When interviewed by Ron Hawker in the mid 1990s,
descendants of the Owen family who had researched their whakapapa, were surprised
and puzzled by the sudden emergence of Tamairakiís first daughter Merehana
whom they were previously unaware of, and they were initially reluctant to accept
that she had actually existed.
But Merehana most certainly did exist and here we take the unusual step of
moving to her death certificate for clues. It records the death on 12 October 1876
of Susanne Blaine who was born in the Province of Otago, mother of seven sons and
three daughters, and whose father was listed as ìWhitehouse, Master Marinerî.
Before her relationship with John Holmes, Tamairaki and Whitehouse had a daughter
about 1833 called Merehana. If the death certificate information about place
of birth is accurate, then Tamairaki may have gone to the Chathams Islands
and then on to the Auckland Islands after Merehana was born.
Her early life is indeed a mystery, and perhaps a likely explanation is that
she was adopted out at an early age which would not have been unusual for the times.
It is also possible that Whitehouse entered into a relationship with another woman
and they took the child north with them, and Tamairaki for some reason went to the
Chathams without her daughter. What is known is that Merehana was not recorded
as being with her mother at Murrays River on Stewart Island in the Ruapuke Registers
compiled in September 1850 by the Rev Wohlers.
At an unknown stage in her early life Merehana was given or chose the name
Mary Susan Whitehouse (but appears in various records as Mary, Mary Suzanne,
Mary Susan, Suzanne, Susan Mary and plain Susan, ). She was also known as
Mary Susan Holmes, and Russell Caldwell has pointed out that this would be plausible
because of her motherís relationship with John Holmes. We will call her Mary Susan
from here on.
Caldwell, previously of Ngai Tahu whakapapa, carried out considerable research (over
a period of two years in fact) and in 1995 produced a document entitled ìReport On
Rigby/Williams Familiesî (remembering that our A K Hawker married Edith Williams,
daughter of Mary Susan). In a subsequent report, Caldwell cleared up the Mary
Susan mystery and estalished her as first born of Tamairaki. His reports are
commended to you.
ANYWAY........
Mary Susan Whitehouse has been reported as having arrived in Wellington from
South Island about 1850 and moving on to Napier with a pakeha family named Villers
who were her guardians. (Mary Jane Villers was born at Napier in 1851, the first
white child born in Hawkeís Bay, and Villers Street still exists at Petane).
Mary Susan worked as a servant girl for the McKain family which became very
successful in commerce in Napier. When she was 19 years old, she and a seaman, Joseph
William Rigby, were married by controversial pioneering missionary, printer and botanist,
Rev William Colenso. In the Book ìThe Story of Hawkes Bayî ? ? wrote the following
-- îThe missionary tells us in his Journal that on the 5th of June, 1852, he left
his mission station for Petane where, on the morning of the 7th, he married an Englishman
to a half-caste girl, in the presence of ten Europeans who accompanied the couple
from Ahuriri. It was, he says, the first marriage he had performed in the English
language in Hawkes Bay." This was Mary Susan and Joseph Rigby.
Colenso recorded the event with a handwritten marriage
certificate which Mary Susan signed with a cross, and the marriage was not
entered into the Marriages Register of The District Of Ahuriri until August 11, when
Mary Susan again signed with a cross. Being illiterate might explain why so
many different spelling versions of her name were used. She may not have been able
to recognise the differences and in fact her name is recorded as Mary Susanna Whitehouse
on the marriage certificate.
Mary Susan and Joseph Rigby had three children
before he died, William born 1852 and George born 1853, then Henry born 1857 who
died aged 10.
On 19 January 1859, Mary Susan married John
Blain and they had two children, John born 1860 and Thomas born 1862. John Blain
left for Dunedin on the ship Zephyr in 1861 while Mary Susan was still carrying
Thomas, and he was apparently not seen again even though his name resurfaces several
times.
She moved to Wellington where in 1867 she had a boy, probably about the time of the
death of her 10 year old son Henry Rigby because she named the new child Henry John.
His surname was given as Blane but the father was listed on the birth certificate
as Frederick Williams. The father of her next child, Herbert Guy born 1868, was named
as John Blane. (Some of the spelling looks awry here, but it is as it was used then).
Whatever, she then had Mary Ann (Sissy) and then our Edith born 18 February
1872 at Ohariu Valley. She was not quite five when her mother died aged 40. Two other
children were born in Wellington, Frederick Williams and Anne Williams who both also
apparently used the name Blaine, but few details are unknown.
Mary Susan died in Wellington on 12 October 1876 and her husband Frederick
Kennedy Williams on 7 Jan 1878 less than two years later, leaving six young orphans.
The Colonial Secretary was successfully petitioned by Henry Woodward Williams to
provide 200 pounds for their wellbeing from the public purse. Henry Williams was
Edithís uncle, being the brother of her father Frederick Kennedy Williams. (Henry
drowned in Wellington Harbour in 1883).
It is interesting that Henry requested the financial help go to Annie, Edith and
Herbert Guy Williams as he hoped the others, Henry John, Mary and Edward Arthur Williams,
were already being provided for. The last named, Edward Arthur Williams does not
tie in with names of Rowallan Block grantees, but the name Frederick appears among
the grantees but not among the orphans!
Edith, of course, married Alfred King Hawker and the blood proceeds
down through Ronald Gordon Hawker, then Carl Ronald Hawker, then Tracy Anne Hawker
to her sons Samuel Tutuila Su'a and Mitchell Byron Bell Hawker.
Regarding the South Island lands. Under the ìSouth Island Landless Natives Actî the
following people were granted land in 1906 in Block IV, Section One, of the Rowallan
Block -- George Rigby, William Rigby, Sissy Williams, Fred Williams , Henry John
Williams, Herbert Guy Williams, Edith Williams, Anne Williams, John Bentinck
Blaine and Thomas Robert Blaine -- according to The New Zealand Gazette, issue No
53 dated 9 July 1908
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