Marlborough Independence
12/05/2009 Steve AustinThe Messy Divorce: Marlborough and Nelson Parted on 1 November 1859
The background to the affair was one of lies, increasing democracy, and blatant self interest.
British settlement of New Zealand in the 1800s was part of a greater migration. Around 50 million people, over a 200 year period, emigrated from Europe to North America, Southern Africa, and Australia as well as New Zealand.
The population of Britain doubled between 1800, and 1850. Little work, considerable poverty, and religious oppression motivated migration. Others wanted to find a good return on their investments.
New Zealand's political course in the 1850s was set by the Governor of New Zealand, George Grey.
He had served in Ireland, as part of the British Army. The poverty, and political weakness, of the Irish inspired his view that the opening up of new land would enable the poor to improve their lives.
The greatest success of his first term as Governor was perhaps in 1852, the British Government accepted his draft constitution for New Zealand.
Elected provincial councils in Auckland, Taranaki, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury and Otago, would be led by an elected superintendent.
A member of the Anglo-Irish gentry, and horse breeder, Edward Stafford, was elected by a show of hands, as the first Superintendent of Nelson, in 1853.
Stafford had primarily appealed to the skilled workers, labourers, small farmers, and pastoralists of the Wairau, because he was an advocate of making cheap land available. He won with 251 votes.
In 1854, Stafford held a meeting to deal with Wairau matters. Public roads needed urgent repairs, small sums were paid out to the settlers to improve, and repair, the cart roads. By 1857, a Road Board was established. It was not the intention of the Provincial Government to add value to pastoralist land. The desire was to break their hold on it, and create smaller farms, for those who wanted to improve their lot.
Stafford was elected to the House of Representatives in 1855. He resigned as Superintendent in 1856, that same year he became Premier of New Zealand. *
By 1857, his wife, Emily, suffered an early death. She was the daughter of William Wakefield, brother of Edward Gibbon Wakefield.
In his marriage to Emily Wakefield, Stafford had confirmed his place in established society.
Decades before, Edward Gibbon Wakefield developed his theory of ‘systematic colonisation', (balancing the introduction of capital, and labour) while in prison, in Britain. He was serving three years during the 1820s, for abducting a school girl heiress.
Land was priced out of reach of labourers, but they might one day expect to own land, purchased with their savings. The New Zealand Company was established in Wellington in 1840, plans to include Nelson were initiated in the early 1840s.
After settlers arrived, that they found their dreams were based on lies. Wellington was not suitable for growing grapevines, olives, and wheat!
Insufficient land was owned by the Company in Nelson. The Wairau ‘purchase' was based on a fraudulent deal. British speculators also bought land but never arrived, there was a lack of employers for the workers who came, leaving the unemployed in a helpless, and starving condition. The hardship was not expected, tensions continued to build.
Stafford was followed by John Perry Robinson, as Superintendent of Nelson. Robinson was a believer in a "society of small-property owners".
Land revenue was taken by Nelson, while little was provided to the Wairau population. Roads, and bridges, and flood control were badly needed. Public works was one of two crucial issues, land was the other. Robinson's encouragement of small cultivators was highly offensive to the sheep farmers of the Wairau, and Awatere.
In 1857, Dr David Monroe argued that the land of the Wairau, Amuri, and Queen Charlotte Sound, provided the Nelson Provincial Council with £150,000 but less than £4,000 was spent opening them up.
By 1859, 150 signatures supporting the separation had been collected, as required under The New Provinces Act. Marlborough's local government would be more effective, and the possibility of having to contribute to Nelson's share New Zealand Company debt had been avoided.
In the 1860s, Marlborough Province sought:
... ordinary farm labourers, carpenters, and mechanics, navvies, bush hands, shepherds [especially with their own dogs], miners and domestic female servants.**
The whole country was changing. By 1860, the number of Pakeha outnumbered Māori in New Zealand. There were around 56,000 Māori, and about 59,000 Pakeha. Humans were outnumbered by 1.5 million sheep. There were 13.1 million sheep by 1878!
Marlborough's future was set.
NOTES:
* Of the early Wairau pastoralists four became Premiers of New Zealand: Stafford, Weld, Fox and Domett.Two became Speakers: Clifford and Monro.
** Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, (2003), p. 173-174
PIC CAPTION:
On 1 November 1959, Picton became the capital of Marlborough. Early Picton by Reverend Wyvil, 1872. Oil on board. Marlborough Historical Society.
About Steve
Steve joined the Museum in 2006 to lead the Museum into its next phase of development. Steve graduated in Art History, Music and History. He has a first class honors degree in History.
After lecturing at Christchurch College of Education for ten years, Steve worked in Wellington at the City Gallery before moving to The Dowse, and later the Nelson Provincial Museum.
Steve is currently working on two books. The first is on early Chinese settlers in New Zealand. His other project is on New Zealand photographer Thelma Kent, who was active in the 1930s.