88 YEARS IN DOMINION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 757, 2 September 1929, Page 14

88 YEARS IN DOMINION

OLD PIONEER DIES MRS. ELLgN BIRKETT Another one of the diminishing- band of pioneers, Mrs. Ellen Birkett, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Short, Brooklyn, Wellington, on Thursday at the age of 95. Born at Maidstone, .Kent, Mrs. Birkett left England at the age of seven, migrating to New Zealand with her parents on the ship Tyne. The vessel, which carried 98 passengers, left Gravesend on April 6, 1841, and arrived at Port Nicholson on August 9 the same year. The captain was Charles Robertson and among the passengers were Sir William Martin and William Swainson, who later were prominent in the development of the Dominion. As there was no wharf at Port Nicholson the Tyne anchored off Kaiwarra, the passengers being lowered in a basket to a waiting boat and later carried on the shoulders of the sailors from the boat to the shore. As a girl of seven, Mrs. Birkett remembered living in the school until a mud hut could be built near Hick's Paddock above the beach at Wellington. In those days the hills around Port Nicholson were covered w r ith tall tea-tree with little clearings here and there. Eater her parents lived in Webb Street and then made a slow and tedious journey in a four-wheeled wagon to Masterton. After her marriage, at the close of the Maori Wars. Mrs. Birkett settled in Manaia, Taranaki, which in the sixties and seventies was all bush-covered with a few fertile clearings here and there. Wild pigs and horses abounded everywhere Mr. Birkett and his sons were in the volunteers. Their guns were always ready in case of raids by the Maoris. T&© Maoris used to say that they were never afraid of the soldiers but they always feared the settlers. Prior to her death there were five generations in Mrs. Birkett’s family Mrs. Jane Short, daughter, Mrs. Sylvester, grand-daughter, Mrs. Freeman, great-grand-daughter and Master Bryan Freeman, great-great-grandson. Mrs. Birkett retained all her faculties until the end, and until quite recently showed a lively interest in present day problems. She is survived by six children, 24 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. The interment took place at Opunake, where her husband, who died 18 years ago, is buried.