ENZB - 1940 - Mathew, Felton. The Founding of New Zealand: The Journals of Felton Mathew, First Surveyor-General of New Zealand, and his Wife, 1840-1847.

[PREFACE]

PREFACE

The interest of the Mathew manuscripts is twofold. In the first place, consisting as they do of the journal records of the first Surveyor-General and his wife, they present an intimate and detailed picture of the procedure of Captain Hobson and his officers during the first months of their government of New Zealand, and throw a good deal of new light on the events of 1840. Secondly, they are of value and interest because they are intensely human documents, full of little daily incidents, shrewd comments on persons and events, expressions happy or petulant of the hopes and fears of the moment, all of which gives a vividness and vitality to the story so often missing in more deliberate historical writing.

My grateful acknowledgments are due, in the first place, to Lady Olivier, Mrs. McCleary, and Dr. and Mrs. T. G. Crump, for their generosity in donating the Mathew manuscripts to the New Zealand Government, in response to an appeal by the National Historical Committee. I am indebted to the officers of the Public Record Office, London, for their patient helpfulness; and to Mr. Heenan and Mr. Goldsworthy for much valuable assistance among the records of the Internal Affairs Department, Wellington. I take this opportunity also to thank the Council of Auckland University College, and the Auckland Provincial Centennial Council for their generosity in financing the production; and Mr. A. W. Reed for the amiability with which he has conducted the whole business of publication.

J. RUTHERFORD.

Auckland University College, September 25th, 1939.

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[CONTENTS]

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CONTENTS

Page.

PREFACE.............................. 5

INTRODUCTION.
Biographical Sketch of Felton Mathew ............ 13

CHAPTER I. CAPTAIN HOBSON'S MISSION--THE TREATY OF WAITANGI.
Mathew's First Journal Letter ................ 19

CHAPTER II. HOKIANGA AND THE BAY OF ISLANDS.
Mathew's Second Journal Letter ................ 44

CHAPTER III. FIRST VISIT TO THE WAITEMATA.
Editorial Note.
Mathew's Third Journal Letter ................ 57

CHAPTER IV. VOYAGE TO NEW ZEALAND.
Mrs. Mathew's Journal.... .................... 82

CHAPTER V. RUSSELL--THE FIRST "CAPITAL."
An Editorial Note ........................ 112

CHAPTER VI. SECOND VISIT TO THE WAITEMATA.
Mrs. Mathew's Journal (continued)................ 119

CHAPTER VII. SECOND VISIT TO THE WAITEMATA (concluded).
Mathew's Report............................ 157

CHAPTER VIII. THE FOUNDING OF AUCKLAND.
Editorial Note.
Mrs. Mathew's Journal (concluded)................ 177

CHAPTER IX. LIFE IN AUCKLAND IN THE EARLY 'FORTIES.
From Mrs. Mathew's Autobiography (1873) ........ 200

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Contents. --Continued.

CHAPTER X. THE STATE OF NEW ZEALAND-NATIVE TROUBLES.
Two Reviews by Mathew, 1845 and 1847 ............213

CHAPTER XI. SURVEY WORK--END OF A CAREER.
Mathew's Letter-Book
Mrs. Mathew's Autobiography (concluded)............245

INDEX..................263

[INTRODUCTION]

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INTRODUCTION

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Felton Mathew was born at Goswell Street, London, in 1801. Of his education and training, nothing is known. In 1829, he became engaged to his cousin, Sarah Louise Mathew, a sister of Keats' great friend, George Felton Mathew. In August of the same year he sailed on the Morley for New South Wales to take up an appointment as Assistant-Surveyor of Roads and Bridges. As his fiancee put it, "his ambition and desire to be useful induced him to go abroad, though he preferred England." In other words, being at a loose end in London, he tried his luck in the Colonies.

Miss Mathew, as she was then, was four years younger than her cousin. She was a young lady of literary tastes, at the age of 15 avidly reading books on history, travel, adventure and poetry, and confessing a love for Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, Rogers, Campbell and "Mason on Self-Knowledge." From 1822 she found employment as governess, first with the family of Lt. Col. Cameron, 79th Regiment, at Millbrook, Southampton and at Beverley, then with the Holdens at Nottingham. For a while she taught pupils at Tunbridge Wells. Then, in August, 1831,

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she fared forth for Sydney in the Auriga to join her cousin Felton. The two were married at Sydney in January, 1832, and soon afterwards went to live at Windsor, on the Hawkesbury River, some 35 miles from Sydney.

Mathew's prospects in the Colony continued to improve, and about 1836 he was appointed Town Surveyor at Sydney, an appointment then made by the Colonial Office. Soon afterwards, he declined the post of Chief Surveyor at Port Phillip, as this was a Colonial Government appointment, and, as he thought, less secure than one sanctioned by Downing Street. The choice proved unfortunate, for about 1839 changes were made to enable the Colony to manage more of its own affairs. In Mrs. Mathew's words, "there were to be no more Home appointments, and those who still held appointments from the Home Government were left to their own resources." Mathew suddenly found his Sydney office abolished, and when, upon Captain Hobson's arrival at the end of 1839, he was offered the post of acting Surveyor-General in New Zealand, he had no alternative but to accept. According to Mrs. Mathew, he was given assurances that this appointment would be confirmed in England, though this is not strictly in accordance with the instructions given to both Hobson and Gipps that all New Zealand appointments were to be provisional only. Mathew, always very sensitive of his personal dignity, felt his position keenly. The episode explains his outspoken remarks in his first journal letter, when he speaks of holding "no faith with the scoundrel Government which has used us so vilely, but to make use of them for our own purposes and throw them off as soon as it suits our convenience." He and Cooper, who had been similarly treated, could scarcely have looked forward to their New Zealand mission with much confidence; and Mathew's misgivings were amply realised by

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further samples of the same sort of treatment at the hands of Lord John Russell and Governor Grey.

There is nothing to show that Mathew possessed any exceptional abilities as Surveyor. He was industrious and conscientious, not afraid of hard field work in difficult country, or of office drudgery at a time when he lacked clerical assistance. Some of his actions have been severely criticised, but there is nothing to suggest incompetence or bad judgment. The purchase of Okiato ("Russell") as a temporary seat of government at the Bay of Islands during Hobson's illness was effected largely on the strength of Mathew's recommendation, but though Governor Gipps condemned the terms of the purchase, it is not easy to see what alternative course could have been adopted at the time. 1 His recommendation of the Tamaki as the site for the permanent capital was by no means so foolish as is sometimes made out. This site was much preferable to the one which Hobson had first favoured higher up the Waitemata; indeed, the only serious immediate disadvantage (which Mathew saw clearly at the time)--the bar at the entrance of the Tamaki--was one which could have been overcome by harbour improvements. Mathew's fault, if fault it were, was that he over-emphasised the importance of level land for building, as compared with the need for deep water for shipping. He had readily perceived that better harbour facilities existed in the lower Waitemata, and indeed proposed that the Port should be established there, while the capital was built on the Tamaki. 2 Again, Mathew was mercilessly criticised for his Plan of the Town of Auckland, with its series of crescents and quadrants round that portion of the City now occupied by Government House, University College and Albert Park. Much of this contemporary criticism was mere extravagance, and

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Mathew, in his explanation of his Plan, presents a reasonable justification. 3 So, too, when his successor Ligar was disposed to question the irregular shapes into which Mathew had cut up the farms in the country lands round Auckland, Mathew's arguments seem unanswerable, namely that the conformation of the land prevented the marking of boundaries along lines of latitude and longitude, and that the exigencies of road construction in hilly country forbade straight-line planning. All told, he seems to have accomplished an honest and competent job of work, and to have faced up courageously to the many disadvantages he encountered in the early days.

Outside the affairs of his own Department, Mathew often expresses views on public questions which are worth reading. To be sure, he is often-times rash and hasty in his judgments, as, for instance, when he condemns the missionaries in round terms on a five minutes' acquaintanceship with two or three of them; or again, in his rather presumptuous verdicts on Hobson and Nias, and the way they allowed personal jealousy to interfere with their public duty. Perhaps it is not altogether fair to judge Mathew for his utterances on board the Herald, for he and everyone else on the ship seemed to be keyed up to a high emotional pitch, and were not their normal selves. Mathew, at any rate, became very petulant at this juncture, and most despondent, too, at the likelihood of a fiasco in New Zealand. One outspoken sentence in his journal provides the explanation: --"In fact, being cooped up in this infernal ship is playing the very devil with us, and that is plain English or I wot not what is." Even the crew seem to have felt the same way about it, only being under discipline they could not give vent to their feelings till they got ashore and went pig-hunting to their hearts' content. "Lord bless

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Portrait of Mrs. Felton Mathew

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you, sir," said the boatswain, "I haven't been ashore so long, that a'hunting them there pigs I was just like a boy."

Elsewhere, Mathew shows himself unduly self-conscious, a fussy little man, too much alive to his own dignity and what is due to his office. He tenders his resignation when Symonds is made head of the Anna Watson expedition to Auckland, declining to recognise that gentleman as senior in any way. Perhaps one must make allowances for a man who felt himself badly treated by the "scoundrel Government" at Sydney, and was constantly alert to detect anything that might appear to be a slight.

When he does manage to forget about himself and considers public questions on their merits, Mathew often writes good sense. His statements on the need of an effective Survey Department in a pioneer community, his views on immigration, his survey of native affairs and land troubles, his ideas on economical reform, are all well-balanced, intelligent and shrewd.

In Mrs. Mathew, one has to deal with a very charming and intelligent lady, who possessed something which was not evident in her husband--a keen sense of humour. Her journals make delightful reading. They are well-written, based on shrewd observation, and there is a sting in the tail of all she wrote. Sir George Grey appears to have discovered on one occasion that her remarks in conversation could be very pointed, too. 4 Her devotion to her "precious" husband is quite touching, and her courage in facing with him the hardships of the pioneer years--touring the coast in the crazy little cutter Ranger in the winter season, scrambling after him through bush and over boulder to view the country, sleeping out in tents or in open boat, copying 60-page reports for him till her hand ached-- compels admiration.

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1940 - Mathew, Felton. The Founding of New Zealand: The Journals of Felton Mathew, First Surveyor-General of New Zealand, and his Wife, 1840-1847. - [Front Matter], p 3-18