Ancient History.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 20, 23 February 1906, Page 2

Ancient History.

—o — The visit of the New Zealand footballers to the Mother Country (says ihe Belfast Weekly News) recalls the little-known fact that it was chiefly through the action of one of the magistrates of Glasgow —Mr John Fleming, of Clairmont —that New Zealand was retained as a British possession. He was about the first, if not the first, man in the kingdom to direct the attention of the Government to the possibilities of New Zealand as a British settlement. He took up the matter with enthusiasm, and, enlisting the services oi such men as Dr Norman Macleod, Sheriff Allison, and Lord Provost Lumsden, convened a meeting in the Glasgow Athenaeum on May 15th, 1840, which was the means of arousing public attention to the question all over the country, and brought about the annexation of the islands in time to prevent their passing into the hands of the French. It was doubtless the outcome of Glasgow’s connection with the appropriation of the islands for Great Britain that New Zealand was largely colonised by Scotsmen. In connection with the above Mr James Brown, of the Upper Hutt, informs the N.Z. Times that his father attended these Glasgow meetings, and subsequently sailed with his family from the Clyde by the ship Blenheim, one of the first vessels to arrive at Port Nicholson. There were 300 people on the Blenheim — Paisley weavers and Highlanders. They leit Scotland in September, 1840, and early in the following year they lauded at Kaiwarra. Some went to the Hutt, others to Porirua, Rangitikei, and Wairarapa. Ono family built a. small craft, and voyaged to Akaroa. Very few, hardly more than half a dozen, of this shiplvad of immigrants are now living. “ Most of them did well,” says Mr Brown, ‘‘and those who didn’t had only themselves to blame. And yet wages were only 3s a day, and that lasted for fourteen years. Men thought their fortunes were made when the figure rose to ss. None of them brought money with them —there was hardly three hundred shillings amongst them.” Mr Brown was one of a band of a hundred and thirty men who left Wellington by the ship Tory in 1852 for the Victorian goldfields. Of that number only three are known to be living.