Murray Hicks 1913 - 2002: Rural life 1910s: Our house

My grandfather Murray Hicks grew up on a farm in Taranaki, New Zealand; his forebears were farmers from Devon in England. This is edited from the first of a set of memories that he set down from 1992. He wasn't happy with rural life, and his aptitude set him on a course for a professional, urban life.


I was born in January 1913. Probably my earliest memory was of being in a box lined with an rug in the milking shed while my parents [Hilda and Harold Hicks] milked the cows by hand. I was not then able to climb out of the box but I could see over the top. I guess that must have been about late 1914 or so.

Our farm, of about 53 acres, was situated on Ngatimaru Road, Tikorangi, about two and a half miles from Waitara, and the house, unlike most in the district, was close to the road - I assume because the ground there was a little higher than the land.

Hilda (Cole) 1885-1966 and Harold George Hicks 1885-1952

The farm and the house (believed to be then of only two rooms) was given to my father by his grandfather, Richard Hicks [1824-1918] at the time my father and mother were married in 1908. In return, my parents were required to provide for the grandfather as long as lived.

At my earliest memory of our house, it was T-shaped with three bedrooms and a relative large living room. There was a verandah around three sides of the bedrooms and a small verandah on the road side of the living room.

The first bedroom was my parents’, about 9 feet by 9 feet with a dressing table (with mirror) across the corner to get good light from the windows on two sides. What with the double bed, my fairly large cot on one side of the bed and a table with washbasin on the other there was just comfortable room to move around. On one wall there was a picture (Faith Hope & Charity), three rather ethereal looking ladies.

The second bedroom was probably about nine feet long and seven feet wide. Having only one window and a verandah outside made the room rather dark.

The third bedroom was fairly large with windows on two sides. Because the living room was only as wide as the passage plus the second bedroom, access to the third bedroom was through a small built out elbow-shaped room ( I can remember pantry shelves and bacon hanging from the ceiling). From the construction of the third bedroom, it was added some time after, possibly when my parents were married. I can vaguely remember my great grandfather being here. He slept in it and seemed to spend most of his time there. He must have passed on when I was about two or three years old.

The living room had a window and the front door facing the main road, where a path led through the garden to a wooden gate. One end was mainly taken up with the Shacklock range. This had a small water heater at one side which supplied hot water, and was kept going nearly all the day. There was always a kettle on the range for tea etc. In the winter the stoking doors were left open to throw the heat out in the room so we were rarely cold.

Because of a “lean-to” storeroom on the North-East side of the kitchen, that side had no windows bar the back door with two glass panels; it tended to be a bit dark too. The lean-to provided a storeroom for wheat and mash for the fowls and a porch about six feet square where wet weather gear, farm boots and firewood for the range were kept and where we washed our hands before coming inside.

The living room served as kitchen, dining room, and entertaining space. The kitchen table was my mother’s work bench when she was cooking, then the dining table, then the washing up bench after that. When we had visitors, it was the entertainment base.

The outside walls were rusticated horizontal boards painted white. The roof was corrugated iron, but not painted as the roofing iron did not rust very easily in those days.

The interior had varnished tongue and grooved boards on the lower four feet of the walls and wallpaper over scrim above that. The ceilings were about 10 feet high, not as high as most about the area, and were of wide painted boards with ornamentally grooved battens.

There was no electricity in the district outside the Waitara Borough; our lighting came from the kerosene lamp in the living room. Otherwise, only candles.

We had no running water, no bathroom, inside toilet nor drainage system. Our Saturday night baths were in the small storeroom by the light of one or two candles. We used the galvanised tub used by my mother for washing the clothes each week. The water was heated on the range in a kerosene bucket.

All waste water was thrown out into the shrubs over the veronica hedge about five yards from the back door. The ground was good loam and the water soaked away very easily. Meat scraps were given to the cats (two or three white ones) or to the farm dog who had his kennel by the sheds. The vegetable scraps were thrown over the hedge where they were cleaned up by the fowls, which were allowed to run loose over the property.

The toilet, furnished with only a seat over a large paint drum, and some newspaper, was discreetly situated under a laurel tree about 15 yards from the back door.

The house itself was on about an acre of ground surrounded on three sides by lawson hedges, about seven or eight feet high. At my earliest memory, the side facing the side road had a newly planted golden ake ake hedge about 18 inches high. There were large laurel trees, about 15 feet high, dividing the house acre in two. These trees were probably planted about 1900 to give shelter from the Southerly wind when the house was first built. I enjoyed playing in them very much.

A smaller laurel hedge ran almost to the back door. This made a sheltered area for the clothes line and a play area for me and my sister. The grass was rather long except when my father cut it with a scythe.

About ten yards from the back door were the tool shed and the cart shed; neither painted. Behind the sheds was my mother's laundry: a copper boiler on the open ground with two galvanised tubs nearby. The two tubs (the smaller tub being used to blue the clothes) were shaded from the sun by large pear tree. On washdays (mondays unless it was raining), my mother had to carry cold water from our only tank by the house, fill up the copper boiler and light a fire under it. Then she would fill it with the dirty clothes plus soap. When the water was boiling some of the clothes and hot water were transferred to the larger galvanised tub where they were scrubbed on the washboard and rinsed and then wrung out with the hand wringer. White clothes also had to go through the blue tub process. Waste water was emptied into a hollow where it quickly soaked away in the black soil.

Between the laundry area and the lawson hedge was quite a good orchard of apple, pear and plum trees plus a walnut and a chestnut tree. The chestnut tree didn’t seem to bear any fruit but all the others did. The trees were never pruned, manured or sprayed, and over the years their fruiting greatly reduced but in my early days they seemed to fruit very well. A second orchard on the South side was obviously planted much later but these trees had hardly any fruit.

We had no refrigerator; the safe on the outside wall seemed to be effective but it was not large and was not accessible from inside the house.

At first the butcher used to call once a week but later we had to get our meat by favour of the grocer, who was very obliging. He delivered our order once a week and included our meat. Bread was not sold by the grocer but was available from the bread cart which also called weekly.
Dad used to go to Waitara each Saturday afternoon (walking or on horseback), taking in the order for the following week. (Dad used to play football for the Clifton Rugby Football Club and there were many of his football photos on the walls.) We had no telephone but were able to phone up the orders from the Wills, about 150 yards away. We tried not to impose on them too much.

We had no radio until many years later; the Taranaki Daily News was delivered daily.

There was no reticulated water system in the early days and we had only a smallish tank (probably 400 gallons) which was replenished by roof catchment for all the household needs. When the tank got near empty, Dad would be frequently tapping it to measure how much was left. The water was then brackish but we had to conserve it as much as possible.

My mother was a very keen gardener and seemed to find time to look after her garden. In later years especially, through swapping cuttings with her many garden visitors, my mother had many very rare varieties of flowering plants. However, even in those early days I can remember my Aunt Olive and others, getting flowers from us when wanted for a wedding or a funeral.

Sir Hugh Courtenay of Boconnoc (1421 –1471)

The Courtenays were of French origin, descending from Athon/Athos de Courtenay who fortified the town of Courtenay in Gatenois/Gatinais about 1010. Reginald de Courtenay crossed from France to England in 1152, and through marriage his descendants built land, power and titles in Devon. There were quite a number of Hugh Courtenays over the years: possibly averaging at least one per generation.

This Hugh was descended from the Earls of Devon, but was not an earl himself. Yet his uncle, cousins, and later his son, were earls at various times, due to deaths and forfeitures that were a staple of the turbulent times.

He was born in either 1421 or 1425 (the year his father died). His father was Sir Hugh Courtenay of Haccombe [and Boconnoc], the grandson of Sir Hugh Courtenay 11th Earl, and brother of Edward, the 12th, "Blind Earl". His mother was Maud/Mathilda Beaumont, daughter of Eleanor Plangagenet and Sir John Beaumont, Earl of Buchan. This Hugh married Margaret Carminow, the daughter of the Sheriff of Cornwall, about 1444 at the family seat of Boconnoc, Cornwall; they had about six children. He inherited the Boconnoc estate (Bochenod in the 1086 Domesday Book) through his grandmother’s family, the Dawnays.

Boconnoc

The period of the War(s) of The Roses [battle of Tewkesbury depicted above] ran throughout Hugh’s life, from 1399 to 1485. It had come on the heels of the Hundred Years War with France, and started with the death of a king (Richard III) with no heir. Factions variously aligned with the Dukes of York and Lancaster, both descended from Edward III. It was not so much war as alternating periods of turmoil and lull, with first one side then the other gaining the ascendancy of the throne. It was periodically flared by usurptions, grievances, temporary madness (Henry VI), and so on. In 1485, Henry Tudor was found to be last man standing and became Henry VII.

Allegiances changed often during the period; the Courtenays were in fact split between the sides, although largely Lancastrian like Hugh. Preceding Tewkesbury, Thomas Courtenay, 16th Earl was killed by Yorkists (1462); Thomas’ brother Henry then met that fate in 1466.

It's hard to get much idea of Hugh's character separate from the times that forged him. At one point, after his kinsman Thomas, 15th Earl (father of the 16th) had a long-running dispute with a foe, Hugh had joined with Thomas to wreak vengeance, sieging property and ransacking valuables in Exeter, Devon. However, this action doesn't appear much out of keeping with the norm in these lawless times.

In 1471, forces of Edward of York (the future King Edward IV) had King Henry VI imprisoned in London, keeping him alive to weaken the figurative strength of the king's wife and son, who were loose. The Queen’s army, with the young prince, landed on the south coast and marched to Exeter. There they were joined by Hugh and Sir John Arundel, who between them had mustered troops from Devon and Cornwall. The Queen, pursued by Edward northwest, was trying to cross the Severn river to meet Jasper Tudor’s reinforcements in Wales. But they were caught in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire on Saturday, 4th May. The Lancastrian forces experienced a crushing defeat.

“Her son Prince Edward was killed. Somerset was captured, along with [others including] Sir Hugh Courteney [sic]: all were courtmartialled… at Tewkesbury. Besides the prince, the earl of Devonshire [Thomas & Henry’s brother John, along with others] were killed in action... Henry VI was put to death in the Tower by Edward's order..." [4, p569].

There appears to have been another John Courtenay at the battle, but on the winning side; he was subsequently made a Banneret.

Two days after the battle, on the 6th of May 1471, Hugh was beheaded at Tewkesbury, then buried at Ashwater.

In final count, the earldom was forfeited and restored several times before peace came with the Tudors. Hugh's son Edward finally caught the prize; he was the brother of my 17th-generation ancestor Elizabeth Courtenay.


My grandmother, Gwendolen Rowling, was of Cornish descent via the surnames Williams, Bennetts, Vivian, and Trethurffe through to Elizabeth Courtenay.


Sources
1: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org)
2. Cornish Links (http://www.cornish-links.co.uk/boconnoc.htm)
3. The Wars Of The Roses, Robin Neillands, 1992, Cassell UK
4. The Oxford History of England The Fifteenth Century 1399-1485, E F Jacob, Oxford Univ Press
5. Family tree collated for Gwendolen Rowling

From A Settler's Wife (Auckland, 1850-52)

By Frances Southwell [Shayle George], from Dickens, Charles (ed.), Household Words, London, 6 March 1852.


At last, after a weary voyage of four months and fourteen days, the welcome sight of land repaid us for all our troubles. We reached Auckland, our destined home, the seat of Government, and the capital of New Zealand, on the l7th December [1850, on the Sir Edward Paget].

Having had contrary winds almost from the North Cape, and making way only by what the sailors call a "long leg and a short one," a fair wind now sprang up within a mile of the harbour. It was early morning, and the commencement of a day such as only shines upon the South Seas. We sailed into a capacious basin, indented with numerous tiny bays. The forelands jutting out on these were clothed down to the water's edge with verdure. On five of the bays, its wooden houses stretching up gentle hills, the town of Auckland is seated. Behind it rise Mount Eden and Mount Albert, and in front, on the north shore, are Mounts Victoria and Rangitoto. Excellently situated, between two seas, possessing a magnificent harbour, one could already descry in its scarcely defined streets, in its half-erected buildings, ever in progress, the childhood of one of those princely commercial cities whose names reach to the end of the earth. Even as we entered, the harbour was studded with ships, American whalers, brigantines from California, (with which country New Zealand carries on a prosperous and increasing trade), merchantmen from Sydney and Hobart Town, schooners from the south, several English vessels with the innumerable coasters, studded the unruffled waters, which, twenty years ago, were almost unknown to Europeans. Several shore boats came out to meet us, gaily decorated with flags in their sterns.

We had, on landing, but a damp reception. There is no wharf, nothing but a jetty, thrown out by one of the principal hotels. It was low water, and we could not land at this, so we were obliged to disembark at a reef, in which adventure I nearly took seisin of my new country, as William the Norman did of England, by measuring my length upon it. Bands of Sappers and Miners are now driving piles for a wharf, and emigrants. Going to one of the inns, we had breakfast of pork chops, coffee, and other delicacies, for eighteen-pence each.

We then sailed forth, and hired a small house, containing three rooms, at five shillings a-week, to be paid, the landlady emphatically said, "every Saturday night." The lodgings were furnished, and our first meal was a farce, at which, although we were the actors in it, we laughed heartily. Our tea equipage consisted of an inverted tub, with a towel over the bottom, for a table, a couple of basins, and a "hook-pot," with plenty of new bread and fresh butter; the unimaginable deliciousness of which, none but long sea-voyagers wot of. A rocking-chair fell to my lot, and a crazy box supported my spouse; yet I doubt it ever tea were more thoroughly enjoyed than ours was that night.

In a few days, when we became a little more settled, my husband was out from morning to night, walking the country in search of land; for although he is an attorney and has now good hopes of a moderate practice here, we thought it advisable, as we were not rich, to put ourselves out of the reach of want, by undertaking the tillage of a little land.

It was some time before he could find any that exactly suited us; at last he hit upon five acres, with a small house on it, two miles from town, for which we gave forty pounds. It is partially inclosed, and consists of rich scoriae soil. The house is built of the rough, unhewn scoriae stone, plastered and whitewashed within; the roof is thatched with rapu, a kind of reed; of which the natives form their huts. The flooring is sound, and the roof not low. The interior area of the entire mansion measures exactly twenty feet by ten, but, by means of a curtain, is divided into an eating and sleeping apartment; these in their time, play many parts; dining-room, drawing-room, boudoir, kitchen, nursery, library, and study. I – brought up an idle English lady, accustomed to pass my time as I pleased, to divide it between books and amusements, but giving much more of it to pleasure than to study – am the household goddess of this paradise; here I wash, and cook, feed my goats, and dress my baby, or when the little gentleman sleeps, endeavour to give you some faint idea of the toils and pleasures of an emigrant's life. But rude as our home is, we love and enjoy it more than I can describe; for it has the inexpressible charm of being – OUR OWN.

Labour is anxiously demanded here. The meanest carpenter gets eight shillings a-day. We could not, for love or money, procure one to floor our house; so trifling a job being deemed quite unworthy his attention. Labourers get four shillings and sixpence a day – some more; and one told me, to-day, that he was wanted in four places at once. Whoever, therefore, comes out above this class, must make up his mind to work (unless he bring plenty of money out with him), and work hard, or he had better stay at home. I have been, literally, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water.
But, in New Zealand, all this is done in hope – in the steadfast and sure hope of every day improving our condition, of being able to rest in our old years, and of living to our children, be they ever so many, an ample provision.

But, because I dwell so much upon the labours that have to perform, you must not suppose that the New Zealanders are without their amusements. They have their races, and their regatta, and own an Epsom, if they cannot boast a Derby. At the races I was not present; but the regatta was sight worth the voyage from England; I mean on account of the Maori race, which was the ninth of the day. Three large and powerful canoes – their prows fantastically carved and decorated with feathers, manned by an unlimited of natives – started to contest for the prizes. At the stern, and in mid-ships, their dark and tall figures naked to the waist, with frantic gestures, and wild gesticulations, stood two chiefs, animating their men to victory. They almost flew over the course; and as returning they neared the flag-ship, it was neck-and-neck contest between the two leading canoes. But Te Whero Whero [Potatau Te Wherowhero] one of the most powerful chiefs of the north, with almost unearthly yells, urged on his men. Fast flew his canoe beneath the powerful strokes of their paddles, and, darting forwards by a length, Te Whero Whero gained the honours of that day. Then the savages gave themselves up to all the excitement of victory. They shouted, they danced, they sprung – reeking as they were – into the water, and raised loud, and long, their cry of victory.

The climate is beautiful. I dress every morning with the door open (it is an outer door). Such are among the things we do with impunity. I am become robust and strong. My hair, from being weak and thin, is now so thick that I can scarcely bear its weight. Standing upon Mount Eden, as you look down upon the city and the sea, you can discern no smoke or impurity hanging over it, as over our English towns. The atmosphere is pure and balmy. Poverty hides not here in crowded and filthy dwellings. The children are chubby and clean; the women generally well-dressed and healthy.

At a distance from the town, on the road to Mount Eden, lie the cemeteries – one for every religious denomination. A large cross marks the Roman Catholic burial-ground. Each grave is railed in, and flowers had shrubs are coming up around. Slaughter-houses are not suffered to pollute our air. No meat of any description is allowed to be killed within three miles of the town. My husband walks from our suburban residence into town every day. Auckland being built upon hills, has scarely a level street. Most of the houses are detached; sometimes unappropriated allotments lie between them. There are no pavements; and grass grows in the middle of the many of the streets. Nevertheless, everything has a thriving look. New houses are being constantly erected; new shops daily opened; everything advances.

From Freeman's Bay, passing by the Roman Catholic Chapel – a handsome stone edifice, with a large floriated cross – you descend West Queen Street into Queen Street, which is long and level, abutting on Commercial Bay, the business quarter of the young metropolis. Here commence the great fuse. Here are the principal merchants' stores, and here sit the native Maoris, under little tents of while calico, their goods spread out in kits on the ground round them. In this street also stands the prison; the resident magistrate's court (similar to the English County Court), held every day, and in which much business is done; and the Supreme Court of Judicature. The last criminal sittings in this were held on the first of this month: there were six cases for trial: one, that of a Maori for the murder of a fellow-native; he was only convicted of manslaughter. Leaving this, and parallel to West Queen Street, you ascend Shortland Street, in which is the principal inn, called the Exchange Hotel, and several shops, which would not disgrace any European town. On a line with this is the Crescent, at the top of which is the church, neatly built of white stone, in the early English style of architecture. The arrangements of the inside are very admirable, since most of the seats are free. Two lecterns supply the place of the pompous reading-desk and pulpit of our English churches; and two clergymen of capability assist the bishop.
Below the church is Cooper's Bay, then Mechanics' Bay, and, last of all, Official Bay where are the residences of the Judge and the Colonial Secretary. Beyond the church is the "west end" of the town and the road leading to Epsom. The officers live here, and the men under Government. Here are the barracks and the gardens of old Government House, burned down some time since, and not yet restored. The present residence of his Excellency is a place of the most unpretending character, distinguished only by the soldiers on guard. It is situated at a little distance from the town, on the road to Mount Eden.

Two newspapers are published, each twice a week, in Auckland – the "New Zealander", and the "Southern Cross"; the former the Government, the latter the opposition paper. Sales at auction-marts take place every day in the week, Sundays excepted, at which every variety of goods are to be purchased at cheap rates; and the auctioneer appears to do a thriving business here.
There are daily schools for children, one for every sect. The Protestant, the Roman Catholic, the Scotch churches, each have their own, and the Wesleyans possess a large college. At the Roman Catholic school, which is conducted by a Sister of Mercy, a number of Maori children attended very regularly.
The country round Auckland is undulating; hill and dale, with small mountains interspersed. There are three different kinds of soil – scoriae land, fern land, and "tea-tree" land. The last is always poor: the other two are good; but the scoriae by far the best, although it involved great labour and expense in clearing. The roads are in general barren, and the scenery of a gloomy and solitary grandeur; but on one highway, which I traversed the other day, hedge-rows, as in England, extended for miles; singing-birds cheered us, and charming cottages, embowered in trees, stood on the hill brows, or dotted the fertile plain.
The greatest, in fact the only, drawback of the country around Auckland, is the almost total absence of trees, except such as are planted by the settlers; yet within eight miles of Auckland the vast forests begin. Firewood is, consequently, six shillings a ton in the place where I had fondly hoped to eat strawberries of my own planting under Rawri trees five hundred feet high.
There is but one decent macadamised road in the whole district, the road to Epsom. This is a good firm road, in the worst weather, for upwards of ten miles. The Eden, Tamaka, and Onehunga roads scarcely deserve the name; in the winter the mud upon them is up to the axle-trees of carts. At the village of Onehunga is situated the Pensioners' Settlement; it is a flourishing and populous little place, on the opposite side of the island. An omnibus runs to and fro, between it and Auckland, every Sunday during the summer.

The prices of provisions here differ greatly from those of the mother country. Bread, when we first landed, was fourpence-halfpenny the two-pound loaf; it has now gradually increased to sixpence; but it is hoped that the approaching harvest will again reduce it. Tea, both black and green, can be procured of excellent quality for eighteen-pence per pound. By taking a quarter chest, you can get it at fifteen-pence. Coffee, when there is a good supply in the market, is eight-pence a pound; when scarce, it rises as high as eighteen-pence. Butter, when we came, was a shilling; it is now fifteen-pence. The prime cuts of beef and mutton are sixpence a pound; of pork, fourpence. You can buy, for sixpence, as much delicious fish as will serve an ordinary family for two days' dinner. The kinds of fish most commonly brought about here, are the snapper, the mullet, and a fish like our sole in look and taste, but rather smaller. Oysters are sixpence a kit. A kit is a native basket, made of the platted flax of the country; one may contain from four hundred to five hundred oysters. Cockles, called here pipies [pippies], fetch about the same price. Potatoes (colonially speaking, "spuds") are bought at from a shilling up to three shillings the hundred-weight. Peaches and melons are plentiful and very fine. Oranges and coconuts we get fresh from Tahiti.
One may live well here on a small income. The lowest rate of interest for money lent is ten per cent. Twelve and fifteen per cent are commonly asked and given; so that a person coming here with a thousand pounds, might really live very comfortably on the interest of the money; for a hundred pounds here will go as far as two hundred pounds in England.

To the tenant farmers of England, New Zealand offers a tempting home. No taxes, no tithes, no rent! There is good land for their seeds, and a good market for their produce. The farmer's wife may sell her cheese at one shilling a pound, her butter often at two shillings a pound, while cattle and stock of every description are cheap. The emigrant most welcome in New Zealand is either the capitalist or the poor labourer. The fern and stone-encumbered lands require the harrow and the plough. The land wants men; used to working with their hands.
Let me put in a good word for my own colony to anyone who thinks of emigration. If you are not "doing well” in the old country , and you feel it; if you can discern no sunshine in the darkness around you; above all, if you are industrious, and enduring, then emigrate. And though it may be only because I myself have emigrated thither, and am happy, that I would recommend for the field of your emigration New Zealand; yet I think that its own natural advantages speak for the place. Its climate is one of the healthiest in the world, far before that of Australia, or Van Diemen's land. There is not a single venomous, scarcely a destructive, animal in it. The natives are superior to the aborigines of any other colony. The colony is yet in its first infancy, and therefore offers you, perhaps, the greater chance of making yourself rich with a small capital; at the same time, it bids fair eventually to equal any colony in commerce, as it already does in natural advantages. I would not willingly deceive any one. I conscientiously believe what I write, and I have written nothing which I have not either seen with my own eyes, heard with my own ears, or received from the most undoubted authority. But what I have said can hold good only with respect to Auckland, although the seat of Government, the least known and the most abused of all the settlements belonging to New Zealand. It was in vain we searched every book upon the subject for some small account of this place; one meagre paragraph was all we found. From report I am led to believe that New Plymouth must be a most lovely and fertile place, retarded, however, greatly by its want of harbour, for it has nothing but an open roadstead. The prices of almost every kind of provision are dearer at New Plymouth than at Auckland, while land is cheaper. It is now in a very unsettled state respecting the land titles. The repeated volcanic shocks experienced at Wellington must always prevent that settlement (although a much older and wealthier) from being able to compete with the capital. The climate of Nelson is superb, but then the place is miserably poor, almost all traffic being carried on by way of barter. Sooner or later, justice will be done to Auckland, which I am sure is equal to the best of the New Zealand settlements.

Frances [Southwell] Shayle George 1828 - 1890

Frances was born in Bristol, England, and migrated with husband and baby to Auckland, New Zealand where she had five children and a career. She is listed in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography for her pioneering work in girls’ education in New Zealand (her full entry here.

She wrote From a Settler's Wife, a very detailed and literate account of her first couple of years in Auckland. This was first published in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words. She was said to be a friend of Dickens, who is on record as expressing a desire to go to New Zealand. This was undoubtedly influenced by Frances' words, which are very bright and persuasive.

She was the daughter of John Southwell (accountant), wife of Thomas Shayle George, and mother of Charles Southwell Shayle George (both solicitors) - see entries at left for each of them.
Her granddaughter Hinemoa Shayle George [Simmonds] said many things about her, including that she “was educated by her father and became literate in Greek and Latin from an early age”. Frances described herself as "brought up an idle English lady, accustomed to pass my time as I pleased, to divide it between books and amusements, but giving much more of it to pleasure than to study" (although there may be a little tongue-in-cheek to this; see her essay listed above).
In any case, she was obviously very hard working in her years as a settler. Some of that may be due to inclination; much to necessity. Although her husband died in 1868, Frances was supporting her family well before that, having started her first school in 1852.

Her father’s background is mysterious, as is the fate of her husband and her son. Frances herself is well-documented in the DNZB article, however I will make mention of whatever (apocryphal) notes I can find from her grand-daughter Hinemoa (Shayle George) Simmonds.

Work
For more details of her writings and her work, see the DNZB entry under George. Suffice to say she wrote a number of poems and essays, opened several schools, and was active in education administration. She wanted girls to be educated so that they could, if necessary, support themselves and family. Yet she couldn’t be considered an early feminist, given her overall conservative views. For example, she accepted a faddish view that long hours of study were ‘detrimental to female growth’. She apparently had some political influence, and her obituary recognised her significant contributions despite her apparent lack of activity in later years.

Mystery
The main mystery is the fate of her husband. Her mother arrived in the same year her last child was born. Was this coincidence, or did she come to help with the children. Did her arrival precipitate Thomas’ departure, or was it due to his already having left? Were her views on girls’ education shaped by her own experience with an unsupportive husband?

Chronology
1828-Sep-20 born in Clifton, a very well-to-do suburb of Bristol (just south of Wales)
1841 Father dies.
1848-Oct-20 Married Thomas Shayle George from Monmouth, in Boyton Wiltshire (somewhat east of Bristol), officiated by her half-brother George
1849-Sep-25 Son Charles born in Newport (now part of Wales)
1850-Dec-18 Arrived in Auckland on the Sir Edward Paget, with husband and son
1851-Sep-21 Son William born
1852-Oct Opened Wye Cottage Seminary, a co-educational primary school
1855 Collection of her poetry published in aid of Crimean war soldiers
1858-Oct-5 Daughter Frances Marion born in Avonleigh [=house name?], Remuera, Auckland
1861-May-19 Daughter Helena Grace born in Remuera
1863 Daughter Evelyne Mary born
1863-Jul-22 mother Martha arrived from England on Portland
1867-Jan-30 Opened school ‘for young ladies’
1868-Apr Husband Thomas died in Rock Island, Illinois
1890-Sep-8 Died.

Other references
Apart from some birth notices, I have no more detail than the following terse entries, sourced from Raewyn Dalziel's work for DNZB:
Elphick: "What's wrong with Emma", NZJH 9/2, Oct 1975, p136
Elphick: "A social history of Auckland", 1870-74, pp141, 151, 153, 211
Brookes: "Girls' secondary education in Auckland", p977
Cummings, I: "Glorious enterprise", p69
JAHS, no 2, Apr 1963, p40 (article on Wye Cottage)
Provincial Index, APL
New Zealand Herald 6/10/1890 (obituary)
The New Zealander, 21/12/1850 (ship arrival notice).
Cumming, I. Glorious enterprise. Christchurch, 1959