I really thought I might struggle with this one, and then
10 days or so ago I had bit of time to kill in Christchurch before meeting
friends. I had wanted to try to visit their recently completed central library
Turānga which has bought all the pieces and collections of the library back
under one roof. The first time since the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
It is truly a lovely building, back in the centre of the
regenerating city, close to the Cathedral which still serves as a solemn
reminder of the events of that day. But close too to the new convention centre,
Old Regent Street and Victoria Square. It was a chilly day with frequent rain
showers, so inside the library seemed to be the perfect place to spend some
time.
Upstairs on the family history floor, I wandered around,
checking where the records I knew about were now placed and peeking at others I
had not seen before. Definitely not as easily accessible in their temporary
locations as they were here.
I perused book shelves with New Zealand history, predominately
Canterbury history, but with a good selection of other histories from
throughout the country. Many of these told of social and political events,
explorations and discoveries. Some were specific to early pioneer or settler
families.
There were a couple that really caught my eye. I
photographed pages on my phone from some books; specific text and the
publishing details from the front as well as the covers. One, about the Matai
Valley near Nelson revealed a paragraph full of information I had never seen or
heard in all my years of research.
“John Bartlett
Perhaps the first
settler in this area was John Bartlett with his wife Maria and their five
children ranging in age from twelve to a baby.”[1]
Random Fact: They
were the FIRST ?
It goes on to say that like many settlers who arrived and
discovered there was no land available to them, they became squatters on land owned
by the absentee Ralph Richardson. It also confirmed what we already knew, that
they stayed in the area about ten years before moving to the Marlborough district.
They even had a gully and a range of hills named for them
which I have been able to locate on a map from the information within the book.
Although those names no longer survive, Bartletts Creek in Marlborough does
still exist.
Only one thing has me puzzled, that they called their
home (both in Matai Valley and Marlborough) Ranfurly
after the village they were from. However, they were from East Chinnock,
Somerset, England.
I feel that additional little random “fact” might be a
red herring. Now I wish I had read the bibliography !
[1]Gwyneth
Venner, The Matai, A History of the
Valley and it’s People, The Copy Machine, Nelson, New Zealand, 2001.
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