SettlersManawatu

THE MANAWATU SETTLERS

Sound settlement schemes & the railway were responsible for the successful settlement of the Manawatu.

The key to the successful European settlement of the Manawatu on the North Islands west coast was the development of effective transport routes into and out of the area. A number of settlement organisations (such as Feilding, Halcombe and Ashurst) were responsible for the European colonisation of the area. It was under this influence that townlands were established and it was in these townships that the majority of early settlers were to spend at least some time before taking up their farm blocks in the surrounding districts. Transport routes in to and out of  the area were very few and the success of  these small townships depended on their proximity to the railway.   In colonial days the western or seaward side of the Manawatu consisted of a broad coastal zone of sand dunes and swamps, originally covered with scrub and coarse grass on the dunes, and mainly flax and raupo in the swamps. Inland from this, the plains and undulating downlands were clothed in dense bush with excellent stands of totara, matai and rimu trees. The region was cut off to the east by the rugged bush-covered heights of the Tararua and Ruahine Ranges, the Manawatu Gorge providing the only gateway to the east coast while bush-clad country to the north presented an equally effective barrier. The land of the Manawatu itself was crossed by several rivers barely navigable by a vessel larger than a canoe or a whaleboat.

Palmerston North
The Company surveyors did provide information about the country to the north, and Jack Duff had travelled up the Manawatu River and through the Gorge in 1830. Charles Kettle, on a journey up the river and back to Wellington via the Wairarapa and Rimutaka Range, was impressed by the Manawatu and reported to the New Zealand Company: The immense quality of available land still remaining in the Manawatu, the value of the river as a means of communication and its applicability to the purpose of machinery must render it a valuable possession. The Papaioea clearing, about 900 acres of open scrub land in the midst of dense forest, was described in a surveyor's report of 1859 as fine clear space in the bush which would form a good site for a township. By 1867 Government surveys of the Ahuaturanga Block, including the township of Palmerston in the Papaioea Clearing, were complete and the land offered for sale. Most of the town sections were sold but for two years the clearing remained almost deserted. In December 1870 George Snelson arrived to set up a general store on his section. In succeeding weeks a few more families travelled by canoe up the Manawatu river.

Further development of Palmerston, later named Palmerston North to avoid confusion with the Otago town, awaited development of better communications. A dray road to Foxton was competed during 1871, largely with the assistance of Scandinavian labourers. In 1875 a road through the Gorge, began in 1871, connecting the region with Hawkes Bay, and a road to the Rangitikei district was well under way by 1873. Palmerston North in 1872 consisted of 23 dwellings, a Post Office, a schoolhouse which also served as a community hall and meeting place, a few stores,  a hotel and two sawmills. During 1873 a wharf was constructed at Foxton and a horse-drawn tramway laid along the dray road connecting with Palmerston North. This was the link to the coastal route between Wellington and Wanganui, and soon a coach route between Foxton and Wanganui via Palmerston North and the Rangitikei was opened.

In 1874 Palmerston North comprised some 250 inhabitants, about one-third of them Scandinavians. another hotel and a third under construction, as well as a court house, had been added to the list of buildings. A coach passenger described the infant township thus: Palmerston stands in an open plain, twelve hundred acres in extent, surrounded on all sides by bush, principally white pine, matai, rimu and totara... to the newcomer, Palmerston looks bleak and inhospitable. Not a tree nor a garden, or a vestige of cultivation worth mentioning, but a bare brown level of flat, covered with rank grass and toi toi, and dotted over with small settler's houses, with here and there a more pretentious looking business place. The inhabitants of Palmerston North live on timber ..... Gradually the bush receded around Palmerston North and tram-lines were built to extract the timber. As the forest was cleared the land sown in grass and during the 1880's Palmerston North became the commercial centre of a developing and prosperous farming district.

The Scandinavians
The first and most eminent Scandinavian settler in the Manawatu was Ditlev Gothard Monrad, former Premier of Denmark and Bishop of the Danish Lutheran Church. Following the defeat of Denmark at the hands of Bismarck, Monrad came to New Zealand on board the Victory in 1865. In 1866 he took up land at Karere, in a small clearing on a "cut off" of the Manawatu River. the settlement consisted of Monrad, his wife, two sons, a daughter and daughter-in-law, and five young Danes. For three years Karere was a remarkable island of European culture in the forest. Monrad brought with him a library of books, works of art and even a grand piano. A gifted linguist, he spent his evenings working on a new Danish translation of the Bible. In 1869, under threat of Maori attack, the settlement was abandoned and Monrad, his wife and daughter returned to Denmark, while his sons and the other Danes remained. Johannes Monrad played an important part in the development of dairying, demonstrating a cream separator and encouraging the establishment of one of the first co-operative dairy factories in New Zealand, at Longburn in 1884, before he departed for the United States.

The difficulties in colonising bush areas and the need for labour to build roads led the Government to encourage Scandinavians to settle in the Seventy -Mile bush area of the Wairarapa and southern Hawke's Bay and west of the ranges near Palmerston North. On February 14 1871, 60 Manawatu settlers - mainly Norwegians and some Danes - arrived at Foxton, accompanied by the Government Immigration Officer, A. Follett Halcolme. The settlers were located on 40 acre sections near Awapuni. A second party of 120 Danes and Swedes were located at Whakarongo. Halcolme's report on these settlements in 1872 summarised their progress:

"The Scandinavian settlements at Palmerston, Manawatu, were the first experiments in this mode of colonisation. the result already produced gives a fair promise of success, notwithstanding that these people had exceptional difficulties to contend with. It is less than eighteen months since the first party was taken up there. At that time there was no sign of settlement in the neighbourhood. The land on which they were placed was dense bush. Their first winter was the wettest ever known. For many months the road leading to their location was impassable, and the only means of transport was by canoe, at great risk, and at the cost of �7 10s. per ton from Foxton or �9 from Wellington. Yet now these people are, without exception, well satisfied and hopeful of their future. The married people, with only four or five exceptions, have built themselves good and neatly furnished weatherboard houses, many with brick chimneys. Most of them have cleared small patches of ground, and they are now beginning to fell the bush extensively. Thirty-five out of fifty have already paid the first instalments of the purchase money of their land, at least ten more will do so next pay day, and 40 percent of the advances made by the Government has already been repaid. Considering the difficulties more has , in my opinion, been done by these people than could have been expected, and a very valuable nucleus of a future population has been fixed on the soil".

Manchester Block - Emigrants and Colonists Aid  Corporation
Halcolme's experience stood him in good stead when, as agent and attorney for the Emigrants' and Colonists'Aid Corporation, he undertook to organise the settlement of the Manchester Block. The Corporation was founded in 1867 by a group of wealthy English Aristocrats and businessmen, presided over by the Duke of Manchester. A philanthropic organisation to relieve distress among unemployed farm labourers, especially in the south of England, though emigration, the Corporation was also a business venture. After discussions with Julius Vogel in London , Colonel William Feilding, a director, travelled to New Zealand, arriving on December 12 1871. He conferred with Government officials, visited the Manawatu and on December 26th 1871entered into an agreement with the Government to purchase 106,000 acres for �75,000 and to introduce 2,000 immigrants before April 1 1877. The Corporation had to survey the land, although outside boundaries of the area, later known as the Manchester block, were to be surveyed by the provincial government. the New Zealand Government was to pay the immigrants passages and to provide "suitable barrack accommodation and provisions" on their arrival in Wellington and employment for up to 200 able-bodied male emigrants at a time on public works during their first year on the Block, as well as an annual grant-in-aid for road works. the Corporation was also allowed some free transport on the Foxton-Palmerston North tramway then under construction. While settlers were being recruited in England, Halcolme supervised the survey of the Manchester Block and construction of barracks in Palmerston North. He was already enthusiastic about schemes for special settlements by companies or individuals and particularly the prospects for the Feilding settlement. "The Feilding Contract, if performed , will do in five years what it has taken twenty years to accomplish in the neighbouring district of Rangitikei by the ordinary process of colonisation.... ". Delays in surveying and constructing the Manawatu tramway and difficulties in raising finance in London led to postponement, but in January 1874 the first party of settlers landed a Foxton. Over the next sic months 614 peopled emigrated to New Zealand through the Emigrants and Colonists Aid Corporation.

Pioneering in the Bush
"With the exception of about 12,000 acres of open land, the block is covered with bush", reported Halcolme.
"Much of this bush is tawa forest,very  light and easily cleared; but there are also large blocks covered with very valuable timber - matai and rimu - interspread with totara trees; and large groves of magnificent totara occur in every direction over the block. The soils uniformly rich, much of it being a deep alluvial deposit underlaid with fine waterworn shingle. Though the country generally has a great fall sea-ward and is, therefore, well drained it has an apparent level, and the few rolling ridges will offer little obstacle to the formation of roads and tramways in any directions" Hacombe's original plan was to settle the immigrant families as soon as possible on their 40 acre sections in the bush, but he was soon convinced this "would be fatal to the prosperity of the settlement".
Apart from inadequate roads the difficulty of organising such a widely scattered labour force on public works, few of the immigrants, though ignorance and lack of tools and capital, were capable of establishing farms immediately. Moreover, the fern and scrub covered country meant isolation, loss of morale and the selection of the worst land or discontent with the best, through inexperience. Halcolme's most difficult task was to educate the settlers to cope with this new environment. "I immediately resolved, therefore, to concentrate the immigrants and their work about the town at first, to erect houses for them at once on terms easy to them, and productive of a fair return for the expenditure; and I look forward to their removing out into the country as the road works opens it up, and they shall have educated themselves into a knowledge of the county, their work, their prospects, and their real requirements".

The first town was Feilding, on open country at the bush edge. The settlers were supplied with two  roomed cottages, which they could either rent or purchase on deferred payment. Fifty cottages were erected in the first six months, a sawmill was established and another began. The immigrants, few of whom had sufficient funds to buy their houses or start clearing their land, they were employed on roadmaking and constructing a railway between Feilding and Palmerston North which would eventually link with Wanganui. Surveying of the Block continued. Two further towns were planned at Holcolme and Ashburton, the latter named after one of the directors, and in April 1876 the first settlers arrived at Holcombe. In August 1877 "the resident settled population" on the Manchester Block was approximately 1,600 in the Feilding area and 400 in Halcombe. The settlers had erected several other buildings, including three churches, two hotels and as schoolhouse at Feilding and a schoolhouse and hotel at Halcome. Settlement of Ashurst was begun in March 1879.

The immigrants took time to adapt to the new environment. Halcolme expressed his satisfaction, with few exceptions, with the "class of immigrants.... all labouring men" sent out in the first six months, "I find that the sense of a present possession of a house and land, and the prospect of an independent future for himself and his family....have generally a great effect upon his character; and the labourer who in England merely worked for the Saturday night and began the world again on Monday, devotes himself to the accumulation of property, and is rapidly transformed into a careful and thrifty citizen". Not all the immigrants were suited to labouring and jobs and for some artisans prospects elsewhere seemed much brighter and they left. This was particularly the problem for some of the later immigrants whom Halcolme described as being "too respectable a class... for the rough work of the first years of a bush settlement". Even for those labourers who stayed, there was often cause for despondency,. Inadequate roads were frequently impassable and much needed stores where often delayed. the winter rain and mud, periodic floods, the flies and mosquitoes, were enough to daunt the hardiest settler. The dense dark forest was a strange environment and the methods of clearing and burning the bush, and establishing pasture and cultivated land, all had to be learnt. Halcolme was acutely aware of the difficulties of "new chum" even under the most favourable circumstances, "not only because the very best of English immigrants are at first entirely unfit to deal with a bush country, but because they all form an exaggerated idea of the duty of the corporation towards them, which it would be impossible to realise; and....I declare that it is a source of wonder to myself that so successful a result as the bona fide settlement of some 70 percent of the immigrants sent out has been obtained".

Halcolme summarised the first three years of the corporation's operations: They have opened up a block of very difficult and expensive country in a shorter space of time such work has been done in this colony, except perhaps at some of the goldfields. They have settled a population of 1,600 people where little more than three years ago there was not a soul to be seen.

Although Colonel Feilding participated in the early negotiations and agreement to purchase the Manchester Block, he visited the settlement that bears his name only briefly during its first year. The real burden of responsibility for settlement devolved on Halcolme., the Corporation's New Zealand agent. Halcolme had served in the Wellington provincial government as Provincial Secretary and Treasurer from 1864 to 1870 when he became Immigration Officer in the central Government. In 1872 he was appointed agent and attorney for the Corporation, a position he held for nine years. On his retirement in 1881 he moved to Taranaki when he remained, except for a short period in Feilding, in business with his son, as a land and commission agent.

Copyright Denise & Peter 2000