Family History 1.8

Auckland at last

 

Once landed in Auckland, Charles and Alice lost no time looking for work. They managed to get a contract from the army at Otahuhu Camp to supply haversacks for the troops.

The week they landed was the first week of hostilities in Taranaki. The government had been building up the numbers of troops in New Zeraland by bringing several shiploads from Australia and India over the previous few years.

The family, including young Charles, worked day and night to produce the haversacks when they were needed.

Soon they moved to Otahuhu and Charles established a workshop and home for them on the corner where the Otahuhu Methodist Church now stands.

Over the war years he had made a good living and built up a reputation and some assets, but the war ended completely by 1867, and he was down to his last reserves of money. A few years before he had been well enough off to contribute his share to the fund to build the Otahuhu Town Hall.

So he moved the family to Whangarei to follow the gum and kauri trades, hoping to cash in on the opportunities they offered.

During the time in Otahuhu, three more children were born to the family, starting with Elizabeth Olive (Lizzie). In Whangarei the last child, Frederick William, was born. And they met the Simpson family, whose daughter Alison was to become young Charles's wife a few years later.

The Franklin Road house has recently been largely altered, but it was

a typical four-room cottage.

The shift to Whangarei, however, was not a success, so towards the end of the year they all trooped south again, this time to Auckland, where a boom was starting on the back of the discovery of gold in Thames.

Charles got a job managing an importing firm, which he maintained until his retirement. They built a house in Franklin Road, Freeman's Bay, and joined the activities of the Wellesley Street Baptist Church. This church had been started in 1855, and in 1885 morphed into the Baptist Tabernacle, when the new building, still standing and still used, was built at the top of Queen Street.

 

The house in Franklin Road was the third house built in the street and in the area. Beyond Ponsonby Road was a farm, where the older children used to walk every morning to get the family's milk. When I was young the house was still owned by the family, and occupied by the two surviving unmarried daughters, Millie (born in London), and Lizzie (born in Otahuhu).

This 1941 Christmas family group with Olwyn and me in front showing off our presents, and Stuart at six weeks in Mary's arms: Back: William Bigelow, Fred Gaze, Alice Grover (nee Gaze), Noel Gaze; Front: Mary Gaze, Julia Gaze, Lizzie Gaze, Millie Gaze. Alice was Charles Albert's daughter (young Charles in the diary); William was Mary's father.