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Nelson First Public School Teacher
Life was pleasant for the local school master of Tannadice in the quiet countryside around Forfarshire, Scotland in 1840. William Moore and his wife Isobel lived in a two storeyed white washed school...
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The Redwood Family
Henry Redwood and early settlementThe Redwood family is remembered through place names in Nelson, Marlborough, and throughout New Zealand.It all began with Henry Redwood and his wife Mary (Gilbert),...
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Life on the Fault Lines
Marlborough's East Coast earthquakesMarlborough’s East Coast is cross hatched with fault lines so the large earthquakes of 2013 and 2016 should not have been surprising, although it is thought the 7.8...
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HMS New Zealand visits Picton
In 1913, Picton was visited by the largest warship that had ever come to New Zealand, the HMS New Zealand.HMS New Zealand visits Picton. Picton Historical SocietyOur country was very proud, as the ship...
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Madge Wilson of No.52 Russell Street
While researching the history of Russell Street, for use on a historical interpretation panel for the Nelson City Council, I met Madge Wilson on 3 April 2017, at her home. This story is written from...
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Phyllis Field
Phyllis Field (nee Griffin) 1914-2007 - the early yearsPhyllis was born in 1914, the youngest child of George and Caroline Griffin.Her father was manager of the Griffin Biscuit factory, a business...
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Murchison
Emerging from the bushThe discovery of gold and the search for grazing land were the initial driving forces behind the establishment of the township of Hampden, which later became known as Murchison.1...
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Captain Edward Fearon
The King of MotuekaTimes were turbulent when one of Motueka’s earliest Pakeha pioneers arrived to take up his newly-bought block of land. Edward Fearon had barely pitched his tent and made a start on...
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Cousins Clifford and Weld make their mark
In August 1847 Charles Clifford and his cousin, Frederick Weld drove 3000 sheep from Port Underwood to Flaxbourne: "Crossed the Bluff River with sheep. Had to throw them all into the water, a day and...
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The Tetley Affair
Joseph Tetley, a swindler and a gentlemanMarlborough was shaken by a scandal in the 1860s, when a Member of Parliament ran off to South America with £40,000 of investors’ money, and never returned.When...
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Frederick Trolove
Trolove of the ClarenceFrederick, Peter and WilliamTrolove. Marlborough Museum & ArchivesFrederick Trolove (1831-1880) was an early European settler who established Woodbank Run, located south...
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Yelven Oliver Sutton
Yelven Oliver Sutton (1918-2008) Yelven's great grandparents parents, George and Hannah Sutton arrived in Nelson aboard the Bolton (1842). In 1853 George bought sections 68 and 90 and part of 66 in...
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Yelven Oliver Sutton
Yelven's great grandparents parents, George and Hannah Sutton arrived in Nelson aboard the Bolton (1842). In 1853 George bought sections 68 and 90 and part of 66 in Richmond (see map Reservoir Creek)...
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Dr Thomas Renwick
A busy settler in early Marlborough and NelsonDr Thomas Renwick was born in Dumfries, Scotland in 1818, trained as a doctor and quickly rose through the ranks of the Royal Navy as a ships’ doctor. On...
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The Renwick family
A slice of early colonial lifeThe Marlborough Museum Archives collection has digitised hundreds of letters donated by Annie Ball, which relate to the life of Dr Thomas Renwick’s family.Renwick family...
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George Cannon McMurtry
(Randall) George Cannon McMurtry and Templemore HomesteadGeorge is 87 years old [in 2006]. He was born in 1918 in Templemore Homestead, that still stands today on 126 Salisbury Road. His...
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Henry and George Dodson
Pragmatic and political early Spring Creek settlersNew Zealand provided plenty of opportunities for four of Joseph and Isabella Dodson’s nine children1 to shine, with Thomas and Joseph settling in...
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William Adams
A leading voice in the separation of the ProvincesEton and Oxford educated barrister, William Adams was a leading voice for the Wairau’s discontented settlers and became the province’s first...
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James Wynen
Wild frontier for Blenheim’s first storekeeperHow James Wynen ended up in a Nelson hotel where he died in 1866 is a mystery.1 But the story of the ‘decent and respectable native of the Netherlands’2,...
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James Sinclair
Fiery, ambitious Scotsman was ‘King of the Beaver’Born in Caithness, in the north of Scotland,1 James Sinclair was described as a clear-headed, strong-minded Scotsman, who, by his dominating...
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