Benjamin and Martha Smith are two of my great grandparents.  They migrated to New Zealand from England in 1841 and eventually settled in Wairoa South – now known as Ardmore – halfway between Papakura and Clevedon, where they raised a large family of five boys and three girls.

This is the story of Ben and Martha’s lives from their earliest days in England through to their old age and and eventual resting place in Symond St Cemetery in Auckland.  The story is compiled from the accumulated recollections of events told to the youngest child of that family, Jane.   It seems likely that when Jane found herself in a position of having to assist her mother in the running of the domestic household following the death of her father, she was able to document many of the family stories told to her by her mother.

Then the many separate stories and recollections, some written and some spoken passed from Jane to her daughter, Beatrice, who together with her daughter, Jessica, undertook the dual tasks of verifying the evidence and joining the various segments into a coherent narrative on paper.

I suspect that over the decades, there have been much research and many corrections, drafts, revisions and improvements to the narrative.  As a teenager in the 1950s I recollect my father, Vic Smith, and Beatrice Bluck (who were cousins and grandchildren of Benjamin and Martha) often discussing the Smith family history and for a while, around the time of A. E. Tonson’s researches for his book ‘Old Manukau‘, there was regular correspondence between them.

In 1980 Jessica Morrison showed the manuscript to my brother, Alvin Smith, wondering whether he could help her publish it.   He was able to offer some editing of it,  but nothing more,  and as far as is known, the manuscript was never published.  Since then,  Jessica told him,  there had been additions and revisions made to it, but they do not appear in this version.

In 2001,  Susan Behrens,  a great grandaughter of Benjamin and Martha and a cousin of mine was looking over Alvin’s papers and come across the copy of the 1980 manuscript together with Alvin’s suggested edits.  She was anxious to send a copy to her brother in London,  and during January and February she undertook the task of keyboarding the document to make a computer file.  That file is the basis of this internet version.

Vern Smith 2013