O is for Ovid

You can’t help but think that Ovid held a special place in his parents’ hearts, not just because he was the first-born, but because he was the only child to go on the Great Adventure with them. He alone among the children was born in England, shared their shipboard life and the privations of the early days, even if he probably didn’t remember most of it. It makes it all the more sad for us to know that he would also be the first of their children to die in New Zealand; to judge by the appearance of the name Ovid as the middle name of many of his nephews suggests that he was not only a dear son, but a much-loved brother as well.

O is for Ovid, whose small freckled nose was soon to be put out of joint by the arrival of a brother or sister. Maybe it wouldn’t bother him, no longer being the centre of her attention. He was becoming quite fiercely independent, eager to do things for himself and inclined to become irritated by parental assistance. She didn’t want him running quite as wild as the Maori children from the pa, but if he was happy looking after himself it would be much easier for her when the baby came. She needn’t feel guilty that he was going to be pushed to one side, displaced by the new arrival. Her father had told her many times
how special she was to him, as his first-born child, so she supposed that however many more babies there were, Ovid would always hold a special place in her heart.

The residents of Pipitea Pa were Te Matehou, a hapu (sub-tribe) of Te Ātiawa. They had been part of a group of around 2000 who had migrated south from Taranaki to escape from Waikato raids into their area. They went at first to relatives at Waikanae, encouraged by Te Rauparaha, but by 1836 they had taken over Ngati Mutunga’s pa and cultivation sites when that hapu migrated to the Chatham Islands. By 1840, there were about 150 Te Matehou living at and around Pipitea pa. Although their land was part of the sale of the Wellington area to the New Zealand company, which they later disputed, they were fortunate that the pa site itself was on land which the New Zealand Company held as a reserve for Maori. They were less fortunate with much of their garden and cultivation sites, which were quickly surveyed by the Company as blocks for sale. After a period of resistance, which included the removal of the surveyors’ pegs under cover of darkness, Te Matehou adjusted to the new arrangements and by 1850 were flourishing with the profits of doing business with the settlers. Eventually however, they became disillusioned with the pakeha incomers, and by 1881 most of them had decamped to relatives at Waiwhetu in the Hutt Valley, leaving only nine residents of the pa itself.

One of the biggest challenges for me in writing about the settlers’ relationships with the Maori is to strike a balance – to convey the many and often negative feelings that the pakeha settlers had about their new neighbours without offending modern sensibilities. I lean heavily on writings of the time, including one of William’s own letters, to understand the settlers’ viewpoints; I’m equally indebted to the work of the Maori land claimants and the Waitangi Tribunal for their extensive and detailed research into the history of the Wellington area as part of the current Maori land claims process. My attempt at balance informs Sarah’s thoughts in this next section of her alphabet.

P is for Pa. There were several of them within the town, but the nearest, their neighbour almost, was Pipitea pa. The first time she saw it, on their first day in New Zealand, she had been horrified by its meanness. The low scrubby huts clustered miserably within its tall pickets. The carvings at the gate were ugly and not a little bit frightening with the great poking tongues on the faces. And the people had scared her as well, half-naked, with their painted faces and proud flashing eyes. She had got more used to them now, even knew a few of them, the women who came by selling fish and vegetables, and the young men who passed by on their way to hunt birds in the forest. She couldn’t see herself asking any of them in for tea, and she didn’t want Ovid playing with any of the dirty naked children who swarmed in and out all day long. However, she couldn’t look down on them as some did – how could she when the only real difference between her house and those in the pa was that she could stand upright in hers? She cooked outside in all weathers, just as the Maori women did, although even when it was raining, there were several of them hunkered down talking companionably, while she was usually alone in her misery. The Maori women might be scandalously under-dressed to English eyes, but at least that meant they didn’t have her worries about trying to keep skirts out of both the mud and the fire. She could hardly think herself much better than them, given her situation.

Many of Wellington’s streets are called quays, but all of them except Lambton Quay were originally wharves which were later absorbed by land reclamation into part of the town. Lambton Quay alone was called a quay from the very beginning, although most of the early residents just called it The Beach.

Q is for Quay. They called this rutted track above the beach Lambton Quay. Lambton for the Earl of Durham – it was his family name. But Quay? For all the world as though it was some great dock for shipping. The big ships had to anchor further out in the harbour. There were a couple of little jetties where their boats could pull up, but most passengers and goods were landed directly on the beach. In a spring tide, the water covered the track in places, and even if the sea left it alone, the rain left it muddy and perilous. Quagmire would be a better name than Quay, but presumably Lambton Quagmire would be far less flattering to the Earl. But then, if he ever saw it in all its muddy glory, he would hardly be flattered at all.

Sarah doesn’t tell us exactly when, or why, the family moved to Lambton Quay, although she does indicate that it was before Oscar’s birth on the first of November 1842. Writing for her children around forty years later, she is pretty upfront about the deficiencies of the Thorndon Flat house, and it’s not hard to understand why she would have been pleased to leave it. An improvement in the family’s circumstances, coupled with a desire to be better housed before the arrival of the second child seem logical drivers; however the timing of the Raupo House Ordinance in the same period means it may also have been a factor.

R is for Raupo. She would never have imagined that she would be grateful to be evicted, but the Raupo House Ordinance turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After so many disastrous house fires, fortunately with no loss of life, the Ordinance was a means to rid the town of the Maori-built thatched cottages. Faced with the prospect of a twenty pound tax, their landlord had given them notice to quit so he could pull the house down. She wouldn’t miss it – it was bitterly cold, the southerly wind driving through the gaps in the thatched walls, and the roof leaked constantly, regardless of William’s attempts to patch it. By some miraculous chance, the house on Lambton Quay became available on the same day that the landlord advised them of his plans, and William took the lease before anyone else could get a look in. It was a real house, wooden instead of raupo thatch, and it had proper windows with glass in them, and the cooking fire was in the kitchen with a real chimney and fireplace to keep the whole house warm.

She was so relieved to be there, and to know that she wasn’t going to deliver this baby on a mud floor, that she almost missed William’s musings about using the attached shop-front as an actual shop. She was bracing herself to become the town’s most heavily-pregnant shopkeeper when William came to the conclusion, almost all by himself, that he should stick with plumbing and painting, so he used the shelves in the shop to store his white-lead and turpentine out of Ovid’s reach. She and Ovid used the shop-front’s bay window to take their morning tea (or milk, in Ovid’s case), fascinated by the street and harbour activities in front of them.

Most days, the glass was coated in a sticky layer of sea-salt, removing a lot of detail from their view. This was not always such a bad thing, given some of the goings-on out there. However, it meant that sometimes passersby came and peered in the window to see what the shop might be selling. Ovid would tap on the window and squeal and giggle with delight to see them jump back, surprised to see him there. She should stop him, tell him it was rude to startle people like that, but it amused her and the little boy’s laughter was an addictive pleasure.