The magic word was land. Ben and Martha, when living in Adelaide, were well aware of the plans of the New Zealand Company for the establishment of a settlement at Wellington. The Company’s agents were very active in Berkshire, and in the Home Counties, seeking suitable recruits. The Smiths were sent, and read, the enticing literature, filled out an application form and submitted this, with the essential testimonials, to Mr E. H. Mears, the Company’s London Agent. Their principal sponsor was Arthur Willis, a New Zealand Company member and London businessman, whose name was later to be given to Willis Street in Wellington. Their application was accepted promptly and the family was listed to sail from Gravesend on the Aurora on 18 September 1839 – a sailing much too early for them. (A copy of the ship’s register held in National Archives bears the notation “Did not embark” against their names). There had been no time, after their return to England, to visit relatives and to collect the required stores and supplies necessary for the new undertaking.
They decided to seek passage on a ship well known to them as a South Australian Company charter vessel, the Katherine Stewart Forbes, and therefore re-applied to the New Zealand Company (Application No. 2349) on 9 January 1841, giving their place of residence as Longcot, near Faringdon, Berkshire, and Ben’s occupation as “carpenter”. The New Zealand Company paid the passage money to the owners of the Katherine Stewart Forbes on the basis of 145 people at twenty pounds two shillings each, plus fifty pounds for the surgeon, half paid before departure and the balance after the safe arrival of the ship at her port of destination. The ship sailed from Gravesend on 5 February 1841 and arrived at Port Nicholson on 11 June 1841. It was off Cape Leeuwin, South Australia, that Martha had need of the surgeon, Dr. Joseph Abbott, and the assistance of the Matron, Mary Durham; for it was 21 May 1841 and the birthnight of the son who was to be named Peter John Lewin Smith. Other children were born on the voyage: to William and Elizabeth Fisher, a daughter on 7 March; to Samuel and Mary Ann Root, a daughter on 29 March; to John and Ann Lingard, a son on 11 May; and to Elizabeth Ann Alexander, a daughter on 8 June. There was only one death, that of William Benge, the sixteen-year old son of Nicholas and Jane Benge; he died on 29 March 1841.
Most of the male passengers were farm labourers, for there had been no improvement to the economic conditions of the ’thirties and farming was still in a depressed State. There were five carpenters, four each of gardeners, blacksmiths, plasterers, and shoemakers, and in addition one tailor, while most women, other than wives, were listed as seamstresses or servants. There was a preponderance of young married couples, 41 in all; there were 30 single men and 20 single women over 14 years old, and 23 boys and 18 girls under fourteen. Cabin passengers were three in number. Captain John Hobbs commanded. Her holds contained blankets, clothing, stout, ale, guns, tobacco and other general merchandise.
Among the passengers were Edward Biddle, his wife Ann and one son, also fourteen year old Benedict Biddle; Charles Cottle, his wife Mary and two children; the Edwards family, eight in all; the larger Mudgway family of eleven persons; and David and Sarah Benge and three children. Many of these families were to prosper in the Wellington, Porirua and Wairarapa regions; but others, including the Trices and the Smiths, were to move further afield. The Trice brothers, William and George, and Margaret, William’s wife, settled at Whitford, near Auckland in 1843; but it was not until 1854 that the Smiths settled on their land at Wairoa South (Ardmore), not so far away from their old shipmates.
When Ben and Martha Smith arrived at Port Nicholson, they first lived in a tent because the houses provided by the Company at Wellington for new immigrants were overcrowded. These houses had been built of raupo by Maori labour, as were most at this time, though it was not long before immigrants were being housed in timber structures. Ben and Martha with their two children and other new arrivals camped at Petone, which must have been most uncomfortable and very cold during the winter months of July, August and September. There was a surplus of carpenters and no work for them.
A series of small earthquakes added to Ben and Martha’s feeling of having made a bad decision. One night in September, there was a severe earthquake with avalanches of rock and mud. Martha held on to the ten-pole to prevent herself from falling. In the morning they saw that the foreshore had risen. Martha was never to forget the terror of this experience, though in the future she was to experience other ’quakes when in California. The surgeon of the William Bryan, Henry Weekes, felt this earthquake in New Plymouth a hundred and fifty miles away, and gave a vivid description of it in his Journal under the date of 18 September 1841, and his seems to be the only written record of the event:
We were visited with a severe shock of an earthquake last night. I awoke from my first sleep and on collecting my bewildered senses found myself rocking, or rather, lifted up and down as if two or three stout fellows were under the bed alternatively pushing up the sacking with their backs. This was accompanied by the rattling of china and bottles, as well as a general noise, which appeared to pervade the atmosphere and reminded me strongly of the interior of a country gristmill when at work. The motions gradually ceased and the sound died away in a manner which led me to suppose it was passing onwards through the country and in a few moments nothing could be heard but the sea breaking on the beach. . . On my rounds this morning everyone was of course full of the event. The common idea on that commencement of the shock was that some drunken wags were giving the house a great shaking from the outside (the walls it must be recollected, being merely bulrushes tied over rods and posts) and more than one had called out to the imaginary Saturday night debauchers to get home and get to bed. Others agreed that the whole thing had ended in a pop! whilst some slept so soundly as to render them unconscious of anything having happened. The weather lately has been very wet and stormy and was particularly so last evening when an old native “Hunuko” prognosticated the shock or mumu. No accidents have occurred; but how it might have been, had we solid walls, must be left for future shocks of similar intensity to determine.
The plans of the New Zealand Company had been affected by the Land Proclamations of Governor Hobson, which had been first gazetted on 30 December 1840. With no immediate prospect of taking up their land allocation and because there was little employment available, Ben decided to accept an offer to work in the newly established town of Auckland. Other dissatisfied immigrants had already made their way northward, the first group travelling in the Platina in 1840.
There was a great deal of bitterness against Governor Hobson among the settlers of the New Zealand Company at Wellington; for they believed themselves discriminated against and neglected. They thought that Wellington and not Auckland should have been chosen as the seat of Government and, therefore, when the Abercrombie sailed into Port Nicholson in January 1842, there were scathing comments in the daily newspaper and she was accused of being on a “crimping” expedition (as used in sense of enticing young men into the navy and the army); which of course was quite correct. Although there was little work for tradesmen, the loss of manpower from the settlement was still a cause for regret. The following comment in The New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator of Wednesday, 5 January 1842, states clearly the feelings of at least one person of some influence:
On the arrival of the Abercrombie here from Auckland, a letter was received from Mr Montifiore, the agent of the vessel visiting our port for mischievous reasons. We were, however, suspicious on the subject and therefore did not recommend that the Auckland Packet Company’s vessel should be encouraged. The information we have received leads us now to believe that we were correct in our suspicions and we are sure she should be regarded as being on a crimping expedition. The settlers will no doubt give her the support to which she is entitled. The people of this place may be perfectly indifferent about Auckland. They can do without it. If they are inclined to encourage a packet it should be between Wellington and Sydney. We shall soon be in a position to export the produce of the soil and must seek our market in that direction.
Prior to the visit of the Abercrombie, and the inauguration of a regular service between Wellington and Auckland, access to the north was via Sydney. Notwithstanding the feelings of the editor of the Wellington newspaper, the vessel was welcomed by many of the newer arrivals from the United Kingdom, Ben Smith among them. He decided to accept the work offered by the new Government in Auckland – which involved erection of buildings and stores for the arrival of immigrants later in the year from Scotland on the Jane Gifford and the Duchess of Argyle. When the Abercrombie left Wellington there were sixty-six persons in all on the ship, though the notice in The New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator of 14 July, 1842 records only a few of the names, presumably these were those of the early applicants for passage. These were:
Messrs Macretchie, Faulkner, Fleury and Thompson, Cully, Ludbrook (2), Clarke and Mrs Blomfield.
Steerage: J Kingsmill, J Jackson, D Miller, G Bryon, Mrs Walsh and four children, Mrs Graham and seven children, B Smith and wife, D Cameron and wife and children.
It is interesting to note that some of the names mentioned above later appear on early maps and land deeds for the town of Auckland, and also in the passenger lists of 1849 and 1850 as voyagers to the gold fields of California.
When the ship finally anchored off Commercial Bay, Auckland, the Smith family saw a small shanty town of raupo huts, the Government Store on the waterfront, several but not many shops along the hillside street which they were to learn was named Shortland Crescent. There were few Europeans and many Maoris; also a large number of canoes drawn up on the beach. Bullock wagons and horse-drawn carts were also in evidence.
Ben and Martha, along with William, Benjamin, and Peter the baby, were ferried in the ship’s boat to the shore, but had to wade the last few yards through muddy shallows. No doubt they thought they had now completed their great adventure.
The Duchess of Argyle and the Jane Gifford, the first immigrant ships to Auckland, were to arrive some months later on 9 October 1842, and after that date, as progressively more ships arrived, the difficulties of raising a family and keeping in lucrative employment were to increase.
Both Ben and Martha had been on hand to welcome Bishop Selwyn on his arrival in May and they were among the first worshippers in his congregation. They had watched the building of the Church in Emily Place which was to be dedicated to St Paul, as later they were to do with St Matthew’s Hobson Street, where the family became regular worshippers. The connection with St Matthew’s was to continue through to the marriages of most of their children.
When, in after-years, Ben and Martha moved to Papakura Valley and to “The Travellers’ Rest”, Bishop Selwyn was a frequent visitor, more particularly during the war period, prior to his finding a temporary headquarters in Papakura. He was popular with their children and was not above bouncing small Jane on his knee; she was to remember him always with affection. Most historians when writing of Selwyn tend to see him confronting officialdom with the problems of the day and not see him as a man with deep care for humanity. The children of his friends remember a different man – friendly, caring, loving.
About 1843, Ben purchased a section in Albert Street and built his house. Earlier, the then small family lived in Victoria Street behind the “Bluebell Inn” where Mr Nichols had an accommodation house for new arrivals. One of the neighbouring owners in Albert Street was W C Daldy, later to make his name in the timber trade, the shipping world, and in helping establish what was to become the New Zealand Insurance Company; his cottage was let to a merchant named Edward Rich. On the other side was Robert Beaumont, a dealer in general merchandise. Other neighbours were Clement Partridge, George Cole, John Merrick, mariner, and Charles Robinson, who lived in a house owned by George Mitford. Ben and Martha Smith with their steadily growing family lived in Albert Street until they once more allowed themselves to be enticed into a quest for change and adventure.