Family History 4.30

Robinson story

Joshua Caleb's account continues

The first Auckland Wharf

In those days discharging cargo was both arduous and slow. Cargo boats took the cargo from the ships in the harbour as near inshore as possible, then, when the tide ebbed, carts came alongside, were loaded with goods and toiled back up the beach to the shores. To gain easy access to the beach, a causeway was constructed where the Victoria Arcade now stands.

In 1848 Father built Auckland's first wharf which was later buried under the earth used in the reclamation of Queen Street.  Quite recently (1917) while excavating the Queen Street portion of the city's new drainage system parts of this old wharf were discovered by the workmen. This was the year of my birth (1848) so now children you know how I came to be a New Zealander.

[The first wharf was reported as having been started in the 1850s and was added to bit by bit. It was a jetty-type wooden wharf, 1400 feet long (400m), extending out into the deep water of Commercial Bay. By the 1880s it reached nearly half a mile (800m) from shore]

During the building of W S Graham's first warehouse, Father, who was working under the specifications drawn up by a friend of W S Graham, asked Mr Graham what he intended to store on the second floor. He answered, "Iron, up to the roof."  Father told him the floor would not stand it, but Mr Graham told him to carry on. He did so. Afterwards what Father had predicted happened. The second floor collapsed, badly crushing a woman on the floor below. Most of the doctors considered her case hopeless, but Dr Fischer, a homeopathist, took up the case and cured her. From being ostracised by the medical profession, and being considered a quack by the general public, this demonstration of the efficacy of homeopathic methods brought him an extensive practice and the esteem of his fellows.

No one was censured for neglect of precaution and father had the job of rectifying the damage and rendering the building quite safe. From that time on he did most of W S Graham's work.

[William Smellie Graham had one of the first bond stores in Auckland on Fore Street (now Fort Street) on the waterfront. The wooden building was replaced by a grey stone building around 1847. Joshua Caleb does not mention where the warehouse was sited but it was probably on the same property.]

Where the Parnell Railway bridge now stands Mr Graham built a number of barques and brigs - the Moa was on e of them - for the Auckland-Sydney trade, and the repairing of these gave work to the carpenters in Father's employ.



Nichol's shipyard in the foreground, Parnell, where Joshua and Caleb built their houses, behind.

Photo from Auckland Public Libraries

[This was a fairly complex arrangement as the shipyard referred to was owned by Henry Nichol, aged 23, who came to Auckland from Scotland on the Jane Gifford. He moved his shipyard from the corner of what is now Vulcan Lane and Queen Street, to the end of Mechanics Bay on a small strip of land below the cliffs of Point Dunlop. With a little reclamation the area was large enough to provide a dry area at any tide. So although Joshua's carpenters were doing W S Graham's work, they were working for Henry Nichol's shipyard. In the first ten years the yard launched 43 vessels of which all work was done by hand until 1856 when machinery was installed for sawing timber.

 

The brig Moa was launched by Henry Nichol at Mechanics Bay in 1849 after four years of construction. After ten years trading across the Tasman she joined the Navy as a supply ship. After the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s she carried coal in the coastal trade for a Dunedin firm before being finally broken up in 1926. This ship is not to be confused with the scow Moa launched in 1907 by G T Nichol, Henry's son.]

Family History 4.29

Robinson story

Joshua Caleb's account continues

Time went on and our family shifted to a house on some ground that sloped towards the harbour, somewhere between Shortland and Fort Streets, which was then the waterfront. (It stood close by Sir John Logan Campbell's cottage).

Joshua and his brother worked on the Queen Street wharf in the foreground. At one or two stages they lived in houses in this area, between Shortland and Fore Streets. Auckland Public Library picture.

[This move could have been anytime from 1846 to 1850. The Robinsons do not show up on the Police census of 1842, but the census may have been taken before they arrived.

In 1843 they are shown to be living in Mechanics Bay, both families being recorded as living together in two wooden houses and in 1845 they are recorded separately in St Georges Bay. The property they owned was the same, but the name of the area changed and in 1845 the same area was denoted as Parnell. Joshua and family in this 1845 census were shown to be still living on their property, but Caleb had moved and was renting a wooden house from the colonial government in Mechanics Bay.

He leased his property in Parnell to John Flatt, a gardener. It was quite common at this time to lease one's own property out and rent a cheaper property from someone else. In this way many settlers moved from house to house every year. Many absentee landlords, mainly living in Australia, gave power of attorney to Aucklanders to lease their land.

It is difficult to understand why they would later have moved to this area around Acacia Cottage, (John Logan Campbell's house) as the west side of Queen Street, O'Connell Street, High Street, Thompsons Lane (now Cruise Lane) and Fields Lane was the most densely populated area around Auckland. the area became a slum in the 1850s because of the overcrowding and poor drainage and sanitation. The family may have moved here to be closer to Joshua's work on the Auckland wharf.]

To the shore of the little bay came the Maoris in their canoes bringing loads of fish, potatoes and pork, and in the summer luscious peaches. On the different occasions on which Captain Cook visited these shores, he had presented the Maoris with some seeds and a litter or two, and with their primitive cultivating the natives had made them most prolific. The missionaries too had planted orchards for the various tribes, so that the settlers were able to obtain familiar fruits fairly cheaply.

Family History 4.28

Robinson story

from Robinsons of Rotherhithe by Joanne Robinson

Joshua Caleb's diary continues

 

Joshua Caleb

Early Parnell

After a great deal of searching and enquiring Father secured a small house in Parnell on the track which was then the road to Onehunga.

[This house that Joshua Caleb refers to, was not the house they lived in when first landing, but the allotments Joshua and Caleb purchased from Mr Beveridge on which they built two small houses. A type of class distinction evolved in early Auckland with Official Bay being kept for officials and government people. A passport from the Surveyor-General was required to live there.

Mechanics Bay was kept for mechanics, ie carpenters, those with a trade as opposed to farmers and labourers. The only place available for these people was Commercial Bay or further out into the bush. The main traffic route was across a bridge at the eastern end of Mechanics Bay, up Mechanics hill to the village of Parnell and then along the track, later to be the Manukau or Epsom Road to Onehunga.

Later still rocks were blasted out of Khyber Pass to make a more convenient direct route. Joshua and Caleb's houses were built on this main Parnell route. They had both done well to secure for themselves such a position and to obtain so much work, as Auckland at the end of 1842 was in a major depression.]

Having settled Mother and the children in their new home, Father proceeded to Cornwallis on the Manukau Harbour. He had to walk to Onehunga (then a Maori pa) and then travel by canoe to Cornwallis where his company's timber mill was to be erected. The work lasted some six months or so and then ceased, for the mill management found that the machinery or the methods employed were not suitable, and that for a time at any rate, it was useless to continue operations.

The situation of the Onehunga pa was ideal. The soil was rich, volcanic and very productive. Fresh water was plentiful. The sea in the vicinity made travelling to distant parts by canoe easy. The Maoris from this locality used to travel long distances. To get in to the interior they paddled their canoes to Waiuku, or some creek in that vicinity, until they could proceed no further by water. Then they would drag their canoes across the flat land between the Manukau and the Waikato River until they could launch them again, and by ascending that river, penetrate far into the interior.

By making this portage from Waiuku, the Maoris were able to use the great arterial waterway, without undertaking the hazardous task of crossing the Manukau and Waikato bars, and avoided the voyage down the boisterous West Coast.

The abandonment of Cornwallis was unfortunate, for work was extremely scarce, and men were glad to get work roadmaking at half a crown [25 cents]  a day. Food produced locally was cheap enough, but money was far from plentiful. Supplies of flour and other goods came from Sydney and even England, so that the price of imported foodstuffs, clothing, tools, etc, was so high as to be beyond the means of the majority of settlers.

As the natives supplied wild pork, potatoes and fish fairly cheaply and Mother kept a few milking goats and some fowls, we had plenty to eat and drink, but to buy clothes and other necessities ready money was needed. For this reason Mother, for a time, undertook light duties at Government House, at that time the residence of Governor Fitzroy. She always bore a scar on her hand caused through the smashing of a window pane that she was cleaning there.

Sketching in October

 

According to the website, one of the important principles of the "Urban Sketching" movement is that one draws from life. Here is one of my efforts in this format this month. I got a coffee and pastry from a new café on the Devon Street hill, right next to Kathikali for those who know New Plymouth, sat down at one of their outside tables and sketched:

 

 

Occasionally I have another shot at those simple portraits that Graham Kirk does so magnificently, and here is one from a photo in the paper of Gary McCormack:

 

 

And another from the same day's Daily News of Jim Hickey, who has announced his retirement from  TVNZ:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I have also done a few, on the odd wet day, from photos of our European trip in 2008. Here is one in the courtyard of the Louvre. I chose it because of the practice it gave me in drawing human figures. It was Sunday afternoon and we had just learned that the museum was closing in an hour or so, so had decided to come back the next morning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family History 4.27

Robinson story

from Robinsons of Rotherhithe by Joanne Robinson

Tales Told by Dad

[We now pick up the Robinson family story from the account given to his children by Joshua Caleb Robinson, seventh child of Joshua and Elizabeth, and my great-grandfather, and included in Joanne's book]

In the year 1842 a large crowd of people were assembled on the London dockside, where the barque Louisa Campbell was berthed. The tide was at the full and the ship about to start on her long voyage to New Zealand at the other end of the world. The passengers were all aboard messages were flying from passengers to friends on shore, and were answered cheerfully or sadly according to the temperament of the individual.

The ropes were cast off, farewells flew faster, women wept and handkerchiefs were waved. Slowly, as if reluctant to leave her safe berth, the barque being now in the grip of the fast-ebbing tide, gradually widened the distance between the shore and her side. A small sail was set to catch the small breeze blowing. As more and more sail was spread the barque heeled gently over, a ripple of foam appearing at the forefoot, and gathering way, the distant crowd with their waving handkerchiefs flashing in the sunlight, soon disappeared from the voyagers' view.

AS soon as they were fairly started most of the passengers went below to make the most of the quarters provided for them. Among them were my father and mother with their children and my Uncle Caleb, Father's twin brother with his family.

It was a big undertaking, this leaving of the old home, where everything worked according to law, and where the benefits of civilisation might be enjoyed, to go to the other end of the world with only a very hazy idea of what they would find there, and in that place to start afresh. In one thing Father was better off than some of his fellows: he had work to go to landing in New Zealand. He came out under engagement to the Cornwallis Timber Company was a carpenter.

I left the Louisa Campbell sailing don the Thames and as the voyage was not of an exciting nature, it will be sufficient to say that having called at the Cape Verde islands and at Cape Town, at the end of four moinths' voyage she dropped anchor in the Waitemata Harbour off what was known as Official Bay, three weeks prior to the arrival of the Scotch emigrants in the Jane Gifford.

[The Jane Gifford and the Duchess of Argyle did not actually arrive in Auckland until 9 October 1842, so the passengers of Osprey and Louisa Campbell were well and truly the first major groupm of emigrants to come from Britain.]

Auckland at that time was a mere village. Shortland Street was the principal thoroughfare, and the residential quarters of the officials were in Princes Street. Queen Street was at that time a marshy creek. The buildings were for the most part raupo whares. Of brick structures there were none and wooden ones were but few. Both David Nathan and W S Grahame then housed their businesses in whares.

Family History 4.26

Robinson Story

from Robinsons of Rotherhithe by Joanne Robinson

Joshua and Elizabeth's Children

Joshua and Elizabeth brought with them on the ship four children. The eldest, Jane, was seven years old. She was born when they were living in Paradise Street in Rotherhithe. We will hear more of Jane later, because she married a man who left a diary full of interesting details of their life in the new country, and one of her sons, named Joshua after his grandfather, is still memorialised to this day in the place he died.

The eldest son, William, who was born when they were living near Elizabeth's parents in Manchester, moved around a lot in New Zealand and Australia, to Brisbane, where he met and married his wife, and to Napier in the sixties and later to Wanganui. But the family always returned to Auckland, and that is where William died.

The next daughter, Lydia, was born when they were living back in London, in Peckham, so was three at the time of the voyage. She eventually married John Newman, a carpenter, who was one of the boatload of emigrants who planned to set up the Port Albert settlement on the Kaipara Harbour. By the time of their marriage they were living in Auckland; as carpenters were in  short supply in Auckland at that time, he never actually made it to Port Albert.

As we have heard, Jemima was hardly a year old when she was drowned in the clay-pit her father had dug in the back yard of their house in Parnell.

The first New Zealand-born child was Catherine, when they were living in Parnell. She married Charles Hill, a signwriter, who eventually developed his business into Hill and Plummer, one of the leading paint shops in Queen Street.

 

Sarah was the next daughter, born in Auckland and moving with the family to Pukekohe East at the age of 12. She married George Plummer, another of the Port Albert settlers, and for years they managed a store and inn there, before moving back to Ponsonby and joining his brother-in-law in the paint business of Hill and Plummer. They built one of the first houses in Selwyn Road, Epsom.

 

Joshua Caleb was the next of the children. We will come back to him and his family later, for his eldest daughter, Felicia, was my grandmother.

 

In 1850 the next son, Watkin, was born and he was the one who took over the farm at Pukekohe East when Joshua and Elizabeth retired.

 

Last of the children was Amy, who married a local boy from Bombay. He and his family, the Halls, had come on the ship Bombay after which the district was named. Amy died at 28 after the births of four children. Her husband, Sam, remarried in his forties and moved to Auckland, where he ran a firewood and coal-delivery business.

 

From the next instalment, we pick up Joshua Caleb's account of the family.

Family History 4.25

Robinson story

Joshua's diary continues

Patriarchal Style

 

Having settled down in our new house and having the run of Parnell and Government domain reserve we bought some milking goats, increased to quite a flock and was of great benefit to us with milk and occasionally varying our diet with goat mutton and lamb. When a friend would come and see us, in quite Patriarchal style, I would kill a kid of the goats and the wife would cook it and serve it up.

 

We also made a little by selling the milk, but this kind of life did not last very long, as the land was taken up and built upon, and the goats became very mischievous and got us into trouble, so that we had to reduce our flock and at last to cease keeping them.

 

I might say here that our house was small but our fireplace was large, a seat within it on both sides so that in the wet and wintry weather our children could sit within it. The chimney is what is called a wattle and dab -- upright poles and titre woven between and then plastered with clay.

 

Sometime after we had got as comfortably settled as circumstances would admit to, our first trouble took place. We had commenced a contract to build a house for Mr Beveridge on land taken up for farming near to Onehunga. I would start to work on the Monday and come home on the Saturday.

 

On the 9th of October 1842, I had started leaving, bid goodbye to our dear ones. Our youngest could just run alone, but not yet weaned. I thought her very handsome, was very fond of her. I had got some distance from home when all at once I thought of a hole I had dug to get the clay for plastering. It was not more than two feet deep.

 

October weather is like April in the Old Country, sunshine and showers. I knew the hole was not covered up. The thought occurred to suppose some of the children was to fall into it. I ought to go back and cover it over. I was expecting to meet a bullock dray that had taken out timber. I did not like losing time, it is only a silly fear, but if I meet the dray I will go back. And so I quieted my fear and went on.

 

I did not meet the dray. I worked all day and was just getting my evening meal when my brother arrived. I was not expecting him until the morrow. He just said these words: Josh, you will have to go home, for if Jemima is not dead, I am afraid she will be before you get there. I started like a madman and like one I behaved.

 

I found her dead. She had run out after the other children when her mother had given her the breast, but a shower of rain coming on the children ran in. My wife said, "Where is Jemima?" The answer was, "She did not come with us." My wife ran out to look for her. Not finding her she alarmed the few neighbours we had, but no-one thought of the hole.

 

One at last passed the hole. There she lay her feet and legs out of the water. She had fell in head first and was smothered. As he took her up she died. Every means that kind and sympathising friend could do to resuscitate life was used but in vain.

 

O it was my greatest sorrow. I refused to be comforted and though the heart of my wife was almost breaking with anguish, I blamed her and this added to her grief. I saw my folly and cruelty afterwards and bitterly repented. That was the darkest days of my life. My Christian friends rallied round me not to palliate my conduct, but to show me my sin and lead me to confession and repentance before God, and though many years have passed away the 9th of October was never forgotten as long as I lived.

Anniversary

 

 

 

This Friday is twelve months from when I started posting this blog.

 

It has largely consisted of family history and memories of my life.  There is still a little bit of both to come, especially of the Robinson Family story, but I hope to be developing my posts into more of a regular blog, commenting on what is happening, and bringing my experience to the discussions that are going on.

 

And there is certainly plenty going on: Ebola epidemic, Labour Party Leadership election, and for me personally, facing the challenges of old age.

 

Next month we are planning a trip to Australia, to visit our friend Bev in Canberra, grand-daughter Nina and her partner Gareth in Adelaide, and brother and sister-in-law John and Stella in Noosa. I will try to fill you in on our impressions of all three parts of the West Island.

Family History 4.24

Robinson story

from Robinsons or Rotherhithe by Joanne Robinson

Robinson land

 

 

 

Here is an enlarged section of the plan of Parnell in 1845 in Joanne's book. It shows the north-west section, with Parnell Road on the left, and the Robinson brothers' sections at 67A and 67B. Together, these two sections were about the size of our house section here.

 

 

 

 

This is the full plan of Parnell in 1845 from the book, which gives a better idea of the two Robinson properties in relation to the whole suburb.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Looking back towards Auckland from Parnell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family History 4.23

Robinson Story

Joshua's diary

Joining a Church

I have already related our disappointment at the failure of the agreement I had entered into. I don't think I would have come to New Zealand but for that favourable offer, but I believe I would have emigrated to America or Canada, but by the providence of our Heavenly Father here we are, and I mean briefly to relate some of the leading events of that Providence.

As a Christian in more than name I felt the need of association and communion with those that love the Lord Jesus. I never sought to advance or improve my worldly circumstances by such associations. The loaves and fishes in connection therewith never entered my thoughts. I know the promise is they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing, and Godliness is profitable both for the present life and that which is to come, but the favour of God is not to be bought.

All we receive at God's name is a free gift of grace, not of debt. The motive I had in joining such associations was a sense of need and obligation, and so I found a people fearing God under the name Wesleyans. I told them I belonged to a people called Baptists. I could not give up the doctrine of Beloved Baptism. They said that would be no hindrance to my worshipping with them, so I united with them so far as attending all the services they had instituted, and found it to my spiritual profit.

Having a good voice I was of some service in the singing, and teaching in the Sunday School. The services were conducted in a small weatherboard house at the back of where Clark and Sons warehouse now stands. Some time after a chapel was erected, then enlarged, and then a large brick building was erected, all on the same site of what is now the Courthouse. Among these people I continued till the year ----.

Previous to this all who were dissenters from  the Church of England met with the Wesleyans, that being the only organised body of Christians, excepting a small congregation of Scotch Presbyterian. Their preacher was a Mr Cornby. They met for public worship in the Court House in Queen St, next the Jail, at the foot of Victoria Street.

 

Shortland Street

First Houses

After the completion of our first contract, before the commencement of our second, we got a pretty general knowledge of the people and place. While at work at Parnell we became acquainted with a gentleman named Beverage. He was from Sydney. He had freighted a vessel with cattle and horses and before the sale had put up a large shed to house them in. This was built of sawn kauri.

The timber was little the worse for the use that had been made of it, so min making enquiries if he was disposed to sell it, we learned he had bought a section of land near where the shed was built and had it surveyed and cut into allotments for sale. In our interview we arranged to buy the timber at half the selling price, and the allotments of land at 15 pounds each allotment of 40 x 100 feet on easy terms [=350 square meters].

So we set to work and put up two small houses, having the timber on the ground to hand which was a great advantage at that time. So that within three months of our arrival we were land proprietors and owners of our own dwellings, not very grand, for at first they only consisted of one room fitted up with bunks as on shipboard.

We had to be very economical in all things, housing, eating, drinking, wearing no luxuries,  very plain food but enough, and by God's blessing, our health was never better. For the first three years we rarely tasted butter, our fare generally was potatoes and pork, varied with bread and occasionally some other vegetables all bought off the natives, except the bread. Buying the pigs alive, eating it for as long as it would keep, salting down the remainder. The pigs reared by the natives had no disagreeable effect when killed and cooked. They were mostly fed upon fern root and other vegetables.

Family History 4.22

Robinson Story

Joshua's diary

Getting established

 

Joshua

Captain H[eale] came to me one day when we had nearly completed our first job and informed us he hoped in a little while he would be ready for us to begin. I replied we could not comply with his requests as he had left us to our own resources. He had no claim upon us and we had other work to occupy us for some time. I told him when we had completed our second contract in about two or three months we might be at liberty, but it would be an entirely different arrangement. He was quite willing to agree to our suggestion.

 

In about three months after, we entered upon a contract with him at Mill Bay near the Manukau Heads. We should have done very well but there was great delay in getting the timber cut so that we worked two or three weeks and then would take about the same time waiting for timber. We finished our contract to his satisfaction, but when the mill was started unfortunately the breaking down saws were not adapted for kauri logs so that erecting the machinery was a total loss.

 

Quantities of logs that had been fallen were left to rot in the bush. They cut some down and cut up the flitches by the circular, but a time of extreme depression came and no money, little demand for timber and very low prices, so that the whole affair had to be abandoned and thus ended what at first seemed to provide good results. The three that engaged in the enterprise spent many thousands of pounds, wasted time and talents and died ruined men.

 

The man I was best acquainted with was a grand man, kind hearted and self sacrificing, took the greatest interest in the well being of all that was in his employ, but circumstances were against him. The last time I saw him was on the eve of his return to England. He told me he had spent three fortunes. He intended to gather up what he could and notwithstanding all his misfortunes come out again.

 

Symonds and Heale, two of the partners in the failed sawmill enterprise

Voluntary Organisations Part 3

Frank's memoirs

Friends of Puke Ariki

There is one other voluntary organisation that I found personally very absorbing, and that was the Friends of Puke Ariki. 

Puke Ariki is the ground-breaking institution set up around ten years ago by the District Council to operate the libraries and the museum, plus the information centre. 

The Friends of Taranaki Museum changed its name. We had just moved into the city from Oakura, and I was able to attend the Annual Meeting, and was elected to the committee immediately. 

When we came to appointing the officers at our first meeting, I offered to take over the role of treasurer, and to edit the newsletter. I coped with the books, which were in a bit of disorder, but it was the newsletter I really enjoyed. 

It gave me the opportunity to research and write about the history of Taranaki, and the city itself, on such topics as buildings, street names, prominent people and so on. The newsletter was appreciated by many of those who read it regularly, and enabled me to find out more information about my grandfather’s activities when he lived here in the first decade of the twentieth century. 

The problem with the organisation though was that no matter what we tried, we did not succeed in attracting large numbers of new members, which was important if we were to fulfil our aims of promoting and supporting the work of the institution.

 

 

      Other failures.

 

Two organisations I found myself on the committees of were destined for closure.  

WEA was finding itself short of finance and of support in the community. Government agencies were putting money only into community education run by institutions; more democratic groups, who emphasised what people can do to educate themselves and each other by their own efforts, were left almost completely without support. 

So we had to plan and carry through the shut-down of WEA in Taranaki. I joined the committee when a long-time friend and associate, Jeff Hond, died and left a vacancy. Jeff was the husband of Pat Hond, my colleague when working with Maatua Whaangai. 

The other demise was TALELTS: Taranaki Adult Literacy and English Language Teaching Service. This organisation had quite successfully managed the adult literacy programme with immigrant services to teach English as a second language. 

However we were instructed by the national body which governed ESOL services to divide the two programmes; wealthy immigrants would be put off by being lumped together with illiterate New Zealanders. 

We argued to be allowed to retain the previous structure, but the national bosses would have none of it and threatened to stop our funding. So democracy went down the drain and we had to divide the two services and set up another committee, etc, etc. Both operate, presumably on shoestring budgets, since then.

 

The key person in both these changes was Jeanne Van Gorkom, who was well-known in community education circles for being an pioneer and strong advocate for the more democratic type of education services.

 

Now I belong to U3A which works in a similar way.

 

Hurworth Cottage

 

 

More recently we have joined a small volunteer group to help keep the gardens tidy at hurworth Cottage, Taranaki's only Historic Places Trust property. Especially during the garden festival in the spring, we attend to help host visitors and explain the history of this important building, one of the few built before the wars of the 1860s and still standing.

 

It is also important because Harry Atkinson, the man who built it with his own hands, later served as Premier on four separate occasions.

 

 

 

Voluntary Organisations Part 2

Frank's memoirs

RJ continued

Before long we developed an arrangement that Margaret I would work together, each supporting the other alternately, and this worked well for the three years or so that we continued doing this work. Over that time we would run four or so conferences each year. 

Offences involved in the cases included dangerous driving causing death, theft as a servant, wilful damage, careless driving, and so on. Some conferences involved a lot of people and the organisation was very time-consuming. One that Margaret ran, with me and two other experienced facilitators helping, involved around 30 people. 

Most of these conferences produced good results; “good” in the sense that we produced an agreed recommendation that everyone considered fair, and in most cases the judges endorsed our decisions. Fortunately, in Taranaki we had judges who saw the positive side of RJ. 

When Heather resigned to take up another job, I was asked to act as co-ordinator for a few months while a new co-ordinator was recruited, and this I did, though not for long enough to get really skilled at it. 

But there were problems.  From our point of view, we did not get enough cases to keep our skills at the level we thought was needed and yet when we were given a case it took up so much time and effort we were extremely busy. This is a real dilemma. To reach and maintain the level of competence needed, the facilitators really need to be almost fulltime, and yet the advantage of having ordinary people doing this voluntarily are quite important to the process and principles of RJ as we understand it. 

Anyway, after three years we decided when had done our dash, and we pulled out of the RJ work, but we have watched our colleagues continue with great interest ever since. 

I am sure, and Margaret agrees with me, that Restorative Justice should be a much larger part of our court system. It is fairer to victims than the traditional court process, and it means in theory that the defendant has agreed to the punishment and is therefore more likely to complete the sentence (eg community work). Several of our conferences ended with the defendant and key victim in earnest, almost friendly, conversation over the routine cup of tea, which gave time for us to draw up the report and have it signed by everyone present. And judges have the opportunity to discuss the report at the sentencing time, which helps us the next time. 

We hope everyone gets more used to the idea, so that when people are involved in court proceedings they are more ready to be involved in the RJ part of the process.

Voluntary Organisations Part 1

Frank's memoirs

Trade Aid

In 1981 Margaret and I became interested in the Third World Shop (as it was called in those days), which had been established a few years before by a group largely composed of young Catholic people led by Harry Duynhoven. We became volunteers after the shop at the corner of Egmont and King streets was burnt out along with the neighbouring shops in the block. 

The shop was re-established in the market held in the ground floor of the Mill Building in Powderham Street on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings. We did regular stints working in the shop and both joined the Shop Committee. On the committee with us were Harry, and Esmae and Rob Rowlands, ? Coneglan, Mrs Karalus and Bobbie and Ben ? 

In 1987 Harry was elected to parliament as the MP for New Plymouth, and I was elected Chair of the Shop Committee. We always had a Trust Board which oversaw the governance; in practice the Shop Committee ran the shop. We attended a couple of conferences of what was renamed the Trade Aid movement in Palmerston and Christchurch. 

We oversaw the shift from the Mill to what had been the foyer of the State Cinema in Devon Street. And later the shop shifted closer to the action in a shop near the entrance to the Warehouse. 

While we were in the old State Theatre, Margaret’s mother agreed to become the co-ordinator of the weekend roster, and all three of us enjoyed helping the whole project.  

Trade Aid is a successful concept because it works at both ends of the supply chain, assisting and encouraging the producers of the products, and provides opportunities for volunteer workers to get practically involved, an advantage it shares with organisations like Hospice.

 

 

2.        Restorative Justice

 

For some years we had been interested in the theories of Restorative Justice, and had read the book on that subject by Jim Considine. 

However in the early 2000s a group began operations in New Plymouth, and we offered to help.  This involved undergoing the initial training and becoming facilitators for conferences referred from the court. The co-ordinator for the RJ Trust was a highly respected District Councillor, Heather Dodunski. 

So after the training, we both started helping as co-facilitator for occasional conferences, and I was elected to the Trust Board. 

We also attended a movement conference in Wellington and heard leaders of the organisation like Kim Workman speaking very eloquently about the principles and goals of RJ. We soon discovered that each region had its own slightly different slant on the way RJ should work. 

In Taranaki, the system was that a defendant who had pleaded guilty in court could, in appropriate cases, ask for a RJ conference, and if the victims agreed this could happen if the judge ordered it. 

Then the co-ordinator appointed two facilitators to arrange and run the conference, with the ultimate result to be a recommendation to the judge about reparation and penalty. The facilitator’s job was to contact all the people involved, defendant, victims, supporters, and arrange time and place for the conference, hold it, and then write up the report with all participants’ signatures supporting it. The co-facilitator took notes and assisted the main facilitator in any other way they agreed. 

We did not have police or other officials present in their official capacity, though they could attend sometimes as observers. And participants had to attend in person; no representatives, such as community panels, were used in Taranaki.

 

Family History 4.21

Robinson story

Joshua's diary continues

Landing the Family

I had heard and seen enough to make my position very gloomy. I went on board and related to my wife the state of things. She heard the tidings in better spirit than I feared, reminded me of our heavenly Father's care, hitherto encouraging me to trust in him and not be afraid.

So the next day we had the ship's long boat at our service, got all our belongings on board, and bade goodbye to ship and crew that had carried us safely over the deep waters.

It was nearly low water when we landed, and as there was no wharf or landing place except a rock or reef running out to a distance, but could not be reached till near high water, we had to use great expedition in unloading them and working them up by degrees, as the tide was fast chasing us. The most heavy and least perishable, a kind storekeeper near the beach allowed us to leave them in the store till we required them. Our bedding and clothing we managed to get under cover before the rain had done much damage.

 

The house we had taken was not far from the beach. Our first night was not very pleasant, but we were nearly used up on landing, and so soon fell asleep, and in the morning we found our mattresses on which we slept was stopping the water that flowed in from the doorway. By some exertion we got things a little straight and got some breakfast. the water was got from a waterhole on the edge of the cliff opposite our house.

 

Our next business was to seek ways and means of providing a living. We sallied forth, made several inquiries, found there was very little money in circulation and consequently little work to be had, for there were plenty to do it without any additions to their numbers, so that the very thing happened that first induced me to emigrate that I thought impossible.

 

Hearing that one of the government officers was thinking of building a house on the Parnell side of Auckland, we had an interview with him. He told us he was prepared to build, but he feared we could not get the timber for some time. However he was a Christian and had heard of our arrival and disappointment. he gave us a plan of what was required and requested us to give him a price, and if he was satisfied and we could get the timber we should have the job. He gave us some valkuable advice.

 

We then sought for information as to prices of material etc. We found we could get sufficient to make a start. There were no roads. The timber and other materials had to be rafted around Point Britomart into Mechanics Bay and carried up the hill by Mouris. We made a tender for the job and were accepted. We immediately commenced under great difficulty. Nevertheless we succeededto the great satisfaction of all parties and before we had completed our contract we were offered a larger job.

 

So things began to look up and we to be reconciled to our lot. We had many privations to encounter, but we never wanted for the necessaries of life, and our children enjoyed the best of health.

 

 

Family History 4.20

Robinson story

from Robinsons of Rotherhithe by Joanne Robinson

 

 

Landing in Auckland

 

Joshua

Joanne Robinson continues: 

The gentleman Joshua mentions as having drowned at the Manukau Heads was Captain William Cornwallis Symonds. Mrs Hamlin, the missionary’s wife in Waiuku, had asked for a surgeon. As there was none, Captain Symonds set off in a boat from the ship Brilliant accompanied by Mr Adam, two seamen and a Maori. The boat overturned, watched helplessly by those on the Brilliant. Symonds was an excellent and powerful swimmer and put up an excellent fight. He was in the water for an hour and twenty minutes. He was nearly to the shore in a very strong current when he tried to remove his coat and disappeared.

 

 

Joshua continues: 

I have a little outrun my story, but to go back after the anchor dropped and the salute was fired, we expected to have some intimation what we were to do but no-one came to speak to us. Most of the people had gone onshore with their belongings, so I went ashore in the ship’s boat, had a look around. I thought it a miserable looking place, a perfect slough of mud.  The rainy season had just set in, there were houses of all sorts and sizes, a few brick, weatherboard, raupo, nikau, canvas. 

The founding of Auckland

 

The cooking seemed to be done out of doors. The people were a motley lot and but a few women. The people were from Hobart and Sydney, most of them who had come down to the first land sales. The storekeeper seemed the most respectable and government officers.  

As my object in going ashore was not so much to look at the place, as to see the person I was engaged to and to know where I was to take up my quarters and come ashore with my family. After wading through the mud and mire and rain I found the gentleman who received me courteously, and kindly asked what I thought of the place. I told him I felt much disappointed. I then asked him when we were to land. He told me owing to the death of one of the partners and other circumstances, there would be some delay in carrying out their plans, and for the present he could do nothing for me, he could do nothing for himself. 

You may be sure I was terribly disappointed and expressed myself strongly. 

He told me I was in a better position than he was. I had a good trade and would do well. He would speak to the Governor about me. 

I reminded him I had seen some handbill of the Government offering  2s and 2s 6d per day [20-25 cents]. 

 That was for labourers he said, tried to make me believe that I would ultimately be satisfied and be better off than if their project had succeeded.

 

There therefore was nothing for it, being thrown on my own resources but to do the best I could. I succeeded in getting a two roomed weatherboard house, not lined, at 1 pound [$2] per week, one of four houses. You could hear the conversations going on. The petitions were only lined up to the eaves of the roof so that by standing on a chair you could see through the whole range as well as hear.

Building a job

Frank's memoirs

Semi-retirement

That is what 1993 turned out to be. But I found it fun creating my own work programme, built out of several opportunities that came my way over the following year or two. And at the same time we decided to shift house.

Oakura was not on our list, but the best match we found was right there, suitable for our teenage family. And in the event we spent ten happy years near the beach, walking the dog (William) and looking after the smallish garden.

Meantime I started work at Ward 23. At first I had people whose dementia was less advanced, and we played a variety of games, and joined in a variety of other activities. As the months went by, however, I found that the dependency levels seemed to get worse, and by the end of my two-year stint all we could manage was balloon tennis. So I played the piano for one of the hours each week, and found the patients joined in singing the old songs I tended to concentrate on. Some were people who never otherwise spoke! This convinced me that there is great value in music therapy.

I was only working 8 hours each week at the ward. My first responsibility was to the children, and to complete the household tasks I needed to do so that Margaret could concentrate on her full-time work. So I reckoned I had about another 12 hours to find more employment.

The first job that came along was the establishment of a Volunteer Centre. The Taranaki Work Trust was in the early stages of a process that would eventually see it end up as Venture Taranaki. The Trujst had been formed as an amalgamation of several work skills programmes which had previously been run by the Salvation Army, and St Andrews Church, with assistance from St Josephs, YMCA, District Council, and the Council of Social Services as well as moral and financial support from several government agencies.

My one-day-a-week job was to start a desk at the Trust office which could recruit, train and allocate volunteers for community groups around North Taranaki. Much of the work was similar to what I had been doing ten years earlier for the Social Welfare Department. Long after I left, after twelve months at the job, the work was taken over by the District Council's Community Development Department, where it still stands.

Friends Plus

During that year, the Taranaki branch of Age Concern was asked by its national body to start a visitors scheme for housebound lonely elderly. They declined the suggestion, and a special trust was set up by some community leaders to do the job: Terry Hickey, my old DSW boss, David Younger, the Community Development man at the Council, and others from community and government organisations like Budget Service, Corrections, and so on.

The Trust advertised for a co-ordinator and I was appointed. The organisation was called Friends Plus - Nga Hoa Apiti and I eventually ran it for nearly ten years. At first I was only working a few hours but when my contract at Ward 23 ran out and my Work Trust job also finished I was able to put more time in to the elderly visiting scheme.

Volunteers were expected to visit their "friend" for an hour a week. They could sit and talk, or take them for a drive, take them shopping, and so on. There were the usual rules about privacy and security. We had an office opposite the Town Clock, where the Len Lye Centre is now. Later we moved into the Community House behind the YMCA Building.

At the same time I acquired several very much part-time other jobs: membership of the Council's Community Development Committee, Manager of the Spotswood College NZQA examinations, and membership of the Regional Ethics Committee. I have reported earlier on these committee activities.

Friends Plus was an enjoyable job overall. At first I was on my own, but after my heart attack in 1996 I was joined for a while by our good friend Patricia Boyd, and later by Jean Bennetts, who eventually took over from me when I decided to retire completely. Meanwhile we had extended our work into what we called the Tuck-in Scheme.

Access Ability, the organisation that looked after people with disabilities for the Health Board, asked us to set up the Tuck-in programme. It involved workers visiting people last thing in the evening, to make sure they had had food and medication, that the house was secure and that they were OK and ready for bed. We employed part-time people to do the work, and set up systems to employ them, like a computer payroll program that calculated their pay and sent the money from our bank account to theirs. Some clients were also visited for similar purposes in the mornings as well.

At the same time we also arranged for some volunteers to take clients shopping on a regular basis in return for travel expenses for their cars.

Friends Plus has now closed down, and its work is done by a variety of other organisations in the community.