1975 - Lush, Vicesimus. The Thames Journals of Vicesimus Lush, 1868-82 - GOLDEN PROSPECTS, p 13-34

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GOLDEN PROSPECTS

I. INVITATION TO THE THAMES

THE Reverend Vicesimus Lush, first vicar of that "so delightful Parish" the pensioner settlement of Howick, found himself in an untenable position on 24 November 1864 when a parish meeting was held to consider, amongst other business, the crucial question of his stipend.

The Churchwarden announced that the deficiency in my salary (viz: £9. 17. 6) on the 30th of last June, has just been paid into the Archdeaconry Fund: (5 months! after the time.)... But they seem to forget that £13. 10. 11 are due to me for the last half year ending 30 June 1863. If they forget it, I do not: and I'm sure the Bishop won't. So I look forward to my removal from Howick as inevitable. ... If I had followed my good wife's advice I should have placed my resignation in the Bishop's hands when the Parishioners first broke faith with me.

These financial deficiencies that seem almost trivial today had considerable purchasing power in the 1860s for a clergyman who was expected to clothe and educate six children, as well as maintaining the dignity of a vicarage, on a stipend of £200 a year. Almost two months later there is anxious discussion of the still unresolved problem and some gloomy comment on "this jog-trot life". Also much speculation on what Bishop Selwyn might have in store for his far from turbulent priest.

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Forthwith Vicesimus Lush was appointed an itinerant clergyman with the title of Minister to the Inner Waikato, a parish which at that time stretched from the village of Papakura, some miles south of Auckland, to the Waikato Heads, and included the settlement of Raglan.

Leaving his wife and family comfortably settled in the house he had built at Parnell and called Ewelme Cottage, 1 Vicesimus Lush rode out of Auckland to his headquarters at a locality he was to refer to often as "dreary Drury". Here Bishop Selwyn had had built a spartan three-roomed cottage equipped with an open fire for cooking and heating. John Middlemass the butcher, source of many a good mutton chop -- and some execrable pork -- lived nearby. Fortunately his kindly wife or some other local matron made a habit of sending meals over to "the Bishop's hostelry" in bad weather, when she saw the dripping figure of the Minister close the cottage door after attending to his tired horse. 2

Immigrant settlements were springing up throughout this large parish and one that interested the Minister particularly was a group from South Africa known to their neighbours as "the Cape Pigeons", who were living in somewhat uncomfortable conditions at Maketu, a valley north of Pokeno noted for its peach groves.

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In the autumn of 1867 Vicesimus had a fall from his horse and injured his leg severely enough for it to become a trial to the end of his life. He was now a middle-aged man, and many miles on horseback in bad weather were responsible for numerous small ailments -- apart from a tendency of the wounded leg to open up whenever unusual strain was placed upon it. But by midwinter he was in the saddle again and noting in his journal details of a change of attitude and life in the people of the countryside about Auckland, caused by the opening of the Thames goldfield and the tremendous amount of publicity given to Thames news by Auckland newspapers.

On 6 September he baptized a baby at Papakura but the father was absent -- he had gone to the goldfield. A nearby family had lost all its farm hands -- also gone to the diggings. At Drury as at Papakura there was a congregation of women, the male population having been stricken with "the yellow fever".

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A year later the Southern Cross was still giving an enthusiastic account of the new goldfield. Auckland was full of diggers, come up to the city from Thames, dressed in new clothes and driving about in carriages. From "a frightfully distressed state, no business, no confidence and half the community in a state of bankruptcy" Auckland was beginning to recover, thanks to the rich gold-bearing quartz reefs at the Thames.

Bishop Selwyn was in England during 1868, having reluctantly accepted Queen Victoria's request that he should return to England as Bishop of Lichfield. On his return to New Zealand -- still as Bishop of New Zealand -- he made his last ecclesiastical appointment: that of Vicesimus Lush as the first Vicar of Thames.

A week later relief was in sight and the family's imagination (along with that of most of the Auckland Province) does seem to have been caught by the romance and novelty of gold-mining, a view that was to some extent tempered by a closer acquaintance with the gaunt poppet-heads, the thunder of the stamper batteries, and the engulfing mud -- all common to both Shortland and Grahamstown, twin settlements that then composed the town of Thames.

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An unofficial visit to the Thames produced first-hand news of mining activities. The prospective Vicar was beginning to take a personal interest in progress on the goldfield.

On the morning of 14 November 1868, according to Auckland's Southern Cross, a meeting of St George's congregation was held at the Thames Courthouse "for the purpose of taking steps" to establish a resident Church of England clergyman in the district. The chairman said that the Bishop of Lichfield had recommended Mr Lush as the "most eligible gentleman" for the vacancy. After some discussion on the salary to be offered (this to be not less than £250 a year) and a handsome tribute from Dr Henry Weekes who was of the opinion that they "could not get a better Minister than Mr Lush though they had dozens to choose from", a motion was carried and Mr Lush declared duly chosen.

The new incumbent's visit to Thames was a crowded occasion.

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A week later the Vicar of Thames was saying goodbye to his wife and family. Like so many of his late parishioners -- if with a somewhat different objective -- he was off to the goldfields.

Though no mention appears to have been made of potential goldfields in pre-colonial New Zealand it seems likely that

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some well-informed early travellers may have at least suspected the presence of the metal. Those with scientific interests, notably ships' surgeons, displayed curiosity about the geology of the country but apparently none recorded any rumour of gold being found, though Coromandel was a usual port of call. It was not until 1842 that a party of whalers reported a find there. Soon afterwards a small nugget was picked up in Nelson. There was no great excitement over these reports. In any case, the first prospectors were interested in alluvial gold that could be panned; the gold-bearing quartz reefs of Thames were quite a different matter.

It was the Californian rush of 'forty-nine that started the nineteenth century gold fever, and conditions in New Zealand in the following years encouraged disgruntled settlers to try their luck on the Californian and Australian goldfields. These migrants not only represented a serious population loss for a colony barely ten years old but the situation had some unexpected repercussions as the newly-arrived Vicar of Howick was to discover; Vicesimus Lush notes that producers of goods were supplying goldfields across the Tasman rather than the local customer and that prices were rocketing accordingly.

Not all regarded it as misfortune. A reward of £100 offered for the discovery of "alluvial gold in payable quantities near the Capital" -- Auckland -- was claimed in September 1852 by Charles Ring, a recently-returned veteran of the

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Californian goldfields. Vicesimus Lush was present at the first sale of locally produced ore:

He was not alone in this; the first prospectors on the Coromandel goldfield were in a similar state. There was a mild rush to the coast from November to January but by June 1853 most of the diggers had packed their swags and left, some to try Mercury Bay and Cape Colville. The distinguished geologist Dr Ferdinand von Hochstetter outlined the pattern after visiting Coromandel in 1859:

The diggers were not able to survive such heavy taxation: "The whole enterprise died out after about 6 months. The simple verdict was that the gold mines were too poor, and the promised reward was witheld from the discoverer." 8

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Then in 1861 Gabriel Read, an experienced Australian miner, found payable gold at Tuapeka in Otago. For nearly a decade reports of gold had been coming from various localities -- there had even been a small rush to Collingwood in 1857 -- but now the time was ripe. The great Otago rushes were quickly followed by the West Coast rushes and drew an influx of gold-seekers to New Zealand. By 1867 the easy gold in the south had been won and restless diggers began to turn their attention to the Thames goldfield which had been formally opened that year. 9

On 11 September The New Zealand Herald announced: "We shall look with interest for the result of the crushing of five tons of stone sent from Tookey's claim to Coromandel by the Fly to be crushed there." On 8 October it reported: "All that is now needed is machinery. Thames has, we believe, settled the point." Three days later William Goodall decided to ship one of his Coromandel batteries and engines to Thames. It arrived by the cutter Wanderer and was landed on the beach. By December Mr Goodall's machinery was crushing quartz from a Thames claim; four tons gave an average of forty ounces to the ton.

Such mining equipment was very expensive and small companies were floated to work the numerous claims. A few of the claims managed to preserve their independence but many were forced by high costs to sell their interests to large concerns based in Auckland. The Thames boomed, graduating from a clutter of tents, convenient caves and raupo whares to a shanty town, mainly miners' wooden cottages of a uniform and distinctive pattern.

The Ohinemuri field, some miles up the River Thames, with the town of Paeroa as its first centre, was the scene of

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one of the last gold rushes in New Zealand but before the end of the century the old-time red-shirted diggers, with their wide-brimmed hats and moleskin breeches, had vanished from their dramatic stage. But even today they have their prototypes, living in bush-shadowed deserted places that once resounded with the noise of stamper batteries. And the search for gold goes on.

* * *

By the mid-1860s people, business affairs and the events of daily living generally were in a depressed state in Auckland, former capital of New Zealand. The removal of the seat of government to Wellington in 1865 was a major factor in many commercial failures within the city and province, as also was the withdrawal of the Imperial troops in anticipation of a hopefully envisaged peace in the Waikato and Taranaki. Money was scarce and in any walk of life the nightmare of unemployment could mean, literally, starvation.

James Mackay, a Highland Scot of considerable courage and ability, 10 had been appointed Civil Commissioner for the newly opened Hauraki goldfield in 1864. His influence with the Maori tribes of the locality had gained the consent of the owners of the land to mining development in the Coromandel district. This, combined with the enterprise of two men, Paratane Whakautu and Hamiora Kewa who had produced a limited quantity of gold from the south bank of the Karaka creek, satisfied most of the tribal chiefs as well as the authorities in Auckland that the Thames district's prospects were good. The goldfield was opened by proclamation of the Deputy-Superintendent, Dr Pollen, on 30 July 1867, with the approval of the paramount chief, Hoterene 11 Taipairi, after whom the first settlement was named.

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A year later, by the time Vicesimus Lush had arrived and was living in a cottage near the Hape 12 mine -- "up the Hape" in the local speech -- fortunes had already been made and lost. By the spring of 1868 small wooden houses had begun to replace the slab huts, raupo whares and the forest of tents on the two settlements. Higher up in the hills conditions were much the same as those experienced by the first diggers to take the field. These men came down to the settlements in their hundreds on Saturday nights, when shops stayed open till midnight, as did the numerous hotels. These dimly-lit buildings and the "planked" footpaths represented comparative civilization. Pollen Street, the main road, was "just a sea of mud and mullock where horses were frequently bogged and had to be dragged out". 13

James Macdonald, 14 later Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court, was an early Thames settler. In 1867 his office was a one-roomed wooden hut near Scrip Corner where shares were bought and sold. He and his charming, lively wife with their young daughter, Flora, were intimate friends of the Lush family, as were Dr and Mrs Alexander Fox, slightly later arrivals. Both Mrs Macdonald and the young Quakeress, Ellen Fox, 15 have left valuable records of the daily life and social occasions of a young, raw settlement enveloped in a golden haze.

"Mrs Mac" was a born pioneer. Her husband had practised as a barrister in England but was obliged to qualify as a solicitor to do so in New Zealand. The necessary books being scarce he read law with Mr Edwin Hesketh in the evenings, and during the day worked as a carpenter on a house near the Thistle Hotel and as gardener to a resident of Grafton Road. His wife in her Reminiscences remarks that his employer was "so taken with him that he asked the gardener to dinner", and

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makes it plain that little time was wasted before settling in Thames.

Though later arrivals by some months, the Lush family too entered enthusiastically into the life of Thames, as far as the absence of a vicarage allowed. Blanche Lush and her eldest daughter spent much of their time between Ewelme Cottage in Parnell and the Thames, until the Vicar's shares in the Caledonian mine became profitable. At last Mrs Lush and her family were able to live permanently at Shortland in what is referred to as "the Parsonage" but was actually the Vicar's own house. The second Church of St George was built at approximately the same time, under Mr Lush's direction, and received some generous gifts of furnishings from him and his family.

An early and very necessary addition to the public buildings of Thames was "the Diggers' Hospital". On 2 March 1868 a meeting was called to discuss the formation of a club for the relief of sickness and injury among the mining population. James Mackay was elected president, with an executive committee and a "strong working committee" of eighty. About an acre of land was a gift from the Maori owners to the Thames Hospital & Relief Institution. Hoterene Taipairi

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replied to the committee's thanks: "Friends, I am glad that my giving the land to the different churches, and to the Hospital has met with your approval. Churches are for the salvation of the souls of men: the hospital is for the salvation of the bodies of men; so I am willing to give the land for this object." His speech ended: "Friends, I thank you. I have nothing more to say."

Some residents of Thames, however, did have something more to say. The Diggers' Hospital 16 did not cater for the needs of the female portion of the population. As a consequence the Hauraki Ladies' Benevolent Society was formed at a meeting held in Mrs James Mackay's drawing-room. Mrs Mackay was elected president and Mrs Alexander Fox became the first secretary. On 16 November 1869 Ellen Fox wrote to her sister in England: "The Society is for the purpose of giving relief to sick women. The subject of a Hospital was discussed -- such an institution is much needed here, though I do not intend to take it up."

Such a decision came strangely from a member of the Society of Friends who at the age of fourteen was nursing cholera victims in a London hospital for children. A possible reason was a later-to-be-disappointed hope that she and her husband would be visiting their respective families in Britain by 1870. But on 16 January 1871 she asks her sister to thank Lizzie (a cousin) for her "kind donation to the Hospital". The need for a women's hospital was urgent; from a small beginning the Benevolent Society attained its objective -- a refuge for sick women and expectant mothers. Mrs Heron, Mrs Murray, Mrs Puckey and Mrs Hollis were all active members.

Mrs Macdonald was a cheerful and efficient social worker. "Getting around to the various homes was no easy task. Once I was sent to a case on the Kuranui Hill and the road was so steep and muddy that I had to slide coming down. My mother had sent me out a very strong pair of high boots, which became known as my 'Benevolent' boots, because I always wore them when on my duties as a visitor. On one occasion

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I went up Tookey's Hill and the mud was so deep and my leg went in so far that it was impossible for me to get it out, and I was forced to wait as patiently as might be until a miner came along and rendered the necessary assistance."

Doctors on the goldfields served a fluctuating population and like their patients they came and went. The earliest walked, rode or travelled by boat on their professional visits; the horse-and-buggy era came later. It had an almost sinful touch of luxury after the hands-and-knees scrambles up slippery hillside tracks, and tired horses that floundered wildly through the mud-holes that were then styled roads. One of the earliest practitioners, Dr Henry Weekes, is mentioned as the Superintendent of the Diggers' Hospital in 1869, with Drs C. F. Lethbridge, Seth Sam, W. A. Perston, Alexander Fox and Martin Payne (a cousin of Ellen Fox) as honorary surgeons.

A list of Thames residents in 1871-2 gives the name of Georges Trousseau, 17 Doctor of Medicine, as practising in Brown Street. A son of Armand Trousseau of Paris who ranks among the giants of the nineteenth century medical world, he assisted local doctors with his experience, particularly in the numerous epidemics of typhoid, diptheria and scarlet fever that were the scourge of the community's children. Until about 1880, according to one estimate, thirty out of every fifty deaths were of children under twelve. Apart from illness in the homes, accidents in the mines, the kauri forests, the timber-mills and, later, in the foundries sorely taxed the resources of the medical profession and their primitive hospital.

Throughout these journals the activities of volunteer brigades in patriotic Thames are mentioned often. There was the Naval Brigade commanded by Captain E. T. Wildman that manned a smart cutter and concentrated on target practice with its big guns. There were the Hauraki Engineers, the Rifle Rangers, and the highly regarded Native Corps under Captain Wirope Hoterene 18 Taipairi, the son of the chief

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NEW HORIZONS

Hoterene Taipairi, and his Lieutenant Raika Whaka Rongatai. A local rhymester, Richard Wiseman, extolled the Scottish Battalion commanded by Major T. L. Murray, in civil life manager of the local Bank of New Zealand.

The Volunteers, for the most part young men, were also active cricketers, good shots and keen horsemen. The Vicar offers some severe comment on the only Rugby match mentioned in the thirteen years of his stay at Thames. Perhaps it is as well that he was not present at the first sports meeting, held at New Year, 1868, which was ushered in with free drinks at all of Thames's ten hotels. The custom of first-footing was honoured enthusiastically, and later on New Year's Day races, high jumps, vaulting hedges, putting the shot and hammer-throwing were started on a flat near the Hape Creek.

The celebrations were kept up for four days. On the second day horse races were held; "young Jamieson" rode most of the winners. There was a certain lack of respect for the stewards' rulings; after two heats had been run the miners took charge and, with a rope across the course, held up proceedings. As there were no police the stewards faded quietly away and left the miners in charge. 19 The third day was devoted to boat racing, in two classes, whaleboats and canoes. The programme ended with "a stirring Maori dance". Tossing the caber and an "equine hurdle race" in which Mr Bonfield rode Mr Dudley Eyre's Whiffler to victory ended the first sports meeting to be held in Thames.

Between the years 1867 and 1881 numerous schools were proposed and some were started, only to sink without trace. According to tradition the first school was held in a tent and was supervised by a lame schoolmaster whose name appears

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to have been forgotten. Convent and Church of England schools were opened and established early; the Rev. Samuel Wilson ran the Hauraki Grammar School in Willoughby Street and Mr David Schofield one on the same lines in the old St George's Church. An unidentified woman teacher from Shortland was a voluminous correspondent to the newspapers of the day on the rights of women, under the name of "Polly Plum". 20

Mrs Macdonald possessed an only child and a strong mind of her own on the subject of education: "Miss Haselden 21 was the first teacher in the public school and I braved public opinion by sending my daughter there. Everyone was rather shocked at the time but afterwards followed my example, because there were no good private schools then."

Butt's Theatre and the American Theatre supplied entertainment to the appreciative miners at Shortland; the Theatre Royal and the Academy of Music (which was built out over the water and well-remembered for performances dependent on tides and floods) were situated at Grahamstown. Music was an important part of Thames life a century ago. Scottish, English and Welsh miners crowded the churches, singing the old hymns with a fervour and skill that delighted the Vicar of St George's particularly. It was he who introduced them to the sixteenth century Miners' Hymn: "God Who Created Quartz and Sand". 22 Madame Carandini with her three daughters, Fannie, Lizzie and Arabella, drew full houses with programmes of operatic selections, ballads and German lieder.

Thousands of diggers swarmed into town to hear Charles

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Thatcher, 23 a gifted entertainer who wrote his own topical songs, sometimes at an hour's notice. No one was safe from his good-natured lampooning, as Mr Lush was to discover. A local couple, Johnnie Hall and his wife Emily, had similar skill. Although nothing but the title has survived, their "Maloney's Fenian Cat" sounds promising. Another song, set to a catchy tune, recorded the paramount Ohinemuri chief's determination to keep the diggers out of that prospective goldfield. Mrs Hall sang it originally and subsequently so did most of the population of Thames. It was enlivened between verses by a very popular step dance.

Drama in which virtue triumphed over vice could be depended upon to bring the house down as the villain was hissed off the stage. Roller-skating became a short-lived craze among the young; and dances, both public and private but always well chaperoned, were frequent. Members of various organisations, from the somewhat militant Irish Patriotic Society to the Society of Friends (peace-loving Quakers) held meetings and attended "Benefits" for the relief of the unfortunate which were well patronised by the community generally. The Goldfields Horticultural Society held an annual show in the Academy of Music. One of these that coincided with a flood appears to have dampened the exhibits more than the spirits of the organisers.

Acording to the indomitable Mrs Macdonald: "There was always a concert during the evenings and afterwards the exhibits were auctioned off. Once there was no auctioneer in the room... I mounted a table and proceeded to auction the goods. It was a most successful sale and I got 15/- for a cabbage. It was thrown from one to another and there were many congratulations at the close."

Mr and Mrs Macdonald were early parishioners of what was to be St George's parish before there was anything approaching a church. "Soon after our arrival at the Thames the Church of England services were begun and held in a funny little unlined structure in Willoughby Street. We had no regular Minister as yet, and the first clergyman to officiate

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was the Reverend David Jones of St Matthew's, Auckland. He came to church in top boots. It was very muddy everywhere and we had either to go through it or stay at home. There were no paths, but planks were placed across the worst places."

On 20 January 1868 a meeting was called to consider the building of an Anglican Church. Wirope Hoterene was thanked for his gift of a site for it, and the Rev. George Maunsell, missionary in charge of the Kaueranga station, was elected convenor for the general committee. Three weeks later a building committee was appointed; a donation was given by Bishop Selwyn and a grant from the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Auckland was also added to the £62 8s. already in hand. The first St George's Church was built on a section in Rolleston Street, soon after this meeting, some months before the arrival of its first incumbent. It was used as a church until 1872 when the present church, also dedicated to St George, was built. The original building is still in use as a parish hall.

The story of the second church is told in detail in the journal, though not as fully as could be wished owing to gaps in the manuscript. Parishioners and well-wishers made a considerable effort to raise sufficient money. "We went to Mr Lush's for dinner after the opening of the Church", writes Mrs Macdonald. "There was no Parsonage but Mr Lush built a house at his own expense. The varnish in the new house attracted the flies which were really dreadful, and we kept flapping away at them all through the meal." The large linen table napkins then fashionable were probably effective weapons.

In spite of some notable battles -- and a spate of anecdotes -- relations between the Protestant Orangemen and the Catholic population were by no means consistently unfriendly. The warmhearted matrons of Irishtown were always at hand in times of fire and flood and few wearers of the Orange, whether men or women, were averse to giving help when and where needed. When the Catholic church was built in Willoughby Street its bell was hung from a small belfry in the

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churchyard; Captain Robert Farrell, himself an Orangeman, saw the bell in passing and pointed out a defect in it to Father Chatagnan, the parish priest. Proclaiming that it would never ring as it was he carried it away on his shoulder to John West's smithy to be altered.

"Now we'll put it in the tower and it will surely ring," he said. But it did not. Captain Farrell was startled for a moment; then he saw the light. "How can we expect a Catholic bell to ring with an Orangeman's cap round its tongue?" he asked. In bringing the bell back he had held it on his shoulder by the tongue with his cap wrapped round it -- and forgotten to take it away.

The Vicar and his family appear to have extended their friendship to all denominations and a variety of people, though sometimes hampered by the cross-currents of public opinion. The more spectacular misfits in the community -- friendless young men totally unfitted for the unfamiliar conditions of colonial life in a rough environment, 24 older men (including clergymen) who had left their homes but carried with them their sorrows and problems (often alcoholic) to the new country, well-educated spinsters and widows who drifted from one settlement to another and found for themselves a room in which to start the little schools that inevitably failed. It was easier in the nineteenth century to help the poor and uneducated than the "reduced gentlewoman" and her gentleman counterpart. Both were represented on the rich Thames goldfield.

Relations with the Maoris appear to have been good. In 1835 the Church Missionary Society had established a station at Kaueranga as a successor to the first Thames district station at Puriri, an unhealthy site later abandoned. Edwin Fairburn, son of the lay missionary William Thomas Fairburn, was present in February 1835 as an eight-year-old child: "I remember a great party of seven or eight going down one day to Kaueranga to select a new Station on top of a rising ground near the old Totara pa where Hongi Hika had made great slaughter. It must have been about the beginning of February

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as the Water Melons were beginning to be ripe. There were large plantations of Potatoes, Kumeras, Maize, Melons, &c., &c., all over the Kaueranga flats, both sides of the river. I remember we had Mutton for our dinner. I think it was nearly the first time I had tasted Mutton in my life. All the experiences of the Missionaries South of Auckland, especially in the Hauraki Gulf districts, were totally unlike those in the early days of the Bay of Islands districts."

Another lay missionary, William Preece, was the first to be stationed at Kaueranga; by the time the Lush family came to Thames more than thirty years later, the Rev. George Maunsell, son of Archdeacon Robert Maunsell, Maori scholar and early missionary, had been in charge of the district for some time. To him and to James Mackay the earliest arrivals on the field owed the peace that existed between themselves and the Maori owners of the land.

One of these, Hoterene Taipairi the paramount chief, had built a large house on Parawai Hill. "Taipari had beautiful beds but he would allow no one to sleep in them. Occasionally he would lend his house to some of the young blades for a dance -- we would dance for any reason or pretext whatever but ladies were so scarce that he had to have two partners for each dance to make them spin out. The waltz had not yet made its advent; lancers, polkas and galops were the order of the day. There were so few girls among us that one young man asked his mother to bring some from Auckland to attend one of the dances. The trap that brought them from the steamer got stuck in the mud," recalls Mrs Macdonald, "causing much excitement and delay, but they arrived eventually and were privileged to stay at Taipari's house, a most unusual thing."

The Vicar and his "three curates" -- his wife and daughters Blanche and Anne -- reacted well to the bustle and excitement of the adjoining fields in his parish, Thames and Ohinemuri. In 1876 young Anne made informative notes in her journal on her share in her father's work. There is a list of eleven names headed "Old Women" (who were presumably to be visited regularly) and, somewhat damningly, a

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section entitled "Nice People" which lists only one, Mrs Rowe, though a wide space has been left for possible additions.

Anne taught at the Kaueranga girls' school and St George's Sunday-school. She sang in the church choir, had drawing lessons from Mrs Macdonald and painting lessons from Mrs Tizard, sewed diligently on garments for the poor and the Pacific Islands missions, and cooked for school treats. All this was combined with occasional babysitting for her young married friends and her own quite numerous social engagements. Her elder sister, whose gifts and interests centred on music, did her share of parish visiting but does not appear to have kept any record of her activities.

Gentle, hospitable Mrs Lush was an admirable hostess for the Parsonage who enjoyed chaperoning her daughters to balls and parties and coped cheerfully with the difficulties of colonial life. There is one short entry written by her among these journals, made while "Vi" was visiting Norfolk Island with his daughter Anne and a party of friends and colleagues. This is valuable because it reveals something of one who is eclipsed by the stronger personalities of her husband, daughters and two sons, Martin and Edward. As one of her granddaughters has written: "Life in the Colony was harder in many ways for her than for her husband who had always had the eager spirit of the pioneer. Although she never regretted or complained of her lot, her children knew that a little part of her died when she left her beloved England." 25

The journals of Vicesimus Lush, pioneer priest, transport the reader from the cowslip meadows of Farringdon to Auckland, the ten-year-old capital of New Zealand, twelve thousand miles across the world from his birthplace. The Auckland Journals of Vicesimus Lush: 1850-63 portray the social and economic life of an infant city; the spartan life at St John's College, Tamaki, which was then called Bishop's Auckland, and the easily disturbed rural peace of beautiful Howick are described with occasionally exasperated affection.

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Whatever preconceived ideas the Vicar of Howick may have had of his adopted country, he was a dedicated New Zealander before he had lived in it for six months.

The Thames journals are a contrast in many ways -- they record noise, mud, warring factions, and a preoccupation with golden gain that brought its own problems and disappointments as well as the heady excitement of "striking it rich". But Thames also brought to the first Vicar and his family an enlarged horizon -- a rich experience in human nature and the opportunity to help with the moulding and development of a turbulent, fascinating community from its inception.