The magic word was land<\/i>.\u00a0 Ben and Martha,\u00a0 when living in Adelaide,\u00a0 were well aware of the plans of the New Zealand Company for the establishment of a settlement at Wellington.\u00a0 The Company\u2019s agents were very active in Berkshire,\u00a0 and in the Home Counties,\u00a0 seeking suitable recruits.\u00a0 The Smiths were sent,\u00a0 and read,\u00a0 the enticing literature,\u00a0 filled out an application form and submitted this,\u00a0 with the essential testimonials,\u00a0 to Mr E. H. Mears,\u00a0 the Company\u2019s London Agent.\u00a0 Their principal sponsor was Arthur Willis,\u00a0 a New Zealand Company member and London businessman,\u00a0 whose name was later to be given to Willis Street in Wellington.\u00a0 Their application was accepted promptly and the family was listed to sail from Gravesend on the Aurora<\/i> on 18 September 1839 \u2013 a sailing much too early for them.\u00a0 (A copy of the ship\u2019s register held in National Archives bears the notation \u201cDid not embark\u201d against their names).\u00a0 There had been no time,\u00a0 after their return to England,\u00a0 to visit relatives and to collect the required stores and supplies necessary for the new undertaking.<\/p>\n
They decided to seek passage on a ship well known to them as a South Australian Company charter vessel,\u00a0 the Katherine Stewart Forbes,\u00a0 <\/i>and therefore re-applied to the New Zealand Company (Application\u00a0 No. 2349) on 9 January 1841,\u00a0 giving their place of residence as Longcot,\u00a0 near Faringdon,\u00a0 Berkshire,\u00a0 and Ben\u2019s occupation as \u201ccarpenter\u201d.\u00a0 The New Zealand Company paid the passage money to the owners of the Katherine Stewart Forbes <\/i>on the basis of 145 people at twenty pounds two shillings each,\u00a0 plus fifty pounds for the surgeon,\u00a0 half paid before departure and the balance after the safe arrival of the ship at her port of destination.\u00a0 The ship sailed from Gravesend on 5 February 1841 and arrived at Port Nicholson on 11 June 1841.\u00a0 It was off Cape Leeuwin,\u00a0 South Australia,\u00a0 that Martha had need of the surgeon,\u00a0 Dr. Joseph Abbott,\u00a0 and the assistance of the Matron,\u00a0 Mary Durham;\u00a0 for it was 21 May 1841 and the birthnight of the son who was to be named Peter John Lewin Smith.\u00a0 Other children were born on the voyage:\u00a0 to William and Elizabeth Fisher,\u00a0 a daughter on 7 March;\u00a0 to Samuel and Mary Ann Root,\u00a0 a daughter on 29 March;\u00a0 to John and Ann Lingard,\u00a0 a son on 11 May;\u00a0 and to Elizabeth Ann Alexander,\u00a0 a daughter on 8 June.\u00a0 There was only one death,\u00a0 that of William Benge,\u00a0 the sixteen-year old son of Nicholas and Jane Benge;\u00a0 he died on 29 March 1841.<\/p>\n
Most of the male passengers were farm labourers,\u00a0 for there had been no improvement to the economic conditions of the \u2019thirties and farming was still in a depressed State.\u00a0 There were five carpenters,\u00a0 four each of gardeners,\u00a0 blacksmiths,\u00a0 plasterers,\u00a0 and shoemakers,\u00a0 and in addition\u00a0 one tailor,\u00a0 while most women,\u00a0 other than wives,\u00a0 were listed as seamstresses or servants.\u00a0 There was a preponderance of young married couples,\u00a0 41 in all;\u00a0 there were 30 single men and 20 single women over 14 years old,\u00a0 and 23 boys and 18 girls under fourteen.\u00a0 Cabin passengers were three in number.\u00a0 Captain John Hobbs commanded.\u00a0 Her holds contained blankets,\u00a0 clothing,\u00a0 stout,\u00a0 ale,\u00a0 guns,\u00a0 tobacco and other general merchandise.<\/p>\n
Among the passengers were Edward Biddle,\u00a0 his wife Ann and one son,\u00a0 also fourteen year old Benedict Biddle;\u00a0 Charles Cottle,\u00a0 his wife Mary and two children;\u00a0 the Edwards family,\u00a0 eight in all;\u00a0 the larger Mudgway family of eleven persons;\u00a0 and David and Sarah Benge and three children.\u00a0 Many of these families were to prosper in the Wellington,\u00a0 Porirua and Wairarapa regions;\u00a0 but others,\u00a0 including the Trices and the Smiths,\u00a0 were to move further afield.\u00a0 The Trice brothers,\u00a0 William and George,\u00a0 and Margaret,\u00a0 William\u2019s wife,\u00a0 settled at Whitford,\u00a0 near Auckland in 1843;\u00a0 but it was not until 1854 that the Smiths settled on their land at Wairoa South (Ardmore),\u00a0 not so far away from their old shipmates.<\/p>\n
When Ben and Martha Smith arrived at Port Nicholson,\u00a0 they first lived in a tent because the houses provided by the Company at Wellington for new immigrants were overcrowded.\u00a0 These houses had been built of raupo by Maori labour,\u00a0 as were most at this time,\u00a0 though it was not long before immigrants were being housed in timber structures.\u00a0 Ben and Martha with their two children and other new arrivals camped at Petone,\u00a0 which must have been most uncomfortable and very cold during the winter months of July,\u00a0 August and September.\u00a0 There was a surplus of carpenters and no work for them.<\/p>\n
A series of small earthquakes added to Ben and Martha\u2019s feeling of having made a bad decision.\u00a0 One night in September,\u00a0 there was a severe earthquake with avalanches of rock and mud.\u00a0 Martha held on to the ten-pole to prevent herself from falling.\u00a0 In the morning they saw that the foreshore had risen.\u00a0 Martha was never to forget the terror of this experience,\u00a0 though in the future she was to experience other \u2019quakes when in California.\u00a0 The surgeon of the William Bryan<\/i>,\u00a0 Henry Weekes,\u00a0 felt this earthquake in New Plymouth a hundred and fifty miles away,\u00a0 and gave a vivid description of it in his Journal under the date of 18 September 1841,\u00a0 and his seems to be the only written record of the event:<\/p>\n
We were visited with a severe shock of an earthquake last night.\u00a0 I awoke from my first sleep and on collecting my bewildered senses found myself rocking,\u00a0 or rather,\u00a0 lifted up and down as if two or three stout fellows were under the bed alternatively pushing up the sacking with their backs.\u00a0 This was accompanied by the rattling of china and bottles,\u00a0 as well as a general noise,\u00a0 which appeared to pervade the atmosphere and reminded me strongly of the interior of a country gristmill when at work.\u00a0 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. . .\u00a0 On my rounds this morning everyone was of course full of the event.\u00a0 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,\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Others agreed that the whole thing had ended in a pop!\u00a0 whilst some slept so soundly as to render them unconscious of anything having happened.\u00a0\u00a0 The weather lately has been very wet and stormy and was particularly so last evening when an old native \u201cHunuko\u201d prognosticated the shock or mumu.\u00a0 No accidents have occurred;\u00a0 but how it might have been,\u00a0 had we solid walls,\u00a0 must be left for future shocks of similar intensity to determine.<\/em><\/p>\n The plans of the New Zealand Company had been affected by the Land Proclamations of Governor Hobson,\u00a0 which had been first gazetted on 30 December 1840.\u00a0 With no immediate prospect of taking up their land allocation and because there was little employment available,\u00a0 Ben decided to accept an offer to work in the newly established town of Auckland.\u00a0 Other dissatisfied immigrants had already made their way northward,\u00a0 the first group travelling in the Platina<\/i> in 1840.<\/p>\n There was a great deal of bitterness against Governor Hobson among the settlers of the New Zealand Company at Wellington;\u00a0 for they believed themselves discriminated against and neglected.\u00a0 They thought that Wellington and not Auckland should have been chosen as the seat of Government and,\u00a0 therefore,\u00a0 when the Abercrombie <\/i>sailed into Port Nicholson in January 1842,\u00a0 there were scathing comments in the daily newspaper and she was accused of being on a \u201ccrimping\u201d expedition (as used in sense of enticing young men into the navy and the army);\u00a0 which of course was quite correct.\u00a0 Although there was little work for tradesmen,\u00a0 the loss of manpower from the settlement was still a cause for regret.\u00a0 The following comment in The New Zealand Gazette <\/i>and Wellington Spectator <\/i>of Wednesday,\u00a0 5 January 1842,\u00a0 states clearly the feelings of at least one person of some influence:<\/p>\n On the arrival of the Abercrombie here from Auckland,\u00a0 a letter was received from Mr Montifiore,\u00a0 the agent of the vessel visiting our port for mischievous reasons.\u00a0 We were,\u00a0 however,\u00a0 suspicious on the subject and therefore did not recommend that the Auckland Packet Company\u2019s vessel should be encouraged.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The settlers will no doubt give her the support to which she is entitled.\u00a0 The people of this place may be perfectly indifferent about Auckland.\u00a0 They can do without it.\u00a0 If they are inclined to encourage a packet it should be between Wellington and Sydney.\u00a0 We shall soon be in a position to export the produce of the soil and must seek our market in that direction.<\/em><\/p>\n Prior to the visit of the Abercrombie,\u00a0 <\/i>and the inauguration of a regular service between Wellington and Auckland,\u00a0 access to the north was via Sydney.\u00a0 Notwithstanding the feelings of the editor of the Wellington newspaper,\u00a0 the vessel was welcomed by many of the newer arrivals from the United Kingdom,\u00a0 Ben Smith among them.\u00a0 He decided to accept the work offered by the new Government in Auckland \u2013 which involved erection of buildings and stores for the arrival of immigrants later in the year from Scotland on the Jane Gifford<\/i> and the Duchess of Argyle.<\/i>\u00a0 When the Abercrombie<\/i> left Wellington there were sixty-six persons in all on the ship,\u00a0 though the notice in\u00a0 The New Zealand Gazette <\/i>and Wellington Spectator <\/i>of 14 July,\u00a0 1842 records only a few of the names,\u00a0 presumably these were those of the early applicants for passage.\u00a0 These were:<\/p>\n Messrs Macretchie,\u00a0 Faulkner,\u00a0 Fleury and Thompson,\u00a0 Cully,\u00a0 Ludbrook (2),\u00a0 Clarke and Mrs Blomfield.<\/p>\n Steerage:\u00a0 J Kingsmill,\u00a0 J Jackson,\u00a0 D Miller,\u00a0 G Bryon,\u00a0 Mrs Walsh and four children,\u00a0 Mrs Graham and seven children,\u00a0 B Smith and wife,\u00a0 D Cameron and wife and children.<\/p>\n 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,\u00a0 and also in the passenger lists of 1849 and 1850 as voyagers to the gold fields of California.<\/p>\n When the ship finally anchored off Commercial Bay,\u00a0 Auckland,\u00a0 the Smith family saw a small shanty town of raupo huts,\u00a0 the Government Store on the waterfront,\u00a0 several but not many shops along the hillside street which they were to learn was named Shortland Crescent.\u00a0 There were few Europeans and many Maoris;\u00a0 also a large number of canoes drawn up on the beach.\u00a0 Bullock wagons and horse-drawn carts were also in evidence.<\/p>\n Ben and Martha,\u00a0 along with William,\u00a0 Benjamin,\u00a0 and Peter the baby,\u00a0 were ferried in the ship\u2019s boat to the shore,\u00a0 but had to wade the last few yards through muddy shallows.\u00a0 No doubt they thought they had now completed their great adventure.<\/p>\n The Duchess of Argyle<\/i> and the Jane Gifford<\/i>, \u00a0<\/i>the first immigrant ships to Auckland,\u00a0 were to arrive some months later on 9 October 1842,\u00a0 and after that date,\u00a0 as progressively more ships arrived,\u00a0 the difficulties of raising a family and keeping in lucrative employment were to increase.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 They had watched the building of the Church in Emily Place which was to be dedicated to St Paul,\u00a0 as later they were to do with St Matthew\u2019s Hobson Street,\u00a0 where the family became regular worshippers.\u00a0 The connection with St Matthew\u2019s was to continue through to the marriages of most of their children.<\/p>\n When,\u00a0 in after-years,\u00a0 Ben and Martha moved to Papakura Valley and to \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Rest\u201d,\u00a0 Bishop Selwyn was a frequent visitor,\u00a0 more particularly during the war period,\u00a0 prior to his finding a temporary headquarters in Papakura.\u00a0 He was popular with their children and was not above bouncing small Jane on his knee;\u00a0 she was to remember him always with affection.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The children of his friends remember a different man \u2013 friendly,\u00a0 caring,\u00a0 loving.<\/p>\n About 1843,\u00a0 Ben purchased a section in Albert Street and built his house.\u00a0 Earlier,\u00a0 the then small family lived in Victoria Street behind the \u201cBluebell Inn\u201d where Mr Nichols had an accommodation house for new arrivals.\u00a0 One of the neighbouring owners in Albert Street was W C Daldy,\u00a0 later to make his name in the timber trade,\u00a0 the shipping world,\u00a0 and in helping establish what was to become the New Zealand Insurance Company;\u00a0 his cottage was let to a merchant named Edward Rich.\u00a0 On the other side was Robert Beaumont,\u00a0 a dealer in general merchandise.\u00a0 Other neighbours were Clement Partridge,\u00a0 George Cole,\u00a0 John Merrick,\u00a0 mariner,\u00a0 and Charles Robinson,\u00a0 who lived in a house owned by George Mitford.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The magic word was land.\u00a0 Ben and Martha,\u00a0 when living in Adelaide,\u00a0 were well aware of the plans of the New Zealand Company for the establishment of a settlement at Wellington.\u00a0 The Company\u2019s agents were very active in Berkshire,\u00a0 and in the Home Counties,\u00a0 seeking suitable recruits.\u00a0 The Smiths were sent,\u00a0 and read,\u00a0 the enticing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}