Gillespies Beach Beginnings/Part 3
PART 3 - THE WILLIAMS CONNECTION
Whilst Laurence and Margaret were raising their family at Gillespie’s, over in Australia another drama was taking place which would introduce the name of Williams into the family’s saga, linking their Welsh heritage with those of the Irish Sullivans. The details are well-documented in the Cairns museum in Australia’s Queensland.
Henry (Harry) Williams married Eliza Sidwell in Sydney in 1865 at St Peter’s Anglican Church, Cooks River - an interesting coincidence - Cooks River, Australia, and the Cook River and valley at Weheka, Fox Glacier. Henry was born in Cardiganshire, Wales, in 1840 and his wife in 1843. I understand the Sidwells were of English extraction and at the time were farming at Goulbourn in New South Wales. Both of the Williams boys, and their sister, Alice, were therefore of Welsh and English descent, although in time the New Zealand heritage, through marriage with the Sullivans, would come to be thought of as predominantly Irish. Although I am using his correct name, Henry was commonly referred to as Harry.
When Henry Williams learned of the big strikes of gold on the West Coast of New Zealand he and his wife travelled to Hokitika via Port Chalmers where they settled temporarily. Steamers plied directly between Melbourne and Hokitika at this time. In approximately 1872 the pair returned to Australia. The newspaper report below indicates that Henry left his wife and children with his father-in-law, Mr Sidwell, a publican at Goulburn in New South Wales. Henry then departed for Queensland and the Etheridge goldfields. In some accounts his wife was said to have remained behind in Hokitika when he left for Australia but the newspaper article is probably more reliable.
Henry was, unfortunately, killed by Aboriginees at a place called Walshtown on the Etheridge river in 1873. Thoughts of travelling inland to visit his grave surfaced when I was in Cairns in 2008, but I was informed that Walshtown’s existence petered out in the early 1880s. There is no record of a burial in the nearby Georgetown cemetery records so presumably Henry Williams and the other miner killed were interred in an unmarked grave.
The murders were reported in a number of newspapers at the time including two issues of the Queenslander, a Brisbane newspaper, dated 23 August, 1873 and also on August 30, 1873. Another account was later given by the Georgetown correspondent of the Cleveland Bay Express on 27 September, quoted as follows in the order of dates given:
“A horrible and unprovoked outrage was committed by the Blacks, close to Sharp and Williams’s Crushing Machine on Sunday last. Harry Williams, part proprietor of the machine and Sam Blake, blacksmith, were treacherously killed. James Rolls and John Kenley were badly wounded with spears in various parts of the body. A horse was also severely injured. All the miners were unarmed. A great turnout of the miners took place on Monday and Tuesday. The Blacks were encountered but owing to their great force and inaccessible position the whites were obliged to turn back. The native police are expected tomorrow. Hundreds of wild blacks are hovering about, in defiance of the whites. A great necessity exists for a strong native police station.”
“Murder of Henry Williams and Samuel Blake by the Blacks. Telegram from Georgetown received by the Hon. The Colonial Secretary signed by Mr Charters, Police Magistrate and Messrs Sellheim and N. ------ (obliterated) J.J.P. Henry Williams, one of the proprietors of the Caledonian crushing machine and another man named Samuel Blake, a blacksmith, were murdered by the Blacks yesterday morning in sight of the machine; two men were also dangerously wounded. If no more efficient police protection is afforded for this district, the goldfields will greatly suffer, as after this great outrage the lives of inhabitants in my part of this field are constantly in danger. Mr Williams has left a wife and four children who reside with his father-in-law, Mr Sidwell, a publican at Goulburn, New South Wales.”
“The greatest excitement was caused in the town and district on Sunday morning last by the information that Mr Harry Williams, a partner in the Caledonia crushing machine and Samuel Blake, (better known as Sam the Blacksmith), had been murdered by the blacks and two other men, James Rolls and John Kenley, severely wounded. Within a mile of the Caledonia machine that morning. The intelligence unfortunately proved too true. Steps were immediately taken to organise a party to track the perpetrators of the outrage and early in the afternoon some 15 or 20 horsemen, hastily armed and equipped, were on the road to the scene of the tragedy, while others were converging from various parts of the district to the same locality. On the following morning, Mr Charters, the commissioner, issued a notification to the effect that the claims of all parties engaged in the pursuit of the murderers would be protected for one week. It appears that early on Sunday morning, large numbers of blacks were seen on a high hill at the back of the machine called One-Tree Hill, and that Williams, Sam Wright, Samuel Morris and two or three others went out to them for the purpose of an hour’s amicable intercourse. There was only one gun, and no other weapon of any other description among the party, and the gun was left behind a tree half a mile before they met the blacks. The blacks were distributed over the side of the hill, and when the party advanced, evinced, both by signs and words, every disposition to be friendly. ‘Budgery white fellow, budgeree blackfellow’ one fellow (now no more, I think) kept shouting, and came down the hill unarmed. ‘Budgery blackfellows’, responded the whites, by way of returning the compliment, and then a corroboree on a small scale was improvised by a few of the nearest blacks, and the example thus set was followed by Kenley and party attempting something of the same sort. Everything appeared to be going as ‘merrily as a marriage bell.’ Poor Williams took his shirt from inside his trousers to show he was unarmed, and went up to meet the dozen blacks who were descending the mountain. The meeting was most cordial. Everything was ‘budgeree’. Williams took off his outer shirt and presented it to the spokesman before referred to, who graciously received it and put it on, and then there was a good deal of feeling all over the body, evidently to discover if arms were secreted, but still with every appearance of amity. But after this had gone on for some time, the movements of the great body of the blacks who were on the mountain were causing considerable uneasiness to the whites further away. At first, when told to drop their spears, they would do so instantly, but now their attitude was more defiant. They moved down towards the opening of the gorge through which the whites must pass to get back, as if manoeuvring to cut off the retreat of the party, some of whom were at a considerable distance from the rest. This apparent intention soon became a matter of certainty, and the whites began to consider the best mode of extricating themselves. The attempt to make for home was scarcely commenced when it appears a spear or two was thrown, and about 25 of the blacks made a rush, upon which a cry was raised by someone, ‘Every man for himself’, and all took to their heels. Showers of spears were now flying in every direction. Williams and Blake must have been struck down instantly, although no one saw them fall. Rolls received a spear in the seat of honour after running a short distance, which he broke off as short as possible under the circumstances, and carried the remainder as a trophy, and Kenley, probably about the same moment, got an ugly spear through the calf of his leg, and another struck him in the neck, inflicting a dangerous wound. Stephen Dennis luckily came up at this juncture and with great difficulty drew the spear from the wound. In the meantime Billy Wright had managed to get on a horse behind Rolls, and started for the machine, but had hardly turned the horse round when the Blacks charged down on them, discharging spears as thick as hail, one of which pierced the horse in the hind quarter. After going a short distance, Wright managed to get a fresh mount, upon which he galloped to the place where he left his gun. He then, in company with Steve Dennis, returned in search of Williams, thinking that he was the only man of the party that was missing. The blacks had now disappeared, and after searching for some time, they found poor Williams lying on his back, with the head badly battered, and his body completely riddled with spear wounds. He was not quite dead, but although conveyed home with the greatest care, he expired before they reached half-way to the machine. It was only on arriving there that they discovered Sam was still away, upon which Steve Dennis, Jack Ayloff, Billy Wright and Donald Brown immediately started back, this time armed with a gun and a revolver. They found the unfortunate man, quite dead and quite naked, within a few yards of where the spears were first thrown. After scouring the neighbourhood for a short time and seeing nothing further of the blacks, there was nothing more to be done but to return with the dead body.”
It is stated in one report above that Henry left behind 4 children. There were three children, two sons and a daughter, Alice, with both sons, Fred and Henry Williams later becoming part of the Sullivan/Williams Gillespie’s Beach story. I wrongly named this daughter Emma in Westland Heritage.
Henry’s widow, Eliza, remarried Charles Chesterman of Hounslow, England in Australia. I have sighted the marriage entry. The pair returned to live at Kaniere near Hokitika where a further 7 children were born and where the three Williams children attended school as did their younger Chesterman half-brothers and sisters. Family oral history told that Charles Chesterman was also a partner in the Caledonia crushing machine in Queensland although his name doesn’t appear in the above reports other than by indication of the ‘two or three others’ mentioned above in one article.
Anecdotal material given to researchers often differs from factual data later obtained through research from original sources. Olive McGlashan whose father was Dick (Thomas) Chesterman, son of Eliza (ex Williams) and Charles Chesterman, in a letter to me in the early 1990s, said that Charles had “rescued Eliza and the children.” It therefore appears that after the murder, Charles made his way back to New South Wales and later assumed responsibility for his mate’s dependants in 1874 by marrying his friend’s widow.
In 1873, when Henry Williams, Senior, was killed by Aboriginees, the Sullivan family was taking shape down at Gillespie’s Beach, producing children, two of whom, Mary and Julia, would later become the wives of the two Williams boys, Fred and Henry whose father was murdered by Aboriginees.
Settlers on the West Coast of New Zealand did not live in fear of murder by Maori. However, a few years earlier, in 1866, four Australian desperadoes, one of whom was named Sullivan who’d served time in the Port Arthur penal colony in Tasmania - no relative of our lot - had shot, stabbed and strangled four men from the Wakamarina gold diggings at the back of Canvastown in the Marlborough area.
There was a small settlement of Maori at Bruce Bay, further down the Coast from Gillespie’s and also at Jackson’s Bay. In My dear Bannie containing letters written by Gerhard Mueller to his wife, it was stated that by 1865 the Maori population from Hokitika down to Jackson’s Bay had dwindled to just over 100 persons. The 1926 census revealed that there were only 4203 people living in Westland, 131 of whom were Maori. Such a small population also explains why people in South Westland knew each other or at least knew of each other with closest connections based on religion or the inter-relatedness of large families through marriage.
I recall Uncle Lawn Williams remarking that in the years when the Weheka/Fox Glacier region was being settled, supplies brought by boat from Invercargill to Bruce Bay were often stored there in an unlocked shed near Flower Pot Rock, until they could all be taken by horse and dray along the coast. These supplies remained untouched by local Maori inhabitants, engendering mutual trust. Having said that, these early settlers were typical of the times in that they believed they were superior to those of a darker hue. I am aware of the current political correctness which permeates our society but in those years the phrase, a “touch of the tar” was often used to describe someone of mixed race. Many of the pioneer families, my own included, would not have been happy if one of their sons or daughters ‘went with’ or married a Maori. The term, racism, was a concept which lay in the future when more enlightened ways of thinking began to surface.
Young Henry, more commonly known as Harry, (but I will continue to refer to him by the former name,) was only seven years of age when his father was murdered in Australia. He was reputed to have been a bright lad at school in Hokitika where he was enrolled when his mother eventually remarried Charles Chesterman in Australia and returned to the West Coast to live. In 1886, when 20 years of age he was offered the job of teacher at Gillespie’s Beach. His decision to take up this post is where the linkage between the Sullivan and Williams families commences.
Until schools were established, household schools filled the gap with the teacher role undertaken by anyone capable of and willing to accept the role. Henry Williams, like others appointed to schools at this time, would have worked to gain his full teaching certificate while on the job. The West Coast Times on 22 January 1886 published the results of an examination of Pupil Teachers in Westland. In Class I, Henry Williams of Kanieri was awarded a Pass with 771 marks. Those with very high marks were given a Credit Pass. This was the minimum entry into teaching at the time. Despite the lack of teacher training as we know it today, this is not to say teachers weren’t superbly equipped to exert a civilising aspect on pupils born in what could be described as wilderness areas. Using the fear of God and the fear of the cane, they achieved remarkable results. Pupils ended up well-educated in the three R’s, and were disciplined to be obedient, hard-working and God-fearing. They also were taught copper-plate writing.
A predominance of families at Gillespie’s were of Irish extraction, and therefore Catholic. The Williams boys hadn’t been raised ‘in the faith’, but later converted after marriage to two of the Sullivan girls, with their offspring being raised Catholic.
Gillespie’s school had opened in 1880 and in the six previous years before Henry took over, had employed four teachers who, with the assistance of monitors, had taught the local children. Many of these pupils, armed with only a sixth standard education, could be classed as achieving highly in later life{{SIC}.}} Some completed their schooling to only the 4th Standard when they, too, began work assisting family members in bush clearance once the family started to acquire land.
Mary Sullivan, the first-born of Laurence and Margaret, was a school monitor in 1886 and also 1887, a monitor being an older pupil who assisted the teacher with the younger children. Henry Williams and Mary were married in 1888, Mary being either 16 or 17 years of age. The birth certificate has not been sighted but as her parents married in June of 1870, her likely birth was in 1871.
In these years, many marriages would result among those living or working locally. George Head, for example, who eventually wed Margaret Sullivan, also worked on a gold claim at Gillespie’s Beach. Social occasions were few and far between so it is understandable that opportunities to meet prospective partners from further afield were limited.
The Gillespie’s school closed in 1900, but during Henry’s 8-year sojourn provided him with a source of income used to acquire heavily covered bushland inland from Gillespie’s which his brother, Fred, who’d also come south from Kaniere, would work to clear and develop. In 1886 Henry earned approximately 163 Pounds per annum which had shrunk to 66 Pounds in 1894, the year he left, due to a shrinking school roll. A married man with a young family would have no choice but to move on to greener pastures. After Henry had left Gillespie’s, a Miss M Sullivan (presumably Margaret) also sat the Pupil Teacher examination and was appointed teacher at Gillespie’s at a meeting of the Westland Education Board on 16 November, 1897, when only 42 Pounds was paid for her services in that year, again due to a shrinking roll.
The system of remuneration for teachers at this time was quite unique. For example, the Education Board of the District of Westland advertised, with applications closing 7.1.1882, for teachers for two schools up in the Greymouth area - the salary to consist of a capitation allowance, viz. Three Pounds Fifteen Shillings per annum for each scholar in average attendance computed quarterly. Judging by the fluctuating payments made to the teachers at Gillespie’s as reported in Margaret Hall’s Black Sands, this seems to have been the going rate at the time. In April,1883, the Grey River Argus contained an article about the impecuniosity of the Education Board in a report on the condition of schools in both the north and south of the West Coast.
Henry Williams, once married, would have had to save hard to buy land, and his savings probably never matched those who had access to more profitable yields through gold retrieval or running a pub.
Henry was reported as teaching “with a liberal use of the cane.” Those of us who attended primary school in South Westland much later in the 1930s were “educated” in a similar fashion even though, by that time, our teachers were deemed to have benefited from College training. I quote from an article I wrote for the Christchurch Star in 1981, about the 1930s primary school I attended at Whataroa.
“Our local State primary school was a two-teacher school consisting of a headmaster and a young female assistant. The man was a rugged individualist who meted out rough and ready discipline. If we were caught talking in class he simply took a clothes peg of which he kept a ready supply in the top drawer of his desk, put it lengthwise in the mouth of the offender, and tied a piece of cloth - or the miscreant’s handkerchief - to each end, knotting it behind the head. He was also a proficient wielder of the strap which was administered on the hand of the girls and the buttocks of the boys. All offenders were dealt with promptly in front of the whole class. Once a year the strap’s birthday was celebrated and it was given a new name with great pomp and ceremony. During my sojourn at the school, before I was sent away to boarding school, it was christened Marmaduke and later, Augustus.
One day, the strap disappeared from its usual place in the headmaster’s top drawer. Interrogation followed until its fate was revealed. One enterprising member of the class who had felt its sting too many times had thrown it down the boys’ lavatory. The unfortunate boy was forced to retrieve the strap under threat of even greater punishment than had already been meted out to him. He did so. It was duly washed, reinstated with a special welcome-back ceremony and promptly used.”
There are many ways of motivating children to learn. In earlier times, fear both of the teacher and of God, persuaded many unmotivated pupils to mend their ways.
As the Sullivan children grew older and as the government opened up opportunites to acquire land in the Cook Valley, acquisitions had gradually been made by a number of men. Fred Meyer and George Lyttle had been the first to take up land in the Cook Valley in 1881, and also H. Diedrichs. They were later followed by the Ryans and the Walshes. Some of the first holdings probably resulted from government policy such as that contained in the following notice which appeared in the Grey River Argus on 17 September, 1880, under PUBLIC NOTICES.
LAND DISTRICT OF WESTLAND
Homestead Settlement
NOTICE hereby given that Block of LAND described below has been, by resolution of the Land Board, and with the assent of His Excellency, the Governor, SET APART FOR OCCUPATION, without payment, under the “homestead System,” in accordance with the Provisions of Appendix L of “The Land Act, 1877,’ and subject to the following conditions as to cultivation and residence:’
(1) The area allowed to be selected by each person of the age of eighteen years of upwards shall be fifty acres, and for persons under eighteen years of age twenty acres: Provided that the total quantity to be selected by any one family or number of persons occupying the one household shall not exceed two hundred acres of land.
(2) Within three months after the selection has been approved by the board the selector shall commence to reside on his selection, and shall continue to reside continuously thereon for five years from the de of such approval as aforesaid.
(3) Within eighteen months after such approval the selector shall erect on his selection a permanent dwelling house of wood or other materials, which shall be specified in regulations to be issued in reference to homestead-system selections.
(4) In each year there shall be brought under cultivation one-fifteenth of the area of such selection, if open land, and one-twentyfifth if bush land, so that at the end of the term of five years one-third of the selection of open land, or one-fifth of bush land, shall be under cultivation.
(5) Non-performance of any of the foregoing stipulations shall render the selection void, and the right of the selector therein and to all improvements thereon shall be forfeited.
(6) At the end of the said period of five years, a grant or grants shall issue for the land selected: Provided the selector shall not have forfeited his right thereto in manner aforesaid.
DESCRIPTION AND SITUATION OF LAND.
Four thousand acres (more or less), situate in the Gillespie’s and Karangarua Survey Districts; bounded towards the south by the road reserve along the Weheka or Cook’s River; towards the east by a line bearing `15 deg.30min. Through trig station J.D.; towards the north by foot of steep terrace: and towards the west by a line parallel with east boundary.
And in pursuance of a further resolution of the Land Board, the said land is hereby declared open for selection under the said provisions on the 1st day of November, 1880.
J. GILES - Commissioner of Crown Lands
At the time of this notice, 1880, the Sullivan children would have been too young for their father, still supporting his family by retrieving gold from the black sands of Gillespie’s Beach, to take advantage of this scheme, although other Gillespie’s families probably did so.
As early as February, 1866, a Government Proclamation also set aside blocks of land for the future sites of towns throughout Westland, including Weheka.
Distinction needs to be made between land purchased freehold and leasehold land.
Undoubtedly the Ryans gradually acquired their considerable land holdings financed with money from the hotel they owned at Gillespie’s. Laurence Sullivan’s gold-mining initially financed his land acquisition and Henry Williams, the teacher, initially bank-rolled his brother, Fred, although purchases were made in his own name. How much land land was acquired under the Homestead Settlement scheme by local families is unknown, and of course government policy could change abruptly.
However, these early settlers, namely Lawrence Sullivan Jnr, his brother Patrick Sullivan, Fred Williams, Patrick Carroll, the Walsh brothers, and Edward Ryan among others, were obviously very satisfied with government treatment relating to land settlement. The West Coast Times on 14.1.1902 contained a testimonial forwarded to Mr Murray, Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands jointly signed by them all on the eve of his departure for Nelson, expressing the high estimation in which he was held by them.
In later decades Gillespie’s Beach became synonymous with the names of the two Bagley brothers and later again the Shaw brothers, Mark and John, who made their home there and continued to work the black sands. These latter two had considerable mining experience, both on the opal fields in Australia, and bauxite mining in the Otago area. During their sojourn at Gillespie’s they became well-known identities in the district as had the Bagley brothers before them. Those of us who knew the Shaw brothers well or merely visited them in their small home close to the beach, remember tall stories being told amid numerous cups of tea, while samples from their mining days were handed around. With their passing, the beach lost two remarkable identities who did their mining in remote areas using shovel, sweat and good old-fashioned ingenuity.
