Note NZBDM has a marriage for Richard BOWEN and Maria WHITELY 1854 and a number of children in NZBDM
PPA
Lyttelton Times, Volume CIV, Issue 12337, 30 October 1900, Page 5
WHEN CANTERBURY WAS YOUNG.
A TALK WITH AN OLD COLONIST, WHALING AT GO-ASHORE. ; OLD TIME BOAT RACES. WHEN THE PILGRIMS WERE "NEW. CHUMS." [By Our Special Reporter.] In spite of the efforts of the Jubilee authorities to seek out all those who boreal, part in the early struggles of civilisation, in Canterbury, a few of the very oldest colonists will pass unnoticed, owing to their own reticent natures. Mrs Bowen, who lives with her.married daughter in the Windmill Road, is a woman who might fill a book witE interesting re- , mirdscences of the olden days. She was * . seasoned colonial of ten years' experienc* when the pioneers in the first four ships arrived at Lyttelton, and she laughs as she . thinks what " duffers " the emigrants looked when they came ashore from the Charlotte Jane and sister ships of the early fleet; "Not that they were foolish to come ta New Zealand," she explained yesterday to a representative of the " Lyttelton Times," " but they didn't look like colonials, you,.' know." So even the " voertrekkers" of 1850 found someone waiting to give them the in-' dulgent smile that the "new chum" aiway* excites. Mrs Bowen landed in Wellington from the ship " Martha Ridgeway " in 1840, when she was only live years old. Hence, she counts herself an early Wellingtonian. although she has spent most of her life in Canterbuiy. Her recollections of Welling-, ton are naturally mostly hearsay, but they are those of a hard life in a young settlement. The immigrants landed on Petone beach, but the shallowness of the water there caused the future Empire City to shift its' position to the site on which it now Mrs Bowen lived with her parents in a raupoj house until her father was drowned in the gusty harbour. Her mother married again,; and her second husband decided to try his fortune at whale-hunting. . Of the whaling settlement at" Go-ashore." . just over the hill from Little River, Mrs Bowen has many interesting tales to tell.. > "That was the timV to see boat races,"' Πshe declared ; " I can't be bothered to go to Lyttelton now to see the races on New. Year's Day, because they are not nearly so good as those bur whalers used to have." Sitting up on the hills with spy-glasses, 1 the girls would watch for the spouting of the ocean monsters and give the signal to the men on the beach, below. As soca as the warning signal came from the look-out,' the boats were launched through the breakers, and raced away after the quarry., ? There was -a code of honour among the - hunters, and the whale belonged to the crew that drove the first harpoon into it. The others might come round to help to secure the monster, but they did not attempt to*share in the spoil. When the whale was towed ashore and melted down," the boat's crew divided the profits according to a recognised scale, which depended on the importance of each man in the boat. Π, At certain seasons of the year, ships visited the settlement to buy the oil and whalebone just as regularly as steamers ply round the coast now in seaTch of cargoes of frozen; meat. The whaling time lasted onlv from' May to August, and when the men sold their spoil and received the purchasa monev the settlement became a sort of goldfields camp. The hotels plied a roaring trade, 1 for, as Mrs Bowen said, the money that was so hardly earned was freely spent, except in the case of those men who had sense enough to go away in the visiting ships to seek wcrk during the off-season. Life at Go-ashore was verv unconventional.
The traveller had no need of introductions to ensure a welcome, for the residents wers gilad .to see a stranger. ,As soon as they descried anyone " coming over the hill" the order was at once given to " put the kettle on." If the new-comer was a swagger, so much the more reason for treating him kindly. In time the whales began to desert their old feeding ground off Bank's Peninsula, and the industry gradually died out. Mrs onwen's step-father also lost his money in a lawsuit against an American ship, whose crew stole some of. his captures. Although he won bis case,,.it cost him',so much that he left the settlement at Go-ashore, and took an hotel at Akaroa. He had to fell the bush, close to the water's edge, to prepare a site for his building, as little had been done to clear the virgin forest, although there were a good number of people living about the present site of Akaroa. Many of th'soi were of French origan, and Mrs Bowen had often heard the story of how Captain Stanley had been warned by the indiscreet) - talking of the crew of a French, frigate that they intended to annex this.island. Her step-father was on board the English man-of-war which slipped away from Auckland and hoisted the Union Jack on Bank's Peninsula, just a few hours before the Frenchman, appeared. Mrs Bowen's people afterwards removed to Lyttelton, where, their first shelter was a' tent. The old lady jokingly recalled' their plight when a southerly "buster" demol--ished their canvas covering, "bub we did* toot mind things like that in our day,'' sha added. One can well believe her, after hearing her accounts of the long walking tours she used to make. She has walked right round the harbour from Lyttelton to Pigeon Bay and Akaroa, while a trip across to Purau in a w'haleboat, fdlowed by ~ a tramp to Akaroa, was a ?common occurrence, with 'her. On one occasion she left Lyttelton at owe* o'clock in the afternoon, walked across the Bridle Path to the old''Golden Fleece Hotel in Christchuroh, and back to' port by nightfall. "We thought nothingof that," she said; "it was the only way women had of getting about in those days, and they had to do it or stop at home.".
"My daughter in Petone grumbles at having to climb a bill to her place," she continued ;," I would have been ashamed to be such a useless creature -when I was a girl." Here the old' lady produced an engraving ?hewing Lyttelton when the emigrants from the first) four ships were landing. " There's tlie little tin shanty in which your paper used to be published'," she said, 'pointing to a. building in the picture. "There's the church I .was married in." The matrimonial ceremony took place when she was nineteen. Young ladies were too scarce in those dayt to be kept waiting long for husbands. Since then Mrs .Bowen has enriched the State Œwith twelve children. " I had enough to do to bring them up properly," she said, as she protested against being turned into a storehouse'from which the ancient history of the province might be. extracted. " I was never what you.-would call an observant person, and most of what I know is only what my husband, told 1 me." .. In spite of this, she had some first-hand opinions of ihe men who directed the settlement of Canterbury. She has a warm heart for Captain Thomas, who, she says, was a "practical man," and who deserved a great deal of credit that has gone to other men. She admired William Mcorhouse, too, who stood -with his hack to the door of the Provincial Chamber erA refused to let the members of the Canterbuiy Government go out until they had authorised the scheme for driving a tunnel through the Port Hills. " You can easily think what Christchurch tras when I first came here,"- said Mra Bowcn. "Go up on the hills, and imagine there is no town there." It is rather a strain on the imagination of one who has always- been accustomed to the sight of a fair-sized town, but Mrs Bowen's description of the swamp which shook for hundredof yards around .when you jumped on to i. projecting s'od, gives some idea' of the origh ual foundation on which tbis city-is built. When She came to t it, there was not.a sign: ±'f a house, but she-was especially interested in its growth, for her husband was employed in laying out its streets. "Do you know where the centre of Christchurch is?" she asked. "Most people think it is Cathedral Square, but it is the old Council yard which has just been dismantled. There were two posts put in there, exactly a chain apart, and the road-makers used to measure their chains between them to make suro they were the right length." ? "But I do not care a bit about my past, ?jcperiences," this interesting old colonist concluded. "We had rough times, but we were never used to anything else, and we enjoyed" life. I suppose advancement'must. come; "but r often wish I could get away to' some new country-where you would not airmeeting people." - ' - ' ;As.advancing years have brought,herrest. froifcfaimiy cares, Mrs Boweii has developed, into a keen observer of current events. ''J Hree in the present, not the past," "she-de-clared," '"and I have more 'time to"notice things'now than I' did' in I 'those d&'ys." '*'And sih.ee- women-have got-the franchise;"' she added, >"Œ! -must watch people to' see-who" ari doing .the best for the country,: jjnd not, ' fnr.'.themselves.'' So she has; the city. mem-,, hers- ajid Mr Seddbri under close observance, and-.can 1 criticise them most intelligently. Her political ideal (" you may think it a dream," sho observed, parenthetically) is to see private ownership entirely abolished, and the State become the possessor "of everything. Martha Whitley had person sources.
2 She immigrated to ENG to NZ on the Martha Ridgeway arriving NZ 14/11/1840 on 5 July 1840.
3