersham Lambert, second child and second son of Alfred and Sarah Lambert, was born c. 1856 at Kowhi, Whangaehu three years after his parents arrived in New Zealand to live.
We know little about his early years. On 12th October, 1878 he was admitted to the Oddfellows Lodge, Porangahau.
On 17th April, 1879 he was a witness at the wedding
Page 17
of his younger brother, Henry Arthur when he married Anna Margaret Madson.
On 23rd May, 1881, he was a witness at the marriage of his sister, Jemima Amelia to Thomas Charles Hales.
On the 14th September, 1881 he was a witness at the marriage of his sister Mary Ann Eliza to Robert James Sidwell.
He was a bullock-driver, owning his own team. In the years around 1887-1890, he lived and worked at Herbertville.
He was the informant of his father’s death in Porangahau on 27th April, 1900 giving his own address at Porangahau and his age as 44 years. On 25th May, 1903 he was working in the Porangahau River with his bullock team pulling logs. His two nephews Alfred Ocean the second and Arthur Thomas were working with him as well as several other local people. There was an accident and Arthur Thomas was killed. At the inquest held on the body at the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel, Porangahau, Thomas Lambert gave the following evidence:-
(It is exactly as written by George Hunter Esq., J.P. Acting Coroner)
Information of Witnesses.
‘Thomas Lambert, settler, Porangahau, being sworn saith that –
I remember yesterday morning the 25th inst. I was working bullocks on the river bed with Arthur Lambert, the deceased. William Mason and Alf. Lambert where there too. I was pulling out logs. I had a wire rope fastened to the log. The rope was fastened to the end of the draypole. I asked Arthur to hold the end of the wire rope. I moved the bullocks and shifted the log, Arthur was in the dray. After going some distance I turned the bullocks. As I was going to turn the bullocks I said to Arthur, I asked him to get out of the dray as it might upset. I said to him, let the rope go. It (he) let it go and I came back close to the log with the bullocks. I came back with the bullocks straight opposite the log. I asked him to fix the rope on the pole same as I had it before after fixing the rope he said it is alright Uncle I started the bullocks. They were coming too close to me and I when towards the leaders-when I looked back I saw him and the dray going over I stopped the bullocks and ran to the dray where he was under I tried to lift it myself Mr Roach was the first to come. He was laying face down wards in the shallow water the guard iron was across his shoulders and a portion of the wheel. I do not think the wheel touched him.
The statement was signed by Thomas Lambert and George Hunter. Thomas Lambert may have given up bullock-driving after this accident and worked at fencing and other casual work. At some time he drove the coach from Porangahau to Waipukurau.
He owned some land at Porangahau. In 1909 he was droving. He attended the Woodbank Sale at Wimbledon on 2nd March and took 67 steers to Weber for Latimer George Crosse of Kelvin Grove.
From several descriptions given by family and other people who knew him at that time there emerges a picture of a man well fed, and well clothed, blind in one eye and wearing a big beard. In his shirt picket he carried a cut-throat razor intended no doubt, to trim the beard. It is easy to believe the stories of the ribbing, the taunts and suggestions concerning the carrying of that razor, and eventually that is what he did use it for, the taking of his own life, in an out-house in Miller’s Rd, Dannevirke, behind the Junction Hotel.
At the inquest held on the body at the Junction Hotel on 2nd July, 1909, William Gordon Keane, a drover residing at Dannevirke said:-
‘I knew deceased. I last saw him 24 June, 1909 walking towards Dannevirke. I spoke to him. He was quite sober and apparently in his usual spirits. He has been drinking during the past few weeks, but I have never seen him drunk. Of late I have judged by his manner in the street that he was most anxious not to be alone, and wanted company.’
Also giving evidence was Robert James Sidwell, a road overseer at Porangahau, brother-in-law of deceased, who said:-
‘I have known him for 33 years. He was a resident of Porangahau and districts. He sold some property at Porangahau twelve months ago. His line of business was droving, fencing, similar work. I have not seen for about a month until I saw his body today at the Junction Hotel.
He used to drink a good deal at times, at other times, a staunch teetotaller. I am not sure that he was in any financial difficulty. He suffered a good deal at times from an eye injury which ultimately went blind.’
The coroner found that Thomas Gersham Lambert died of shock caused by a wound in the throat, self-inflicted during a fit of despondency.
He was buried in the Porangahau Cemetery in the grave shared by his two brothers, his father and facing that of his nephew, Arthur Thomas who had died in the river.
HENRY ARTHUR LAMBERT.
b. c. 1857.
d. 23. 05. 1885.
Henry Arthur was the third child and third son of Alfred and Sarah Lambert. He was born about 1857, after the family had moved to Mangamaire. As he grew up he became a bullock driver like his older brother, Thomas Gersham.
He was 22 years of age when he married Anna Margaret Madson on the 17th April, 1879, at his
Page 18
parents’ home. They were married by the Rev. F.E.T. Simcox, who was the first resident vicar at Porangahau. Although the Parsonage had been built the Church was not built until 1880.
Anna Margaret, called Maggie had been living in Porangahau for three years and she worked at the Parsonage as a house-maid. She was Danish and the Rev. Simcox taught her to speak English. She had been born in Maen in Denmark in about 1858 and her parents were Nals and Christina Madsen, formerly Christophensen. She had arrived in New Zealand with her mother and brother in about 1876. Early historical records show that many Scandinavians and Germans settled in Porangahau in the seventies arriving from about 1872.
Witnesses at the wedding of Henry Arthur Lambert and Anna Margaret Madsen were his father, Alfred Lambert and his brother, Thomas Gersham Lambert.
Three children were born of the marriage: –
Alfred Ocean the second
b. 04. 09. 1880
Mabel Fanny
b. 13. 11. 1883
Arthur Thomas
b. 11. 01. 1885
The marriage was a short one, ending six years later, with the death of Henry Arthur. Death was due to enteric fever and pneumonia.
He was 28 years of age. His brother-in-law, Robert J. Sidwell was the informant of death. By a sad quirk of fate this occurred on his wife’s 27th birthday.
Alfred Ocean the second was not yet 5 years old, Mabel Fanny was one and a half years and Arthur Thomas was 4 months old. Maggie must have found life very difficult.
In his first entry in the Porangahau School log, Mr Weiss, headmaster, wrote: –
3rd April, 1886.
Paid Mrs Lambert for school cleaning.
4 shillings.
Fifteen months after the death of her husband, Anna Margaret Lambert married Peter Neilsen, a store-keeper at Porangahau. A widow with a family little more than babies would have few other choices in those days. Peter Neilsen too, was from Denmark, and had lived at Porangahau for two and a half years. It is believed that the Neilsens lived in the cottage recently burnt down in Beach Rd and that their store was across the road in the garage of the house now owned by Jack Voak. It is said that Maggie Neilsen loved flowers. The lovely old apricot rose which grew up the chimney and perished in the fire was hers.
Six children were born to Anna Margaret and Peter
Presented to Alfred Lambert, and his Wife Gisella, on their Wedding Day,
the 19th of April 1904, from his
Grandmother Sarah Lambert.
“God is able to make all peace abound toward you.” 2 Corinthians 8.8.
Page 19
Neilsen before history repeated itself and Maggie Neilsen was widowed for the second time on 4th May, 1900. As before, there was no money, but this time there was a family of nine with the youngest child, Norman John Neilsen, only 5 months old.
Maggie was 41 years old. The children of her first marriage were grown, with Alfred Ocean the second almost 20 years of age. He had been working for some years – long before his 16th birthday, driving coaches on the Napier-Taupo road and also from Waipukurau to Porangahau.
Arthur Thomas too, was probably working. It would be only three years before he met his death in the Porangahau River, while working on Thomas Lambert’s bullock-wagon. In his summing up at the Inquest the Coroner ruled that death was accidental and that Arthur Thomas Lambert had died of a broken neck. He was buried in the Porangahau Cemetery closed to his father, with their graves facing.
Fourteen years later, Anna Margaret Neilsen would bury another son in this grave. Her eighth child, Walter Henry Neilsen was 18 ½ years old when he, too, died by accident on 28th March, 1917. He also suffered a broken neck when he fell, jumping a horse over a five barred gate at Sir George Hunter’s property. The inscription on the headstone reads:-
Dearly Beloved Sons
of Margaret Neilsen
Gone But Not Forgotten
Towards the end of 1903 Gisella Margaret Lambert was born, a daughter for Alfred Ocean Lambert the second and Gisella Theresa Breuer. She was the first grandchild for Anna Margaret Neilsen and first Great-grandchild for Sarah Lambert, now a widow.
Mabel Fanny Lambert, second child of Henry Arthur and Anna Margaret Lambert married Archibald John Cameron on 19th February, 1906.
They lived at Greenhills near Porangahau.
Anna Margaret Neilsen lived in Porangahau for many years. Grandchildren stayed with her during the school week as it was too far to walk the seven miles to their home at Greenhills. Constance Jean Cameron was one of these grandchildren and as she grew older, Anna Margaret went to live at Hamilton with Jean who was by then married and known as Constance Jean Gurr. It was there that she died on 20th October, 1937, aged 77 years. She is buried at Hamilton East.
Alfred Ocean Lambert the second was the first grandchild for Alfred and Sarah Lambert. On 19th April 1904 he married Gisella Theresa Breuer in St Peter’s Church at Waipawa. He was 23 years old. To mark the occasion his grandmother, gave him a Bible beautifully inscribed. Alfred Ocean the second had moved to Waipukurau. He owned a coach. He and Gisella lived there for some years before moving back out to the Coast to live and work at different jobs and in different places. He was at one time working on the pack-horse mail run from Porangahau to Herbertville. He worked with bullock wagons at Herbertville and Wimbledon and further down the Coast towards Pongaroa. After the death of Eunice Maud Doria in 1930, he and Gisella lived in her cottage at Porangahau. They finally settled in Hastings where Alfred Ocean Lambert the second died suddenly on 7th February, 1946 when he was 65 years old.
Because Alfred Ocean Lambert and Thomas Gersham Lambert had not married and his own father and brother had died so young the responsibility of procreation lay with Alfred Ocean Lambert the second if the family name was to continue.
Five children were born to Alfred Ocean the second and Gisella Theresa Lambert:-
Gisella Margaret
b. 29. 11. 1903
Arthur Alfred
b. 19. 05. 1906
Esma Irene
b. 23. 10. 1907
David Breuer
b. 06. 04. 1910
Harry Lewis
b. 21. 06. 1914
Of these children only David Breuer and Harry Lewis had sons, so that in 1989 only these people bear the Lambert family name: –
David Breuer Lambert
b. 06. 04. 1910
David Alfred Lambert
b. 09. 06. 1939
Douglas Victor Lambert
b. 29. 06. 1943
Jonathon Campbell Douglas Lambert
b. 03. 10. 1969
Paul Andrew Hamish Lambert
b. 21. 05. 1976
Rachel Ann Patricia Lambert
b. 22. 07. 1972
Raymond Alfred William Lambert
b. 14. 06. 1946
Bruce Allen Lambert
b. 12. 01. 1948
Daniel Morris Lambert
b. 19. 11. 1973
Dana May Lambert
b. 26. 03. 1985
Matthew Michael Lambert
b. 01. 01. 1987
Morris Lewis Lambert
b. 12. 01. 1948
Page 20
The family of
Alfred and Sarah Lambert
Either Alfred Ocean
or Thomas Gersham Lambert
Alfred and Sarah Lambert
b. 1820 b. 08.07.1822
d. 27.04.1900 d. 18.02.1910
Henry Arthur Lambert
b. c. 1857
d. 23.05.1885
From left to right
Charlotte Maria
b. 01.06.1865
d. 17.11.1936
Eleanor Jane
b. 08.05.1862
d. 21.03.1948
Jemima Amelia
b. 15.01.1860
d. 11.11.1945
Mary Ann Eliza
b. 25.01.1859
d. 30.07.1942
Eunice Maud
b. 30.09.1863
d. 13.10.1930
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The family of
Henry Arthur and Anna Margaret Lambert
Henry Arthur
b. c. 1857
d. 23.05.1885
Anna Margaret
b. 23.05.1858
d. 20.10.1937
Mabel Fanny
b. 13.11.1883.
Mabel Fanny Cameron, oldest pupil present, cut the cake at the Porangahau School Centennial in 1968.
Grandchildren.
The family of Alfred Ocean (2) and Gisella Theresa Lambert
Back Row: Arthur Alfred, Gisella Margaret
Front row: Harry Lewis, Esma Irene, David Breuer
Page 23
The family of
Robert James and Mary Ann Eliza Sidwell
‘The old house in the same place with the same old pictures on the wall. Father in the same old trousers, And Mother in the same old shawl.’ E.S.
Mary Ann Eliza Sidwell and her youngest child, George Fenner Sidwell
b. 25.01.1859 b. 18.07.1901
d. 30.07.1942 d. 21.04.1964
Minerva Annie Herbert, oldest child of Robert and Mary Ann Eliza Sidwell
b. 05.06.1882 d. 20.06.1946
The family of Minerva Annie and Francis Joseph Herbert
Jean, Gordon, Bryce with Susie on her wedding day.
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The family of
Thomas Charles and Jemima Amelia Hales
Thomas Charles Hales
b. 30.11.1856
d. 08.12.1926
Jemima Amelia
b. 15.01.1860
d. 11.11.1945
The first home at Wimbledon Farm was a slab hut called ‘The Smoke House’ by those who lived in it. Outside the slab hut are Charles Alfred Henry, Jemima Amelia, Amelia Maud, and Gladys Sarah.
The Family of Thomas Charles and Jemima Amelia Hales in 1926
Amelia Maud Hales married Arthur William Sharland Longley on 23rd December, 1909, the anniversary of the marriage of her grandparents, Alfred and Sarah Lambert. Witnesses to the marriage were her brother and sister. Charles Alfred Henry Hales and Gladys Sarah Hales.
Wimbledon Farm about 1897
Page 25
The family of
Evan and Eleanor Jane Morgans
Eleanor Jane b. 08.05.1862 d. 21.03.1948
Evan Morgans b. 04.09.1929 d. 19.09.1929
The family in 1898
Mary Sarah Gertrude b. 20.07.1885
Thomas Richard b. 13.10.1887
Alice Elizabeth b. 24.06.1889
Evan Halstead b. 11.10.1891
Seth Leopold b. 02.12.1893
Alfred Henry b. 24.03.1896
Cecil Leonard Caradoc b. 19.06.1898
The youngest child, Olga Thyra Gwendolyn models her mother’s wedding gown.
Oldest child, Mary with her husband, Andrew William Alexander Richardson, and children Charlie and Betty.
Mary’s Vale, Wimbledon, about 1904.
Page 27
Family Service in
The Great War 1914-1918
22954
Victor Doria
2nd N.Z.M.G.C.
N.Z.E.F.
Rfm, A.H. Morgans
No. 23011
8th Southland Co.,
2nd Battalion,
Otago Infantry Regiment,
N.Z.E.F.
Gunner R.T. Hales,
No. 22975
N.Z.M.G.C.
N.Z.E.F.
Gunner Ralph Thomas Hales left Wellington on the troopship No.54 Willochra, on the 31st May, 1916. 5th from left he passes time with Jim Hales (2nd from right) and Alf Morgans (right) and friends.
Page 28
MARY ANN ELIZA LAMBERT.
b. 25. 01. 1859.
d. 30. 07. 1942.
The birth of Mary Ann Eliza Lambert at Mangamaire on 25th January, 1859 followed those of three sons. She was the first of five daughters who would be born. Her father rode all the way to Ahuriri, as Napier was called, to register the birth himself. It was the first birth in the family to be registered. Alfred Lambert described himself as a ‘Grazier’.
Mary Ann Eliza was still only a small child when the family moved to live at the Porangahau Flats, but some things she could always remember clearly.
The Maoris discovered new delights in their contact with the early European settlers. Sugar was one of these. They would take the sugar and flour given to them and mix it with river water in the bottom of a canoe, then scoop it up to their mouths in their hands with expressions of delight and approval as they savoured the unfamiliar sweetness of the sugar.
She remembered the father of Rawenia and how his tough, leathery feet squeaked as he trod softly across their floor. She remembered his visiting and the two men sitting, one each side of the huge, open fireplace, smoking their pipes, quietly communicating, each learning from the other. She remembered how as he sat he would rock one foot up and down, and of the day the big, red hot ember rolled out of the fire. Child-like she sat, scarcely breathing, saying nothing, watching and waiting as the foot came down onto the coal, and up again as if it wasn’t there.
She remembered the fear and the times that they moved their furniture to bar the doors and windows.
As she grew older, Mary Ann Eliza, called Lizzie by her family, worked at the Vicarage and also at Canning’s Oakbourne, where one of her duties was to wind the clock. Many years later her youngest child had the opportunity to buy this clock, which he did for purely sentimental reasons. When it was cleaned and restored it proved to be a beautiful piece; of dark wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which matched an ornate suite of dining furniture. In time it returned to the Canning family but was lost once more in a house fire.
It was probably at Oakbourne that Mary Ann Eliza Lambert met Robert James Sidwell who became her husband on 14th September, 1881 at St. Michael’s and All Angels. She was a tall regal girl, beautiful in her gown of brown. It was the second wedding in the Lambert family in that year. Her sister, Jemima Amelia Hales and her brother, Thomas Gersham Lambert were the witnesses to the marriage.
Her bridegroom, Robert James Sidwell, born at Clerkenwell, London, in 1852, was the second to youngest of the Sidwell family. He came to New Zealand when he was seven years old and his family lived in Auckland. In 1876 Robert James went to Napier to work and in the same year he went to Oakbourne.
After their marriage Robert and Eliza lived at Mangamaire where he worked as a labourer, possibly involved in road-making, as by the turn of the century he was County Engineer.
He was a big man, almost six feet fall and as he aged he grew in stature also. He wore a white heard. He was undoubtedly a man of exceptional ability, known for his expertise in road-making, bridge-building and engineering. He served the County in many ways – by drafting a map of the local cemetery in 1899, as County Overseer, acting as Coroner when required, taking driving tests and issuing licences. He was an agent for N.Z. Insurance, and involved in local sports, particularly football and racing.
He assumed the role of ‘head of the family’, acting in that capacity for the Lamberts in times of crisis. He was the informant of death for his brothers-in-law, Henry Arthur Lambert and Victor Doria and also his Mother-in-law, Sarah Lambert. He was a witness at the inquest on the body of Thomas Gersham Lambert.
It would have been easy for a woman of the quiet grace and dignity of Mary Ann Eliza to live in the shadow of such a man, but she too, had strength of character, and a sense of humour. Modest to the point that she covered the mirror while dressing, she never-the-less was able to make it perfectly clear that if her husband did indeed move into the spare room to avoid listening to the baby’s crying on one particularly fractious night, he need not expect to move back again! He stayed.
She was equally as forthright in her dealings with her children if the occasion warranted it. She had other strengths as well.
True to her pioneering upbringing she was able to cope with all manner of situations. She could produce meals for unexpected callers, no matter how many arrived. Her house was well kept and the garden was a showplace. More than half a century after her death, even though only a small portion of her house remains, the fruit trees still crop heavily, the bulbs in the grass herald the spring and the camellias and japonicas signal that here was a special place.
Her response to a query from a sister concerning their home at Porangahau was expressed in verse: –
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The River.
The banks of the river were lovely and bright
As blossoms and boughs met the Summers noon light
The moss hid the flowers, the trees screened the moss
And the Kowhais thick tresses fell sweeping across.
The cottager’s home on the sunniest side
Had hedges of hawthorn that trailed in the tide.
And the deep bosomed river rolled merrily by
While its banks with their green beauty
gladdened the eye.
But time took his way on these green banks at last
And pulled up the playhouse and flax as he passed.
He stretched his cold hand, the thatched cottage was down
And the springy moss withered beneath his stern frown.
He trampled the flaxbush and blotted all trace
Of the cabbage tree loved for its warm hissing grace.
But he touched not the river that still might be found
Just the same as when perfume and roses were around.
But time has soon ploughed the forehead so sleek:-
He will whiten the dark hair and wrinkle the cheek.
The charms that once dazzled will dazzle no more
But the heart, like the river, shines on as before.
The tide gushes fast, all as fresh and as fair
As it did when the Toi Toi and flax bush were there.
The change that has come o’er the place of its course
Has not darkened its ripple, or narrowed its source.
And the heart that is beating with nature and truth
May outlive some dear image mirrored in youth.
Some wrecks may be round it, but none shall e’er find
Its deep feelings less quick or its yearnings less kind.
Oh the green banks may fade and the brown locks turn white.
But the stream and the soul keep their freshness and their light
For the hear that is warm and the tide that is free
Glides onward for ever for you and for me.
Most of the children of Mary Ann Eliza and Robert James Sidwell appear to have inherited this ability to express themselves either through music or through verse.
Altogether there were eight children: –
Minerva Annie
b. 05. 06. 1882
Eunice Mary
b. 19. 04. 1884
Jessie Elizabeth
b. 27. 09. 1885
Robert Alfred
b. 20. 01. 1887
Henry Arthur
b. 07. 08. 1889
Grace Eliza
b. 07. 01. 1892
Frederick William
b. 04. 10. 1893
George Fenner
b. 18. 07. 1901
George Fenner born almost twenty years after his oldest sister and eight years younger than his brother Frederick, would be the child destined to care for his parents in their old age. It was customary for the youngest of the unmarried one to assume this role in those days. He made his father a promise that he would stay near his mother throughout her lifetime and it was a promise he honoured. As a young man George worked with his father surveying roads and bridge building in the district for the Patangata County Council. Then he became a contract fencer and shearer intending to become a farmer. His father’s death put an end to these plans and he invested his money in the Porangahau Trading Company and the business which became Sidwell and Snelling Store.
After his marriage to Brenda Phyllis Fallahee on the 27th February, 1941 they continued to live with Mary Ann Eliza Sidwell. Still independent and very much Mistress of her own home. Eliza had refused Brenda’s assistance to get clothing from the line on the day she fell, breaking her hip. Complications from this accident ultimately led to her death and she was buried in the Porangahau cemetery by the Rev. Beere on the first day of August 1942. She was eighty three years old. Nearby were the two sons. Henry Arthur had died of fever fifty three long years before when less than five years old. Robert Alfred had died aged eighteen years and six months, two days after a fall from his horse when he and friends were said to have been jumping a tapu rock on the beach.
Like others in her family Eliza loved the land and she owned property which included three houses.
After her death Frederick William and his wife, Nancy Rosa Sidwell left their fam at Mangamaire and lived in the Sidwell home.
In 1989 the last of the original family are still living – the daughters-in-law, Nancy Rose in Porangahau and Brenda Phyllis Sidwell Bird in Waipukurau.
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JEMIMA AMELIA LAMBERT
b. 15. 01. 1860
d. 11. 11. 1945
Jemima Amelia Lambert was born at Mangamaire on 15th January, 1860. From her we have learnt that as the five girls grew up they went out to work, mostly in the big houses. There was little other employment for girls of those days. Jemima Amelia grew to be very tall and thin with dark auburn hair. In her own home after her marriage the large, black cooking range with its two ovens was raised on a row of bricks. The copper and washing tubs, too were elevated making for comfortable working for a tall person.
On 23rd May, 1881 she married Thomas Charles Hales in the church of St. Michael’s and All Angels at Porangahau. She wore the gown of blue made from the material her father had ridden all the way to Napier to procure. Her sister, Eleanor Jane, and her brother, Thomas Gersham, were the witnesses at the wedding. The Rev. F.E.T. Simcox conducted the service.
After their marriage, Jemima Amelia and Thomas Charles Hales lived at Porangahau, for a number of years. he was a fencing contractor, in partnership with his brother, William Walter Scott Hales, working on many big stations in the area.
The Hales family had come from the Wairarapa to Wainui to live in 1872, when Thomas Charles was 14 years of age. His father, newly widowed had brought the younger members of his family to his step-daughter, Alice, married to Jesse Herbert. The following year, his daughter, Ellen Hales married Charles Herbert. Both families lived at Farnham Station and it is probable that that is where the Hales family lived also. It was there that Thomas Hales died, by his own hand two months before the wedding of his son, which must have saddened the occasion to a certain extent. The Hales brothers, bought the Hotel at Wainui and after his marriage in 1885, William Walter Scott Hales family lived there, although Jemima Amelia and Thomas Charles Hales managed it for one year.
When the sections in the Tautane Block at Wimbledon were offered for sale Thomas Charles Hales took up the section known as Wimbledon Farm on 5th February 1886. It appears that Jemima Amelia and her children continued to live at Porangahau for some time until a home was built for them.
Three of the children were born in Porangahau: –
Margaret Florence
b. 06. 07. 1882
Amelia Maud
b. 16. 05. 1886
Charles Alfred Henry
b. 28. 07. 1888
For this birth Jemima Amelia went home to her mother who was a mid-wife.
Amelia Maud would tell of the family’s move to Wimbledon Farm and how her mother rode with one child in front and Amelia Maud carried Maori fashion in a blanket on her back.
Their first home built on the bank of the Wimbledon Stream was a slab hut. It was built down in the paddock behind the present residence. The slab hut stood for many years. It was called ‘The Smoke House’ by those who lived in it. The old grape-vine still climbs the cabbage tree nearby, and the pear trees, produce a mass of blossom in spring which is followed by the fruit which can no longer survive the onslaught of today’s opossums and crows. The Wimbledon Stream has changed its course and raised its bed so that the valley of fruit trees, apricots, peaches and plums, the figs and cherries, the long line of gooseberries, the red and black currants and the enormous walnuts, each in their turn became victim to the erosion created by the felling and burning of those early days.
Amelia Maud told how on one occasion when embers from the bush burning on the hills above their house rained down, their mother, fearful that their house would catch on fire made the children strip their beds of blankets and soak them in water before beating out the burning embers as they fell.
She told, too, of one terrible day in July 1897, when her mother asked Margaret Florence to stoke the kitchen fire. It was not unusual for a ball of gas to build up in the flue of those old stoves, and cause a blow-back when the door was opened. On this particular day, the blow-back was unusually bad and the poor girl running away in panic was burnt severely from her knees to the top of her head.
She died three days later and was buried in the Porangahau cemetery.
Two children were born at Wimbledon Farm: –
Ralph Thomas
b. 12. 0.1 1891
Gladys Sarah
b. 30. 01. 1895
The Wimbledon School opened in 1891 on a piece of land given for that purpose by Thomas Charles Hales immediately opposite their home and in the very centre of Wimbledon Farm. Margaret Florence and Amelia Maud Hales were first day pupils. Their father was School Chairman and their mother involved herself with the school sewing. She was described by one pupil as:
‘A tall stately woman who always wore a shawl. She inspected the school sewing which was a day that was feared. Everything had to be clean and well done.’
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Jemima Amelia Hales, like other family members had a strong love of the land and in 1902 when Section 13 in Block Five, Tautane District was offered at Public Auction in Napier, hers was the successful bid. This section known as The Reserve is a beautiful stand of virgin bush.
Wimbledon Farm became the hub of the Wimbledon District and known for its hospitality.
Coaches travelling to and from Dannevirke stopped there and Jemima Amelia and her daughter, Amelia Maud would provide the passengers with cups of tea.
The big six stand woolshed with its large woolroom was used as the district hall.
There are countless accounts of the many wonderful functions held there – school concerts, dances and balls, weddings and farewells to those going to war. Those were the days when entertainment was clean and wholesome and provided by those present songs that suited the occasion, and recitations. Music of the piano and violin provided the inspiration for dancing and a corner was found for those playing cards.
Thomas Charles Hales had always been actively involved in sport and sporting activities. As a young man he was outstanding in athletic events, particularly the pole vault. He played cricket and was an enthusiastic member of the Wimbledon Rifle Club. He was Vice-President of the Wimbledon Football Club, President of the East Coast Rugby Union and a member of the Porangahau Racing Club and the East Coast Dog Trial Club.
A diary of 1909 indicates that life was less arduous and that the years of toil and labour were reaping their just reward. There are accounts of trips to Napier and Palmerston North to attend the races and other social occasions. At the end of that year the wedding of Amelia Maud to William Arthur Sharland Longley were celebrated at Wimbledon Farm with a great family occasion lasting for some days, encompassing Christmas and running into New Year!
In 1912, the eldest son, Charles Alfred Henry Hales married Mary Norris Shuker at Ormondville, and they made their home at Willow Valley.
Early in 1914 Thomas Charles Hales accompanied Evan Morgans on a trip home to Wales. Wishing to impress Evan’s family with the success of his life in New Zealand they bought the best quality clothing and readied themselves for the visit. They entered one of the best hotels in London seeking accommodation and one approached the desk in the foyer, resplendent with mirrors and potted palms. He was not impressed with the lack of response and the antics of the person behind the desk until he suddenly realized that it was his own, unaccustomed image reflected in the mirror. Bearded and in his new suit and bun hat he had not recognized himself. The two men told too, how the same clothes had caused trouble for them in Wales. Outstandingly conspicuous they became objects of suspicion and were almost arrested as spies in those months leading into World War 1.
During the time that Thomas Charles was away overseas his grandson, six weeks’ old Alfred Henry Hales had died.
For the next four years social activities in the Wimbledon District were mostly associated with war. Many farewell functions were held in the woolshed. On March 18th 1916, Privates Ralph Thomas Hales and Alfred Henry Morgans were farewelled by a large gathering of friends and each was presented with a gold watch, suitable inscribed.
On 31st May, 1916 Ralph Thomas Hales left New Zealand on troopship No. 54 Willochra. In the following year the newspaper of the day reported,
We regret to hear that Corporal Ralph Hales was wounded in the back on August 20th and admitted to hospital.
Cable advice states that Farrier A. Richardson, Corporal J.C. Hales, and Private A. Morgans and other local boys were quite well up to August 27th.
Ralph Hales was invalided home, his arrival on the Paparoa coinciding with the signing of the Armistice on 11th November, 1918.
Several months later he married Margaret Moana Taylor in Wellington.
On 10th September, 1923 Gladys Sarah Hales married John Erreck Douglas, also a returned soldier and a casualty of war. They too, were married in the Wimbledon School while the wedding celebrations were held at her home at Wimbledon Farm.
Life was drawing to a close for Thomas Charles Hales. By 1926 he was living quietly, spending his days walking up to his son’s home, sitting in the sun on the back door steps while Moana read aloud from the papers. He spent time with his grandsons imparting his knowledge of the native trees and bushcraft. He watched the building of the Wimbledon War Memorial across from his front gate.
For Jemima Amelia Hales there would be nineteen years of widowhood. After her husband’s death in 1926, Jemima Amelia Hales continued to live at Wimbledon Farm. Her family were close at hand. It was a period of great family involvement.
Grandchildren stayed with her to go to school at Wimbledon or as she grew older to assist with the cooking and household chores. In those days a number of men were employed to work on the property. She was 66 years of age and still tended her magnificent garden and the native patch behind the house where the orchids hung from the trees. She collected the vegetables and eggs and did the
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preserving and bottling. Frugal and thrifty by the circumstances of her early life nothing was wasted. In human terms she was generous and warm. Each grandchild was certain that they were indeed special and Granny’s favourite.
Family rituals were exercised. Sunday was church day. No work was done on that day. It was visiting day for whole families who stayed for high tea of cold cuts and tinned salmon.
Each day she spent time with her sister, Eleanor Jane talking on the private telephone line linking their two homes. The conversation was always in Maori to the annoyance of both families who never knew what was being said. It is strange that a family who grew up so fluent in this language did not teach it to their own.
Eventually came the closing years of her life. The country was at war for the third time in her lifetime. She had farewelled the sons of the son who had gone to that earlier war and returned with the bullet in his body which contributed to his early death. This war was long – longer than anyone had expected. Only Joe Lennox was left to manage the property.
The gardens were overgrown, the trees unpruned. Tired and sick she said she could wait no longer. She died on the 11th November 1945 – Armistice Day.
Once more they lit the candles of Sarah Lambert. They cut the box hedge that bordered the front path and the procession began to the place that she had been born, to be with her husband and two children and her own family who had gone before.
ELEANOR JANE LAMBERT
b. 08. 05. 1862.
d. 21. 03. 1948.
Eleanor Jane Lambert, was the sixth child of Alfred and Sarah Lambert. She was their third daughter. She was born at Mangamaire on the 8th May, 1862.
In a letter written on 3rd February 1947, telling of her early life, she said: –
‘I was born at Mangamaire, at Mr Barker’s about the year 1862.’
Her father appointed William Rutledge, a merchant of Napier to be his agent and register the birth at Ahuriri. (The old name for Napier.)
It was a long and tedious journey over ill-formed roads and not one to be undertaken lightly. On the birth certificate Alfred Lambert was described as ‘Overseer. Sheep station.’
Eleanor Jane continued her account of her early life.
‘I went to the Porangahau School one of the first to attend when it first opened about 75 years back. The teacher … Mrs Hirtzel. Her husband, Charles Hirtzel, a Maori War Veteran. She had a small baby and was the daughter of Joseph Herbert, of Wainui, now Herbertville.
Second teacher, Mrs B. … with a small baby. Husband .. a policeman.
Three teachers … Mrs Doria … a widow with three sons … Victor and Bert and Julius, I think.
The fourth teacher was Mr …?
(A Ward)
Emma Hirtzel, nee Herbert was indeed the first teacher in Porangahau, opening her school, a settlers’ school in 1867. This was a private venture and pupils were required to pay 6d per week to be able to attend. Her husband, C.A.M. Hirtzel had served with such distinction in the New Zealand Wars that he was recommended to be awarded the New Zealand Cross. However, this was not awarded. The Settlers’ School provided the educational opportunities for Porangahau’s children for ten years before it came under the control of the Hawkes’ Bay Education Board. Mrs E. Doria became the first teacher in 1878. She was the mother of Julius Taylor, Birley Darlington and Victor Adair Doria who would in time marry Eunice Maud Lambert.
Mrs Doria opened the school with 21 pupils and it was not long before the number had risen to 28 and by the end of the year to 35 pupils. Eleanor Jane continued her account of her schooling by saying that because there was only one teacher, ‘the big ones helped with the teaching of the younger children’ (6).
Eleanor Jane Lambert was 22 years old when she married Evan Morgans at the church of St. Michael’s in Porangahau, on 16th July, 1884. He was a bachelor, 27 years of age and had lived in Porangahau since 1875.
A true Welshman he courted her through poetry and song: –
To Eleanor Lambert
Porangahau.
‘Tis but a little faded flower,
But oh! How fondly dear,
‘Twill bring me back one gold hour,
Thro’ many, thro’ many a weary year,
I may not to the world impart,
The secret, the secret of its power,
But treasured in my inmost heart,
I keep my faded flower, I keep my faded flower.’
His brother, Richard was a witness at the wedding as was her sister Eunice Maud.
(6) Because of the shortage of teachers in those early years senior pupils were often paid to assist if they were over 14 years of age. Mrs Doria herself, received the handsome sum of 100 pounds per year Eleanor Jane said that there was one big room and went on to describe the teacher’s residence.
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Evan Morgans worked as a shepherd at, Wallingford. He was the son of John and Mary Morgans and was born in Caemelin, Llanurthwl, Wales on 15th October, 1855. His father was a farmer. In 1873 he had come to New Zealand arriving in Auckland.
After their marriage Eleanor Jane and Evan Morgans moved to Mangaorapa to live, and it was here that their first child, Mary Sarah Gertrude was born a year later. He was still employed by Cannings and became head shepherd.
When the Tautane sections at Wimbledon were offered for sale Eleanor and Evan Morgans moved there to live. The deeds and titles indicate that this was early in 1886. They called their property Mary’s Vale. It neighboured the property of Eleanor’s sister Jemima Amelia and her husband Thomas Charles Hales, at Wimbledon Farm. Other neighbours who took up sections at that time was Taylor White and Andrew Johnson up the Angora Valley. Job Bond and Henry Wiffen were in their valley close at hand. John Sargent and his son John Sargent Jr. were further up the valley at Lake Farm, now called Sargent’s Hill and Willow Valley. Out on the back of the newly opened up block were William Jacob Henry Siteman and his wife Isabella Flora Siteman.
Later on in time Evan Morgans and Thomas Charles Hales would acquire all these other properties as they became available to settle their own sons. Shortly after Eleanor and Evan Morgans moved to Mary’s Vale their first son Thomas Richard was born on 13th October, 1887. He always proclaimed his birth to be the first in the area. Over the years ten children in all would be born, five boys and five girls.
Alice Elizabeth
b. 24th June 1889.
Evan Halstead
b. 11th October 1891.
Seth Leopold
b. 2nd December 1893.
Alfred Henry
b. 24th March 1896.
Cecil Leonard Carodoc
b. 19th June 1898.
Evelyn Florence
b. 25th February 1900.
Laurie Eva Douglas
b. 17th September 1902.
Olga Thyra Gwendolyn
b. 6th April 1906.
The first seven of these children were baptised in the Church of St. Michael’s by Rev. F.E.T. Simcox who also baptised two more at Mary’s Vale. The last child Olga Thyra Gwendolyn was baptised by the Rev. W.F. Whibley who was also her godfather.
Alfred and Sarah Lambert were Godparents for Alice Elizabeth.
At first Richard Morgans, brother of Evan lived at Mary’s Vale and may have been in partnership in some of the sections but he died tragically on the 15th or 16th of July, 1892.
Life was hard in those times and many such early deaths are recorded. Richard Morgans was 38 years old when he died and had been in New Zealand for 16 years. He was a bachelor. He was buried in the Public Cemetery at Herbertville.
Evan Morgans continued to use the old Oakbourne ledgers after his move to Wimbledon and the property he may have called Glen Morgun at first. The earliest entries give a good insight into the life of those settlers first to come who would have strained their financial resources to obtain land.
A first entry for stores, was headed Wainui, March 28, 1886. Goods would come by coastal boat from Wellington and be landed at Cape Turnagain. The list is basic and meagre:-
£ s d
20 sheets iron 3 10 6
10 blocks soap 6 8
3 bags flour 1 15 0
100 lbs sugar 1 13 0
B 4 Tea 1 3 0
1 bag Oatmeal 4 0
1 Bag salt 8 0
The following year, on the 24th September, 1887, Patrick Kelly, Joseph King and A.W. Dawson, were paid the full amount for clearing twelve and a half acres of bush.
In the autumn this area was sown with twenty pounds of white clover seed bought at 1½ d per pound and three bushels of rye grass at 3/6d per bushel. Where bush was felled by axe it was logged up in readiness for burning when the weather was favourable. After the burn was made grass seed was thrown on the ashes and thus the first pasture was sown.
The settlers soon discovered that the forest floor with its layer of decayed vegetable matter and the ash from the burn made an extremely fertile seed bed and initially growth was rapid and often luxuriant. At first grass seed was scarce and expensive.
Many settlers used all that they produced on their own properties or sold it to neighbours. One of the most important sources of income for the first Wimbledon settlers was the sale of rape and cocksfoot seed.
On May 18th 1888, Thomas Gersham Lambert, carrier, Wainui was paid for transporting Evan Morgan’s goods.
In August and September 1889, Evan Morgans was
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to do 22 days work for C. Hales – fencing, mustering, docking and dagging all carefully kept and accounted for, as these twenty two days labour would be returned as twenty two days labour and indeed C. Hales, in his turn would need to work for another neighbour to repay Evan Morgan’s debt to him.
On January 8th, 1890, there was the account of wool to Cape Turnagain 17 lots with full description and so it continued:-
Money in the bank …
Pay the Rabbit Board … George Crosse
Fencing .. Edward and Stephen Whitehead commenced fencing on 26 March 1891
Seed sowing ..
Post splitting ..
Packing grass seed ..
Dipping, mustering, dagging ..
Goat killing ..
Labour by neighbours, or for neighbours – scoured by a big cross when the debts were settled.
Among the neighbours, too, existed a system of borrowing and lending.
Lent Mrs Carmichael 9/6d for Mary Ball ..
E. Morgans lent to Job Bond .. 50 lbs flour ..
E. Morgans borrowed from Job Bond 2 bars soap ..
Lent Mrs Wiffen sugar, plumbs, pills, castor oil ..
Settled was written across the whole transaction indicating that the debt had been paid.
Up and down the valley passed the potatoes, washing and baking soda, soap, sugar, flour and pills making life possible until the arrival of the next coastal boat.
The years passed and the family grew. Bessie Jones came to work at 8 shillings a week. Evan Morgans paid the 7 shillings for the coach fare. Later he gave her 1 pound so that she could go to the ball. Geordie Balsillie came to work in 1900 too. He was the local carpenter and lived at Wainui. He was a favourite with everyone. He had been a circus clown and would pretend to fall when working up high and would be saved in the nick of time hanging by one foot!
Clothing was bought from the travelling man. ‘The Syrian’ or from Carrie Biddler where the order was to include:-
Four pairs drawers … 5/6d
1 hat … 1/-
1 pair stay basters
1 dress bodice .. 3/6d
A child did a double stint practicing both his writing and his religious instruction by copying passages from the Bible and the Ten Commandments on the page following: –
‘Cows to the bull .. 1898’
Known as a quiet and gentle man, it was an angry Evan Morgans who penned the following: –
27 Jan, 1903
Mr B. Hall
Dear Sir
Just a line to inform you that your Bullock Driver Have removed some of my Timber from Olsen’s Mill, Wimbledon. I cannot Imagine How He Could Make Such a Mistake as My Timber is all Stacked out and Wired down and Branded With My Name.
Ps. See and have it Righted as soon as Possible as I am expecting Carpenters to put up building and that is the Timber out of my order for my House.
And you Will
Oblige Me.
Evan Morgans.
Included in the ledger too, were the songs he either wrote or enjoyed: –
Driven From Home.
Out in the coald world, out in the street,
Asking a pennie of each I meat.
Shoeless I wander about Thro the day
Wearing my young life in sorrow away.
No one to help me,
No one to bless,
No one to pittie me
No one to carress ..
Eleanor Morgans brought her family up in much the same way as she herself had been brought up by her mother. In her garden were the trees, plants and shrubs found in the gardens of her mother and sisters and beautiful gardens they were. Each home was a show place. Eleanor used her mother’s herbal recipes too, and her grandchildren still remember her ointment called Boomieang.
The recipe was: –
Boomieang
5 breakfast cups of Elderberry blossoms picked dry,
1½ pounds of mutton fat clarified (8),
1½ pounds good lard,
Sweet oil and whiskey.
Scent if desired.
Pick the blossoms from their stalks and put in a large saucepan with the clarified mutton fat. Boil slowly for a few minutes and strain. Leave till cold and carefully scrape the fat on both sides. Return to the saucepan with the lard, oil, whiskey and scent.
(8) Clarified means that it is boiled in water to purify it. Left till cold when the dross was scraped off.
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In 1902, the Herbert sections in the village built by Joseph Herbert at Wainui, were offered for sale. Eleanor Jane Morgans bought one. On it was a cottage – an iron building of 3 rooms. It was insured for 25 pounds and she paid an annual premium of 5 shillings. James Fettis lived there. As they became available seven more sections were bought in a block with the first one across the road. A house was built on one section for the youngest of the Morgan’s children, Olga Thyra Gwendolyn and her husband, Andrew David Cutbush, after their marriage in 1927.
After the death of her sister, Eunice Maud Doria at Porangahau in 1930, Eleanor Morgans bought her sister’s cottage on the family land at Porangahau. At first the cottage was lived in by Alfred Ocean the second and Gisella Lambert and then by Olga and Andrew Cutbush and their family from January of 1937 until April of 1964. The Cutbush family named it Dove Cottage and although it has long since gone, the iris’ bloom and the land is still in Cutbush care.
After the death of her husband on the 19th September, 1929, Eleanor Jane Morgans continued to live at Mary’s Vale. Her five sons had all married and lived in the Wimbledon District. Two daughters, Evelyn Florence and Laurie Eva Douglas were unmarried and lived at home. In 1932 Evelyn Florence Morgans married Joseph Lennox from Moneygran, County Derry in Ireland. They wedding took place at Mary’s Vale.
Joseph, called Joe, worked at Wimbledon Farm. At first they lived up the Angora Valley but later a cottage was brought from the Waipataki Gas Fields and installed in the valley neighbouring Mary’s Vale.
During the years of the second World War, even though she was very old Eleanor contributed to the war effort with her spinning and crocheting. Each soldier who left the Wimbledon District to go to war was presented with a lovely, crocheted skull-cap of homespun wool designed to be worn under his tin helmet. Family and close friends received a gift of money as well. She lived long enough to welcome home many of these men.
Eleanor Jane Morgans died at Mary’s Vale on 21st March, 1948 when she was 86 years old. She was the last of the family of Alfred and Sarah Lambert to die. Their family story had spanned the years from 1853 to 1948.
She lay in state at Mary’s Vale until it was time for the procession to leave for the cemetery at Porangahau where she would lie with her husband and join her whole Lambert family.
Ralph Edward Thomas Hales was invited to be a pall-bearer, and to travel with the undertaker showing him the way. He was somewhat disconcerted to find that the hearse was an old-fashioned model with the casket lying through from the back to the front so that there was actually only one seat, that of the driver!
He quickly discovered that he too, was Lambert in some respects when it became apparent that the only way he could make the journey would be by sitting on the end of the coffin.
EUNICE MAUD LAMBERT
b. 30. 09. 1863
d. 13. 10. 1930
Eunice Maud was the seventh child of Alfred and Sarah Lambert. She was born at Porangahau in the mud-house bult by her parents on the bank of the Porangahau River, after they moved from Mangamaire. She was born on the 30th September, 1863.
On 21st January, 1887, she married Victor Adair (or Dixon) Doria. He was virtually ‘the boy next door’ as he lived with his widowed mother at the school-house where she was the teacher employed by the Hawkes Bay Education Board. (9)
Victor was the third of the four sons who had been born to Samuel and Elizabeth Doria of Wiggan [Wigan?], Lancashire, England. His father had been a clergyman, but died in 1867. According to local legend, he had been a renegade Catholic Priest, but in fact was an Anglican Minister, whose family had originally been titled Genoese people. At some time in the past they had offended their Church to such an extent, that His Holiness, the Pope had excommunicated them and they were forced to leave Italy. They moved to England.
Mary Elizabeth Doria came to New Zealand to live 10 years after her husband’s death, bringing three of her sons with her. Her eldest son, Julius was 20 years old, Victor was 16 years and Birley Darlington was 14 years old. She herself was 46 years old.
(9) Mr S.M. Kemp who came to the Porangahau School as Headmaster in 1909 wrote ‘The original school where old lady Doria kept her little school was still standing, an old shed of about ten by ten.’
Mary Elizabeth Doria, no doubt influenced the education of not only Eleanor Jane but other Lambert family as well. It has been quoted by a descendant that ‘She was a bit of a Tartar!’
At the time of their marriage Victor Doria had lived in Porangahau for 9 years. Eunice, who spelt her name ‘UNICA’ was the last of the family of Alfred and Sarah Lambert to marry. She was 23 years of age.
The wedding took place at St. Michael’s and All Angels and was conducted by the Rev. F.E.T. Simcox. Unica Maud and her husband lived in a cottage on the block of land her father had bought and Victor worked as a labourer. They had six children.
Maud Mary who was b. 1887 died on 24th November, the following year. Twins were born on 28th July, 1889.
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The older twin, named Elsie Winifred Sarah lived for 21 months before she died of pneumonia. The younger twin, an un-named boy lived for three hours only.
Florence Hope.
b. 29th November 1891.
Victor Alfred.
b. 17th September 1894.
Murray Lambert.
b. 3rd October 1897.
The last three children grew to adulthood. Victor Doria died when he was 46 years of age. For two years he had suffered from pernicious anaemia. He died at Porangahau on 5th December 1908 and was buried in the Church Ground on the west side of the Church of St. Michael’s and All Angels, in the same plot as the three babies who had died so many years before.
On 29th April, 1914, Florence Hope Doria married William Kenneth Gollan, at the church of St Michael’s in Porangahau. Hope had spent her entire life in Porangahau, while William Kenneth Gollan had lived at Wimbledon intermittently since his family had bought the property, called Wimbledon Hills in 1902. Born on 2nd July, 1885, William Kenneth Gollan was the third child, but first son of James Davis and Charlotte Ann Gollan. Four children were born of the marriage: –
Dudley Kenneth James
b. in August 1915
Robert Ian Victor
b. 1919
Mervyn Stirling
b. 13. 03. 1921
Zelda Marion Maud
b. 01.01. 1923
After the breakdown of the marriage Dudley Kenneth James and Robert Ian Victor went to Porangahau to live with their Grandmother Doria. Ian died when he was 11 years old and is buried in the Mangatera Cemetery, Dannevirke.
Victor Alfred Doria, better known as Jim, lived in Porangahau for many years, working as a farmer. He was a bachelor. He was also a soldier and served his country in World War I.
Victor Alfred Doria, 22929 N.Z.M.G.C., 2nd. This address is written on the inside cover of the World War I Diary of Ralph Thomas Hales, together with those of Alfred Henry Morgans, Peter Neilsen, and other cousins and friends who were serving overseas.
After the death of Eunice Maud Doria at Porangahau on 13th October, 1930 she was laid to rest in the family plot with her husband and three children, Maud Mary and the twins.
The section and home were bequeathed to her three surviving children.
Memorandum Mortgage.
Victor Alfred Doria, farmer, Porangahau.
Murray Lambert Doria, Florence Hope Gollan
all having equal shares in Suburban Section 49, Porangahau.
Survey District –
175. 0. 05 (pounds) lent to Mortgagor,
Victor Alfred Doria. 1st November, 1932.
The house was sold to Eleanor Jane Morgans and was occupied first by Alfred Ocean the second, a nephew of both Eunice Maud and Eleanor Jane, and then by Olga Thyra Gwendolyn Cutbush, daughter of Eleanor Jane.
Murray Lambert Doria, youngest child of Eunice Maud and Victor Doria was born in Porangahau on 3rd October, 1897.
On 28th February, 1922 he married Ivy May Howell, at Wellington.
They lived in Porangahau for a time and then moved to Australia where Murray Lambert Doria died. Little is really known of this family, but the general feeling of those concerned with the family history is that his death was violent – that he was either killed or was murdered. There was one child, William Victor Ian b. 03. 05. 1924 and it is possible that he still lives in Australia. It would be through this child only that the Doria name could be continued. It is almost 60 years since the death of Eunice Maud Doria and their family name is remembered in Porangahau only by those who are of the Lambert family.
A curious circumstance arose in early 1989, when a family commemorating the 100th anniversary of an ancestor’s death discovered that:-
‘.. any headstone which may have been erected has long since disappeared leaving no trace of the brave pioneer lady.’
and that she was in fact
‘buried under a large stone slab commemorating another family.’
This, I am told is the Doria grave.
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CHARLOTTE MARIA LAMBERT.
b. 01. 06. 1865.
d. 17. 11. 1936.
Charlotte Maria Lambert was the youngest of the family known to have been born to Alfred and Sarah Lambert. She was born at Porangahau on the 1st June 1865. She spent her entire life living on the black of land her father had bought in 1860. First she lived in the mud-house and then the log-house and finally in the house built close to the Beach Road. No doubt as the youngest family member she was on call to help around her family as the need arose. She was the informant of the death of her 15 year old niece, Margaret Florence Hales who died of burns at her home at Wimbledon on 20th July, 1897. She accepted it as her duty to care for her parents in their old age even though she was engaged to Alfred Wells and had plans for marriage. Her parents required much care and attention as they aged.
Albert Lambert suffered from gout, which was not only very painful, but eventually caused the dropsy from which he died. Sarah Lambert, in the final years of her life, physically and mentally spent, was blind and bed-ridden. By the time her mother died in 1910, Charlotte Maria was 45 years old and experiencing problems with her own eye-sight. Later, she became blind but continued to live in the home on Beach Road bequeathed to her by her mother. She lived there with a series of companions. These people did her farm work and general chores.
Like her sisters Charlotte Maria, called Maria was a tall, willowy woman. According to one local description she always wore long black skirts, so that the local children were afraid of her and would hurry past in case she was a witch! In fact they called her ‘The Old Witch.’
She was a handsome person and before her blindness, a very capable farmer. It is also said that she was strong willed. Young George Sidwell recalled being at the gate with his aunt Maria and her fiancé Alfred Wells after the death of Sarah Lambert when they argued about which one would sell their property and go and live with the other. Finally as they could not agree they decided to end their twenty year engagement and go their own ways.
After her death at Porangahau, on 17th November, 1936, it was revealed that Charlotte Maria Lambert had bequeathed the property first owned by her Father, Alfred Lambert, to Dr. Barnado, well-known English benefactor of destitute children. As may be expected this caused some family concern and dissention. Thomas Morgans told of taking his mother to the reading of the will and her reaction. ‘Oh! The language!’ He would relate with relish ‘I never heard such language!’ Eleanor Jane Morgans was sufficiently upset to write to her sister’s solicitors and question her right to make such a bequest.
Their reply explained her right.
‘We have obtained copies of the wills of your father and mother.
You will see that your father left everything to your mother and she in turn left everything to your sister, Miss Maria Charlotte Lambert. This being so, all property left by either your father or mother would belong absolutely to your sister and she would be entitled to deal with it in any way she saw fit during her lifetime and bequeath it wherever she liked, in her will.’ (4)
Sarah Lambert had indeed left all her possessions to her daughter, Maria Charlotte, and she had appointed Ashton St. Hill and Sir George Hunter as executors of her will. Witnesses to the will were Jemima Amelia Hales and Sir George Hunter. She signed by making a cross and an explanatory note stated that this was because of her blindness.
Maria Charlotte Lambert bequeathed her personal and all other property to Dr. Barnado’s [Barnardo’s] Homes, whose offices were in London, England. In her will she stated:-
‘I express the wish that my lands at Porangahau aforesaid, being Town Sections No. 30 and 31 and Suburban Sections No. 40, 44 and 45 and part of Suburban Section 46 containing together 91 acres 3 roods 35 perches or thereabouts and the stock and plant thereon may be established and used and employed by the authorities of the said Dr. Barnado’s Homes as a farm for the training and teaching of boys under the care of the said authorities in the business of farming.’
Dated 19th December, 1912, Napier (10)
The beneficiary must have decided against establishing a training farm for boys as the land and house owned by Charlotte Maria Lambert was offered for sale by Public Auction. It was bought by Charles Alfred Henry Hales, who had been born at Porangahau on 28th July, 1888 and whose birth had been registered by his Grandfather, Alfred Lambert. His son, Colin Charles Hales then took up the care of this piece of family land and farmed it. On 29th August, 1938 Colin Charles Hales married Ngaire Vera Ross and they raised their family of two boys and two girls in the old family home, which they eventually enlarged and renovated. When Colin and Ngaire Hales moved from Porangahau, the home and land passed out of family hands. Other sections, however, are still owned by George Douglas, Jack Cutbush, Ian and Ralph Longley and Murray Raymond Herbert.
(10) Information regarding the wills of Alfred and Sarah Lambert was obtained from a letter to Eleanor Jane Morgans from Lloyd and Lloyd, Barristers and Solicitors, Dannevirke, dated 22nd December, 1936. This was lent by Ivor Morgans, Dannevirke. Other information was obtained from Will. Maria Charlotte Lambert, P. No. 2116/37. Permission was granted to use the information by the Director, Archives, Wellington.
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As It Was In The Beginning
Less than twenty years after Cook, the whaler, England’s Glory, operated off this coast and in 1796 The Mermaid was operating also. Both used Maori pilots. The waters of the East Coast abounded with whales and seals and there were a number of whaling stations along it. The early travellers making their way up the coast passed one such station at Castlepoint.
In 1849, the schooner, Gypsy, was wrecked at Cape Turnagain. She had reached Castlepoint and was lying at anchor when there were indications of an approaching storm so she put to sea again. Later the Master was obliged to run the schooner ashore at Cape Turnagain in order to save the lives of those aboard. The vessel became a complete wreck. The Gypsy, registered No.1 of 1846 Port of Wellington, was owned by Messrs. George and Alexander Alexander. The latter was a very colourful character, who had come to Ahuriri, now called Napier, in 1846. There he erected the first building, a store, and he became the first trader for the area. Over the years there were many other boats trading up and down the coast, providing not only transport for people but also for all their needs. Thomas Guthrie at Castlepoint in 1848, was trading with the Kitty. Chapman, at Tautane on Friday, 18th January, 1856, found R.D. Wallace busy shearing and in a great hurry to get the wool off, as the Kawai lay off shore.
The Kahu, Weka, Fanny, and later the Ripple all served the area. Of course there are many stories of wreckings and tragedies, like the day on the 11th March 1859, when two lads were killed at Cape Turnagain, and the day Able-seaman James Watson lost his life when the boat from the S.S. Kahu capsized. (27th September, 1888). Taylor White, settler, Angora Valley, Wimbledon, leaves his account of one such tragedy.
ERNEST RICHTER DIXON.
At Pourere’s open Bay
On a New Zealand Summer day
The date was January 9,
Eighteen hundred and eighty nine.
A boat sails from the shingle strand
With crew of four, one extra hand,
Their aim to spread a seine around
At spot where fishes most abound.
The net is cast, but on return
The boat is swamped, does overturn.
Four men are struggling with the wave
Intent, each one, his life to save
Three swimmers only reach the shore,
Brave Dixon breasts the surf once more
To rescue Kennedy he tries
But in that noble effort dies
Alas, he will no more come home.
They drown amid the breaker’s foam
May, 24th, 1889
RESURGENCE
From what occurred these lines prophetic seem
As though foretold by a poet’s simple theme
Yet, but allude to the last trumpet call
And to the final muster of us all.
His body was returned after many days
In a storm by restless, surging waves
With clothes intact as though it were but sleep,
Nor torn by the denizens of the deep.
For this mercy thank God, for now we can
Give solemn burial to this brave man,
Drowned January ninth luckless day,
Cast ashore on the fourteenth day of May.
Buried near Pourere Church, May 5th, 1889
As settlement took place, access to Whangaehu and Blackhead was also by sea. Coastal vessels would anchor out at sea and wool and other freight would be taken out by bullock drays to meet the surf boats. Stores and other goods were brought back to shore. Because of the nature of each area, the procedure differed a little in each place, but whatever the method, it remained a tricky and dangerous business.
Whangaehu, too, has its stories of death during loading and unloading operations. On one occasion when a boat overturned four men died. Even though they clung to hales of wool they failed to be rescued and drowned as the wool became sodden and the bales sank. The work of the bullocky in the society of the day was of the greatest importance and far more skilled than we would at first imagine.
Thomas Gersham Lambert and Henry Arthur Lambert, sons of Alfred and Sarah Lambert both worked as bullockys as did their grandsons, Alfred Ocean the second, and Arthur Thomas Lambert.
It was while working in the Porangahau River pulling logs, with his uncle and brother, that Arthur Thomas Lambert was killed on 26th May, 1903. The bullock dray overturned breaking his neck.
THE LAND ROUTE.
For travellers going north from Wellington to the Wairarapa or Hawke’s Bay, there were two options available – by sea or the land route which passed up the East Coast. Because of the bush known variously as the Forty Mile, Seventy or Ninety Mile Bush, there was no easy route through the centre of the island.
Travel up the coast was not easy either. At that time there were deep and difficult rivers to be forded, Lake Onoke, where all possessions, passengers and stock had to be ferried across by Maoris and also Cole’s Hole, a dangerous tunnelled point jutting out into the sea, where horses and travellers were forced to enter the water even when conditions were at their most favourable. In addition, there was the steep nature of the country itself, with its deep gullies, steep drops and heavy bush cladding in
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many places. Added to this were swampy areas and the rough rock of the beaches.
The Wairarapa was the first area to be made available for settlement and then Central Hawke’s Bay, with the land in between taking some years to be opened up for settlement. Those who chose to travel by the land route did so for many different reasons.
It would be reasonable to expect that the first whalers and sealers sometimes came ashore or passed by on visits to other stations, or that wandering sailors used it. Donald McLean had ridden by on several occasions with his bands of horsemen to view or buy land for the government, which was offered by the Maoris for sale. Some of the horsemen, perhaps not unnaturally, had an eye to business on their own account.
William Colenso is usually given the credit for being the first European to visit Porangahau. He travelled north from Akitio, in November 1843.
In 1853 Governor Sir George Grey, accompanies by Hon. A.G. Tollemache and young J.D. Ormond had passed by. Donald Gollan, Fred Tiffen, and Edward Davis had been taking sheep up the coast from as early as 1851 to large blocks of land they hoped to obtain.
There was George Rich, Edwin Meredith and Alex St. Clair Ingles, the artist, in 1852. We know about their journeys from their diaries, pictures and sketches. No doubt many who passed were just as worthy, but left no particular reason to be remembered, like Thomas Taylor, (Grandfather of Moana Margaret Hales, who fresh from the Nelson goldfields walked to Ahuriri in 1857, to become the first baker there. He made more from bread than gold as his arrival coincided with that of the British Regiments at Onepoto.
The land route from Wellington to Ahuriri followed old Maori tracks. It passed through the land at Wainui that Joseph Herbert would take up in 1854 and where he would subsequently build a village. ‘Tautane’ means the ridge impassable to man and so the old Maori track turned at the Tautane Stream and followed its valley until a gully was reached. Later in time this place was named Doctor’s Gully. At the head of the gully a track led down what became known as Finger Post Road to the Mangamaire Stream. From there it went to the junction of the present Porangahau-Waipukurau Road. It did not cross the river into what is now Porangahau but followed the old Maori track, now River Valley Road, which was opened in 1903.
Travellers going north, up the coast or to Wellington, appear to have crossed the river considerably further up, beyond the present Pa site, and then taken a track which ran close to the first Lambert house, Kowhi and close to the Teeth. This was the track taken by Chapman in 1856.
Cornwall.
Cornwall was an immigrant ship. She was a barque of 580 tons. She had already made several trips to the Colony.
On 10th April, 1853 Cornwall left Gravesend commanded by Captain A. Dawson who had made previous trips in other vessels. She arrived in Wellington on 13th August, 1853. Unfortunately, there is no passenger list for this particular voyage. There is, however, a newspaper list of passengers who disembarked from the Cornwall at Wellington. This was published in the N.Z. Spectator, on 24th August, 1853. (Turnbull Library)
Massacre Bay.
Same Day – Barque Cornwall, 580 tons, Dawson, from London. Passengers – Elizabeth Batersbee, G. Holdsworth, Joseph Holdsworth, Mary Ann Holdsworth, Ann Catherine Holdsworth, William G. Holdsworth, Eliza Jane Holdsworth, John Holdsworth, Ann Holdsworth, Frederick Holdsworth, Emily Holdsworth, J. Mungean, Rev. S. Poole, Eleanor Poole, Lucy Poole, Alice Poole, Ann Maria Poole, E. C. and C. Salisbury, Henry St. Hill, Jessie St. Hill, T. Feldan, T.H. Vyogan, R.F. Vyogan, M.E. Vyogan, H.S. Vyogan, E.S. Vyogan, L. Young, H. Young, L. Young, jnr, James, Jacob, and George Young, C.D. Castro, J.P. Edwards, J. Mundey, Ann Mundey, J. Parkerson, H. and S. Parkerson, Fanzhiman, H. Bowles, E. Baines, Mary, George, Rachael, Margaret, Fanny and Alice Ann Deck, Sarah, Ellen, Winsor, Bowden, W. and E. Soper, Katherine Thextoo, A. Lambert, T. Atkinson, R. Allen, T., J., and A. Austin, R., S., R., F., H. & A. Bunker, G. Chisnall, J. Devany, S. and E. Dyer, J. Fiddes, R. and H. Funnell, R. Wakelin, A., C., G. and M. A. Geddes, E., S., E. McNamara, E. and M. Parr, J. and A. MacCormichee, J. and L. Plampore, T. and C. Pashley, W. Pugh, T. and E. Petter, T. and M. Rawlinson, J. and H. Ranson, H. Seal, J., A., J., A., E., B., H., M. and F. Swayne, S. and G. Skernes, J. Spicer.
August 15 – Schooner Governor Grey, 30 tons, Watt, from Wanganui
August 16 – Schooner Gipsy, 8 tons, Riley, from Bird Island.
Among the passengers listed were Henry St. Hill, Jessie St. Hill and A. Lambert. It was not unusual to omit the names of steerage passengers or those who had not paid their own fare. As Alfred Lambert’s employer, Henry St. Hill had no doubt paid the passage.
THE SAINT-HILL FAMILY
Henry Charles St. Hill, also named Charles Henry in the St. Hill family history was born in 1783 and died in 1861 at Wellington. He is buried in the Bolton St. Cemetery.
He began his working life in the Civil Ordinance in Barbados, going to S. Vincent, Grenada. He served for a short time in Demarara and was Colonial Treasurer in Trinidad from 1815 to 1831. After that he served in Ceylon and Hong Kong until his retirement.
In 1815 he married Mary Windle, youngest daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Windle, Esq. They had twelve children altogether – six sons and six daughters.
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Henry Charles St. Hill. Born 1783. Died 1861.
When Henry St. Hill sailed for New Zealand on the Cornwall on 10th April, 1853 he was 70 years of age and was accompanied by Jessie St. Hill who was possibly his daughter. Two sons were already living in New Zealand. The eldest son, Ashton, born in Trinidad, had come as a New Zealand Co. Cabin Passenger on the Bolton, leaving Gravesend in England on the 19th November, 1839. He was 15 years of age and appears to have travelled alone.
The second son, Henry Woodford St. Hill, called Harry, was born in 1827 and named for his Godfather, Sir Ralph Woodford, Governor of Trinidad. He arrived on the Adelaide in 1840. In spite of being lame due to an accident when a school boy, he was a strong active man and lived to a good age.
He entered the Church and in 1860 became the first vicar of the Parish of St. John the Evangelist in Napier and was later made Canon of Napier. On Easter Tuesday, 1861 he was married at Old St Paul’s in Wellington by the Rev. W.P. Tanner, brother of his bride, Mary Ann Tanner.
The youngest son, Windle St. Hill was in the 65th Regiment and 19th Prince of Wales Own. He was on the staff of the Governor, Sir George Grey. He married Elizabeth Loudoun, daughter of General Loudoun and they had eight sons.
Canon H.W. St. Hill died at St. Remo in 1907 while on a visit to his sister, Lady Ogle and he is buried there. Although some historians have included James Henry St. Hill, Resident Magistrate at Wellington for twenty years, as a son and partner in the property at Whangaehu, this does not appear to be correct. James Henry St. Hill died in 1866 when he was 58 years old. There may well have been a relationship.
While Ashton St. Hill was more actively involved in the farming of Whangaehu, it was his brother’s children who would eventually inherit the property when Ashton died on 15th December, 1904.
There is much evidence of the Rev. H.W. St. Hill working in the Porangahau and Wainui areas on Church business before the coming of the Rev. F.E.T. Simcox in 1876.
His signature appears on documents of importance to our family. He conducted the burial services of Sarah Herbert at Wainui on 21st January, 1876, and William Wiffen on 1st March, 1877.
He baptized Evan Morgans on 7th May, 1882 and gave him his Bible and Prayer Book suitably inscribed to mark the occasion.
Evan Morgans
from
Rev. H. Woodford St. Hill
in remembrance of his
Baptism
– 7th May, 1882
Havelock, H.B.
New Zealand.
ALFRED CHAPMAN of EDENHAM.
Alfred Chapman and his brother came to New Zealand in the Cornwall in 1849. In partnership with Captain Rhodes he formed a sheep station at Edenham, a property 15 miles towards the coast from Otane and north of Porangahau. By 1854 when the Lamberts came to Whangaehu with Ashton St. Hill this property was well established, carrying 1,750 sheep and 10 horses.
Alfred Chapman, kept wonderful diaries making sketches to illustrate his entries on a facing page. It was from his 1856 diary, housed at Turnbull Library that we learnt of his journey from Edenham to Petone assisted by his shepherds, Austin and Collins. We read not only of his meeting with Alfred Lambert at the Kowhi, but also of his whole experience from the crossing of the Porangahau River until his meetings with R.D. Wallace and Joseph Herbert at Wainui. It is the best record that we presently have of what it was like in the area at that time. It includes a sketch of Lambert’s home, Kowhi.
Also at Turnbull Library are Chapman’s sketches of his own home Edenham, both inside and outside. It is typical of the first homes constructed Maori fashion using raupo, clay and other local materials in
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the period preceeding milling and the availability of timber. The sketches give an indication of what the interior of the Lambert home would have been like. Perhaps the biggest impact of the drawings was the lack of possessions and material comforts.
OAKBOURNE, WALLINGFORD.
John Davis Canning arrived in New Zealand on the Cornwall in 1851. This was an earlier voyage than the one undertaken by Henry St. Hill and the Lamberts. Like St Hill, Crosse and others who came at about the same time in the early 50’s he leased land from the Maoris in anticipation of later purchases from the Crown. Like those other early settlers he lived initially in a raupo whare with a paving stone floor. This was his first home for about three years. He would build several other homes as the years passed.
When he first arrived at Oakbourne to live he was in his early thirties and a bachelor. Later he married Elspeth McQueen. She was a niece of Donald Gollan of Mangatarata who had come to New Zealand about 1865 to care for his child, Spencer Gollan and his half-brother, Louis de Pelichet, following the death of Frederica Gollan, his wife.
Two sons and a daughter were born to John Davis and Elspeth Canning, but the daughter died when young.
The property increased in size as land became available, from 12,000 acres in 1869 to an eventual 40,000 acres.
Run by J.D. Canning and a band of competent shepherds it was an extremely well organized property having it’s own store, brick kiln and blacksmith. There was also a full-time bootmaker, probably named Hurley and a baker, Edmund Field.
From two old ledgers from Oakbourne Station, the first dated 21st March, 1860 and the second dated May, 1869 we learn that the station amenities were made available not only to those working there but also to other run-holders, neighbours and friends if the need arose.
At the station store the shepherds’ needs were basic – pipes, tobacco and soap being the most frequent purchases. Pipes were one penny each and were probably made of clay. Some bought one at a time, the more affluent bought six.
Tobacco was 4s. 6d per pound,
socks were 2s 6d per pair,
moleskin trousers 8s 6d,
a merino vest 4s 6d,
a Crimean shirt 14s 6d, and
a cotton handkerchief 1s. 0d.
A system of borrowing and lending by the shepherds among themselves existed and debts were settled on pay days by adjustments on the ledgers. Money rarely changed hands so that the station acted as a banking facility as well.
The names of the casual workers on the ledgers were interesting as well. These were the shearers, crutchers, wood-cutters, horse-breakers, bullockys, carpenters and fencers. Paulo (Pouricuss), Ihakera, Henry (Maori), Piara, F. Cereni, Renata, Nira, Moss, Rawidi, John Ray (Racoon Jack), and Peter Dubois, (French Peter).
On 1st May 1860, Thomas Lamb, Porangahau’s first publican bought 2 bottles of hair oil at 2s 0d. each.
Later he bought 20 lbs of tea and a bag of sugar.
Charles Crosse of Mangamaire was a regular customer buying large quantities of beef at 5d per pound, bottles of brandy, a saddle, saddlestraps, twine and wool clamps. He paid the expenses of the bullock driver who conveyed his goods from Blackhead to Lamb’s Hotel. He exchanged a bottle of wine left for him at Christmas by Robert Craill for a bottle of sherry. He made sure of having a Merry Christmas with the purchase of 3 gallons of rum at 24 shillings per gallon!
On January 8th, 1861, Ashton St. Hill paid cash for three bars of soap, 2lbs tobacco and 1xcut file.
Subscriptions to the races were paid by D. and W. Hunter, John Nairn, Davis Canning, Charles Crosse and Cowper. On October 31st, 1860 several amounts of cash were paid to Lambert for the raffle of a rifle.
Footnote: – Napier became a garrison town in 1858. In 1860 the war in Taranaki had begun. The formation of the Militia and Volunteers in Hawkes Bay had begun.
Settlers from Wainui also used the Oakbourne Station store – Jesse and Charles Herbert, R.D. Wallace and William Howell of Tautane are all recorded as having bought good there.
The 1869 ledger entries are equally as interesting. Mrs Brough was being paid as the washerwoman.
There were large accounts for timber and other building materials. Carpenters, Gregory and Fisher were paid. On 14 September, 1869, George Winlove, carpenter was paid for 122½ days at 10s 0d. J. Sharplin was paid for 140½ days at 8s 0d. Each was charged for 23 weeks board at 12s 0d per week and also for 23 weeks horse grazing at 1s 0d per week.
Mrs Cossey was engaged to work at 12s 0d per week. On 11th September, 1869, Dr. C.R. English was paid a cheque of 10 pounds. This was his midwifery fee.
The entries are many and varied giving a clear picture of the importance of such a station in the community of the day and of life in those times.
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It is important to our family history as Oakbourne Station influenced the lives of some of those who were either Lambert or who would become connected to the family in some way – Robert Craill, Robert James Sidwell, Mary Ann Eliza Lambert, Evan Morgans, Thomas Charles Hales and others we are not sure about at present. Evan Morgans worked at Oakbourne for nine years before taking up land on his own account at Wimbledon. It was as head-shepherd that he used the old ledgers to record his stock entries. There were 14 entries for 1885.
SETTLEMENT AT WIMBLEDON.
Although there had been a store at Wimbledon since 1882 and a hotel, the sections in the Tautane Block in the area now known as Wimbledon were not made available for settlement until 1886 and 1887.
It appears that quite a number of settlers took up their sections during these two years. some who came really early have long since been forgotten, only their names remain on the electoral rolls of the day. Many had lived and worked at Wainui or Porangahau and the surrounding districts for years waiting for the opportunity to be able to take up land on their own account.
Initially the area was named Upper Wainui, and the Post Office intending to open there in 1887, had a seal made. By that time, however, the settlers themselves had named it Wimbledon and that is how it stayed.
Unlike the coastal strip, the land at Wimbledon was dense, bush clad country which required clearing. A number of mills were quickly established up the Angora Valley and on Wimbledon Farm. The felling and burning of the bush was begun, not only to create good farm land but also for the totara which was in demand for the building of bridges to Waipukurau, and later to Weber.
The Wimbledon District is a small one. It extends for about three miles in a radius centred at the village. The village is at the intersection of three adjoining valleys. The homes of the earliest settlers were scattered along the valleys and built close to the stream running through them – the Wimbledon, and the Angora leading into the Wainui, and the Waikapiro [Waikopiro]. First homes were slab huts with roofs of thin, wooden, overlapping tiles.
Although there was no road to Dannevirke in 1886, and there would not be one for another ten years, it would not have been too lonely for those first settlers. Living conditions may have been primitive and crude at first but settlers lived close together, within easy walking distance of each other. It was seven miles to Wainui, a village well established for more than thirty years. Here there was a hotel, several stores, a post-office with a registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, a school, a public cemetery and probably a hall built as a skating rink. There was a resident Doctor, a policeman, blacksmiths and stables, a race-course and a cricket pitch. It was there at Cape Turnagain that the small coastal boats called with the goods which could not be purchased at the local stores, or to take away wool, seed, and other farm produce, or passengers. Wainui was also on the land route from Wellington for travellers going north.
A stock inspector’s station was established at the Waimata. The rabbit fence stretching from the sea along the boundary between the provinces of Wellington and Hawke’s Bay was already under construction. Settlers living up the Angora Valley were close to this fence and had regular contact with those involved in the building or manning of it.
Porangahau was 14 miles north of Wimbledon and the inland road was becoming a reality. From the very beginning of the settlement at Wimbledon there were many people living and working in the area.
It was to this place that two of the daughters of Alfred and Sarah Lambert would come after their marriages.
It was here that they would raise their families. It was here that they would die when life had reached its natural conclusion and it was from here that they would make the final journey back to the place of their birth and be laid to rest with so many of their family.
THE WIMBLEDON SCHOOL.
The Wimbledon School opened in 1891 on a piece of land made available by Thomas Charles Hales opposite the Hales’ homestead and in the very middle of Wimbledon Farm.,
Since the opening day four generations of descendants of Alfred and Sarah Lambert have attended the school. It is interesting to note that over the years children from every line of descendancy have received either all, or part of their education there.
Early school records were lost in the fire of 1933, but we believe that on opening day Mary Sarah Gertrude Morgans was the first child to be enrolled although Sam Sergent always claimed: –
‘that he was first to put his foot over the school doorstep.’
Other first day pupils were Margaret Florence Hales and Amelia Maud Hales. Other members of both families would go in their turn as they became old enough. Alfred Ocean Lambert the second came to live in the house at Sargent’s Hill in the period between 1910 and 1920 and three of his children Arthur Alfred, Esma Irene and David Breuer attended Wimbledon School. After the marriage of Florence Hope Doria to William Gollan there were the grand-children
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of Eunice Maud at the school. During the 1940’s Gordon Herbert, grandson of Mary Ann Eliza came to live at Herbert’s Mount and his children rode on horses to school for many years.
Thomas Charles Hales and Evan Morgans served on the Committee in the early years. On 30th June, 1890, a letter was received from the Department of Agriculture appointing 18th July, as Arbor day, and requesting that something be done to make the day more generally observed than in the past. Evan Morgans proposed that 100 two year old macrocarpa trees be procured to enclose the school grounds and to close the gaps.
Alice Elizabeth Morgans remembered planting one of these trees at the far end of the playground on her first day at school and would always visit her tree when she returned home later in life. Its massive stump still stands. One can well imagine the result in that fertile soil. One hundred macrocarpa trees grew very quickly indeed.
One former pupil of the school wrote saying: –
‘Very large macrocarpa trees grew right around the school. I remember the committee voting to have the large trees cut down opposite old Mr Hales place to let more sunlight into the school. It was sitting on those large tree stumps that the whole school listened to the Gene Tunney – Jack Dempsey fight. Old Mr Hales, whom the whole school called Da, kindly put on his radio, a very rare thing in those days, at full blast so that we could all hear.’
Evan Halsted Morgans, called Jock, would talk of his early school days remembering the intense cold as they walked to school and the gloriously long icicles which hung from the trees along the way. No doubt the bush created the kind of cold that made icicles grow.
For almost one hundred years four generations of family have involved themselves in school affairs as pupils, teachers, committee members, bus drivers or on working bees and it must be remembered that Alfred Henry Morgans acted as Commissioner during the difficult years of World War Two.
Arthur William Sharland Longley came to Wimbledon School as its teacher in 1908. In his reminiscences he wrote:
‘The dances held in Hales’ woolshed arouse many pleasant memories. They were usually held fortnightly. The shed was also the scene for many school concerts, balls and wedding breakfasts, and jollifications. I remember well one wedding held on Friday afternoon. The celebrations were still continuing on Sunday night.’
The wedding was of course his own. He married Amelia Maud Hales in the Wimbledon School. The bride had chosen to be married on the anniversary of the marriage of her Grandparents Alfred and Sarah Lambert, only more that [than] half a century apart in time and half a world away in place. The bridesmaid was her sister, Gladys Sarah Hales and the best man her brother, Charles Alfred Henry Hales.
The bridegroom’s present to the fourteen year old bridesmaid was a leather bound birthday book, with a tooled pewter front cover. From the centre, five angels emerge from a wreath of clouds, while around the edge is a typical Edwardian ornate wreath of leaves. It is a Longfellow book and the flyleaf bears the inscription.
To Gladys Hales
From Arthur,
On the occasion of
Her sister’s wedding
Dec., 23rd 1909
It was a very fitting present for a girl of that age. On the same flyleaf fourteen years later Gladys recorded:
Gladys Sarah Hales
married
September, 10th, 1923
It was from this birthday book and that of Amy Beatrice Neilsen, daughter of Anna Margaret and Peter Neilsen that so much has been learnt about the early families.
THE ANGLICAN PARISH OF PORANGAHAU
The Church of St. Michael’s and All Angels at Porangahau was built and consecrated in 1880. It was modelled on a little church in Cumberland Fells, England. On 6th July, 1876, the Rev. F.E.T. Simcox, arrived in Napier. At a meeting held at his home on Friday, 29th September, 1876, it was agreed that his services be secured as Porangahau’s first Church of England Minister.
Those present from Porangahau were: –
Charles J. Nairn, Ashton St. Hill and John Davis Canning.
The appointment was originally intended for a period of three years but this extended to one of forty-three years.
The site of the parsonage had already been secured by George Hunter, Esq., Wellington and gifted by him to the Church of England.
The building appears to have been started in 1876.
The Rev. F.E.T. Simcox and his wife moved to Porangahau and until the parsonage was completed they lived with Mr George Crosse at Mangamaire.
The Crosse family had arrived in Porangahau in 1855. Charles Grant Crosse had been tragically killed in 1871 at the age of 46 years when his horse had shied at a stack of telegraph poles near the Porangahau Bridge. It had then bolted under some trees so that
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its rider suffered a broken neck. The Crosse family could trace their ancestry back to the Crusades where they had received their family name. One ancestor was the cross-bearer when their army went into battle.
The church records of 1877 show that Ashton St. Hill was a church warden as was J.D. Canning.
Parochial nominators were D. Hunter, J. Nairn, W. Canning and Ashton St. Hill.
Vestrymen were Messrs. Lambert, White, Hirtzel, Spencer, Bell, H. Nairn, W. Canning, and A. St. Hill.
Auditor was John White.
The graves in the area surrounding the Church are in ground owned by the parish so it would be reasonable to expect that those buried there are of Anglican faith.
The graves in the area at the opposite end of the section are in the Porangahau public cemetery. At one time a fence separated the two areas.
As there had been twenty six years of European settlement at Porangahau before the church was built it is almost certain that the public cemetery was always sited there. It also explains why some people who might be expected to be buried in Anglican church ground are buried in the public cemetery.
At one time an unusually high flood caused the river to rise to such an extent that it swept through the cemetery scouring and causing great havoc so that headstones and indications of old graves were lost. Records housed in the Diocesan Offices were lost in the fire following the 1931 Napier earthquake. In recent years the whole area has undergone a major tidy up and large areas of unsightly concrete removed so that it is more lawn-like and attractive. It is difficult to believe that there are now few vacant plots.
Our Lambert family has been involved with the Anglican Parish of Porangahau since its coming to Whangaehu in 1854.
Whole families of the descendants of Alfred and Sarah Lambert has been christened, married, and buried at the Church of St. Michael’s and All Angels. Thirty two family members are known to be buried there.
The first of these was Alfred Ocean Lambert, aged 23 years who died on the 4th July, 1875. In time he was joined by his two brothers and his parents.
The headstone is simple and fitting. In its rough ruggedness it indicates the character of these pioneers who endured so much.
Its inscription states: –
In Loving Memory
of
ALFRED LAMBERT
Died April 27th, 1900,
Also of
SARAH LAMBERT
Wife of the above
Died February 18th, 1910
Aged 87 years
Both of Ardleigh,
Essex, England,
Thine Forever God of Love.
On a separate plaque are the names of the three sons:
ALFRED OCEAN
THOMAS GERSHAM
HENRY ARTHUR
The five daughters would all come in their own time to lie with their husbands and children
Unica Maud,
Mary Ann Eliza,
Charlotte Maria, unmarried and alone to lie at the foot of her parents, facing them and her brothers.
Jemima Amelia,
Eleanor Jane, whose death on 21st March, 1948 closed the first chapter in the story of THE LAMBERT FAMILY IN NEW ZEALAND.
Neighbouring the Lamberts in death as in life is Charles Grant Crosse of Mangamaire.
Since the restoration of the Church grounds, the headstone of Ashton St. Hill, erstwhile employer, long time friend has come from Whangaehu to the Church he served so well.
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Acknowledgement and Thanks.
The writing of this family history was inspired by my grandson, Tristram Charles Hales, born at Christchurch on 21st May, 1979 who at the age of six years assembled his own family tree on his bedroom wall using photographs. He asked many questions and I realized that there was a need for all to know the answer to the question ‘Who is our family?’
So began the search. Aline Mima Margaret Stoddart, daughter of Gladys Sarah Douglas lent me her Mother’s box of cuttings and family data, the old family photograph album and her Birthday Book. Throughout she has encouraged me to pursue the search. In the box was the letter from Douglas Victor Lambert who ten years earlier had started his own search. Working with Douglas, sharing each new piece of evidence was one of the best and most exciting periods. It would have known little of the Neilsen family if it had not been for Douglas. Laureen Mary Stoddart, known as Polly, Post-Mistress at Porangahau, made it possible to spend many whole days searching the old Birth, Deaths and Marriage Registers housed in her office. It was the biggest single contribution to the history.
I have constantly been excited by today’s systems for storage and easy retrieval of historical information and have enjoyed my many trips to the Registrar-General, the Archives and Turnbull Library in the search of truth. Gone are the days when history depended on memory and word of mouth becoming a kind of folk lore in the process.
Gwendolyn Christina Gould, granddaughter of Eleanor Jane Morgans assumed the responsibility for assembling the family tree – a mammoth undertaking. She is to be applauded. It was no easy task finding the data concerning today’s generation.
Gwen, also, and her cousin Ivor Thomas Evan Morgans are to be thanked for their large contributions of family documents and memorabilia, which has even included the hair of both Alfred and Sarah Lambert. This has put another dimension into the history and provided a real keyhole to the past.
Many people have made contributions, sharing with us their most treasured family mementos. We are grateful and thank you all. The success of the history depended on each contribution regardless of size. When I offered the history I was compiling to the Lambert Family for the reunion to be held on the 18-19 February, 1990, coinciding with the eightieth anniversary of the death of Sarah Lambert, some changes needed to be made if it was to be published. Time and cost were the deciding factors in that the focus would be on the original family and their lives during the period in which they lived.
Much of the material accumulated concerning the subsequent generations can be better used in the histories of Wainui, Wimbledon or Porangahau or in history of each line of descendancy.
Many Lambert descendants have distinguished themselves in a number of different ways. It would be difficult to include them all in this booklet.
And so I present to you:
THE LAMBERT FAMILY IN NEW ZEALAND.
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