(1848-1933).

Member of Legislative Council of New Zealand, scientist, and social worker.

A new biography of Thomson, George Malcolm appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

G. M. Thomson, a son of William Thomson, was born in Calcutta on 2 October 1848. He was educated in Scotland at the Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh University and came to New Zealand at the age of 20. He farmed for a short time at Mabel Bush, Southland, and spent the rest of his life at Dunedin. From 1872 to 1903 he taught science at the Otago Boys' High School and then, until 1911, he became Analytical Chemist at Dunedin. On 26 December 1876 he married Emma, daughter of James Allan, Hopehill, Otago, who bore him two sons, one of whom, James Allan Thomson, became a distinguished geologist. Emma died in 1893 and, much later, in 1909, he married Alice, daughter of William Craig, Melbourne, who died in the following year.

Thomson held a seat in the House of Representatives from 1908 to 1914 as Reform member for Dunedin North, and in 1918 was appointed a member of the Legislative Council, on which he sat until 1932. He died on 15 August 1933.

Thomson contributed much to education and to the social welfare of this country and of Dunedin in particular. He always had a strong amateur interest in natural science, being particularly fascinated by the warfare between introduced plants and animals and those native to New Zealand. Later he wrote papers on the Crustacea and, finally, on fishes and fisheries. Most of the work, though lacking in intuition, embodies painstaking observation. Unlike many scientists, Thomson spread his interest both vertically and horizontally, establishing posts for scientists and trying to ensure that the results of their work became incorporated in general education. He was active in scientific organisations such as the New Zealand Institute, and in 1904, after much effort, he founded the Portobello Marine Station, Dunedin. He hoped that this station would study fish and the sea in order to provide information about the fishing grounds of New Zealand. It was with grief that he was forced later to accept a much reduced annual grant for the station. Thomson strove to widen as well as to advance knowledge: in 1889 he founded the technical school in Dunedin, where night classes were provided for young folk too poor to pay for their education. At the same time he went beyond science to serve in the Y.M.C.A. of which he was president for 20 years, from 1890 to 1910; he also helped to found the City Mission, and was senior elder at Knox Church for many years.

There is no doubt that Thomson must have been an exceedingly earnest man, eager and able to help other people. He may have lacked any touch of genius, but he used his gifts to their utmost. The modern, on looking back at a late Victorian of such breadth of service, is left asking, “But where did he find the time?”

by John Bruce Waterhouse, M.SC.(N.Z.), PH.D. (CANTAB.), New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

• Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Vol. 64 (1935), (Obit).

(1877–).

Artist.

A new biography of Thompson, Sydney Lough appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Sydney Lough Thompson was born at Oxford, Canterbury, on 24 January 1877. He worked on his father's sheep farm from 1891 to 1895 and then studied art at the Canterbury College School of Art under Petrus Van der Velden from 1895 to 1899. He spent a year at Heatherley's School of Art, London, and a further year at Julien's Academy, Paris, under Bouguereau, and remained in France till 1905 when he returned to New Zealand. He taught life drawing in Canterbury between 1907 and 1910 but left to paint in the South of France between 1911 and 1923. He was awarded a silver medal and honourable mention at the Paris Salon, 1922. After returning to New Zealand, Thompson was president of the Canterbury Society of Arts from 1935 to 1937 and was for a number of years a member of the Committee of Management of the National Art Gallery, Wellington. A retrospective exhibition was arranged by the Canterbury Art Society in 1961. His paintings, high in key and reflecting the influence of the early French Impressionists, are highly prized and he is well represented in public and private collections. In 1962 he again returned to France to paint. He was awarded an O.B.E. in 1937.

(1803–?).

Surveyor and selector of the Canterbury site.

A new biography of Thomas, Joseph appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Very little is known of Joseph Thomas's life outside of his association with the New Zealand Company and the Canterbury Association. He was born in England about 1803 and educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After his graduation he was posted to the 87th Regiment but later obtained a lieutenancy in the 19th. In the late 1820s he saw service in India and, for a time, served as aide-de-camp to Sir John Malcolm, the Governor of Bombay (1826-30). Early in the 1830s, Thomas retired from the army and travelled in South America. On his return to England he published (1839) a collection of drawings made on his journeys. He came to New Zealand in 1840 and surveyed for the New Zealand Company in Wellington, Wanganui, Wairarapa, Hawke's Bay. and Otago, before returning to England where his interest in the colonisation of the South Island was revealed in evidence before Lord Mounteagle's Committee on Irish Immigration, 1847. In July 1848 he returned to New Zealand to select, survey, and prepare a site for the Canterbury Association's settlement.

Between August 1849 and March 1850 he decided on the site, won the reluctant consent of Sir George Grey and Bishop Selwyn, superintended the survey and mapping of 2 ½ million acres, named the towns, sites, and streets for Christchurch, Sumner, and Lyttelton, and issued squatters' licences to the Deans Brothers and Rhodes. With £20,000 to spend, he was determined to prepare thoroughly; he imported timber, carpenters, Maori road gangs, built wooden barracks, agents' and customs houses, and a jetty. He planned engineering works and laid out the Sumner Road, but ran out of money before its completion and contracted debts in expectation of the association's land sales in England. But he had halted all works on 14 March 1850. When J. R. Godley arrived a month later, he needlessly closed the works, too, and reprimanded Thomas for extravagance. When Godley was confirmed as agent, a position which Thomas had been half promised, he resigned and returned to England. His subsequent career is obscure.

Thomas possessed tremendous resolution and drive, but was also hasty, capricious, and quick to make enemies, as he did of Godley, Torlesse, and Cass. Godley accused him of exceeding instructions; Torlesse wrote bitterly of contrariness and insults; Cass, however, eventually finished the works Thomas had planned and begun. Thomas could see the great importance of pastoralism in Canterbury, which Godley and the association refused to do, and he won the battles over Canterbury's site and place names. Many of the first settlers expected conditions to be much better when they arrived, but that they were not was no fault of the chief surveyor, who was basically hampered because the association's scheme of land sales had failed. Thomas's job was difficult and he received no thanks and was soon forgotten, but with all his faults he gave Canterbury a better start than that which any previous Wakefield settlement had enjoyed.

by Edmund Bohan, M.A., School Teacher and Professional Singer (overseas).

• Letters from Early New Zealand, 1850-53, Godley, C. (1951)
• John Robert Godley of Canterbury, Carrington, C. E. (1950)
• The Torlesse Papers, Maling, P. B. (ed.) (1958)
• A History of Canterbury, Vol. I, Hight, J. A., and Straubel, C. R. (1957)
• Press (Christchurch) 16 Dec 1909, 12 Dec 1925.

(1793?–1864).

Knight errant.

A new biography of Thierry, Charles Philippe Hippolyte de appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

De Thierry was the eldest son of Baron Charles de Thierry de Laville (whose devotion to the royal cause during the revolution necessitated the family's withdrawal from France), and is generally said to have been born in London. But though he frequently claimed he was English born, it seems certain that his birth occurred before his parents arrived in London from Europe in November 1794. He may have been born in Brussels; but Grave, Holland, seems most likely to have been his birthplace, probably in January or February 1793.

After attending the Congress of Vienna as secretary to the Portuguese Marquis of Marialva, de Thierry served for a short period in a British cavalry regiment – the 23rd Light Dragoons – and in 1816 became an attaché to the French Ambassador in London. In 1819 he studied theology at Oxford, changing to law at Cambridge about the time of his marriage to Emily, eldest daughter of Archdeacon Thomas Rudge, of Gloucester.

Two months' acquaintance with Hongi Hika, Waikato, and Thomas Kendall at Cambridge in 1820 rekindled de Thierry's boyhood passion to visit the scenes of Cook's discoveries in the South Seas. He arranged for Kendall to purchase land for him in New Zealand, but his assertion that he gave Kendall £800 worth of goods to buy “all the land from North Cape to Tauranga” and his allegation that the missionary appropriated the major portion of the goods to his own use cannot be accepted unreservedly.

A block of land at Hokianga was purchased by Kendall in August 1822 from the chiefs Muriwai, Patuone, and Nene. According to the deed, 40,000 acres were bought for 36 axes. In December 1823 Thierry requested British protection for the colony he was then assembling in London, but was rebuffed by the Colonial Office. He next approached the Dutch Ambassador in London in February 1824 with a proposal to purchase Holland's “rights” in New Zealand for £50,000; in April with an offer “to secure to the King of the Netherlands the Sovereignty and possession of New Zealand, which would … ensure His Majesty a yearly revenue of upwards of Five Millions of Pounds Sterling”. He modestly suggested that his appointment as “Viceroy of New Zealand” would be a fitting reward for his services, adding that he was born in Brussels and descended from the Counts of Flanders. These fantastic overtures were terminated by de Thierry's imprisonment for bankruptcy in July; by October, however, he was in France, where he made equally extraordinary proposals to the French Government. In spite of his connections with the Court (Charles X was his godfather) these met with no success, and in the latter half of 1826, finding himself again financially embarrassed, he returned to England. After yet another unsuccessful attempt in London to fit out a colonising expedition he went to the United States, where he remained for several years. Then followed a Caribbean interlude: drifting from one West Indian port to another he was joined by a motley entourage, with whose collaboration he now proposed to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Panama, in addition to founding a colony in New Zealand. As part of this grandiose scheme he assumed the title, “Sovereign Chief of New Zealand”.

On 1 June 1835 he sailed from Panama with his family. A call was made at the Marquesas, where, intoxicated by his first taste of the South Seas, he proclaimed himself king of Nukuhiva. Tarrying in Tahiti for over a year, hopefully waiting for reinforcements which never came from his Panamanian collaborators, he forwarded to New Zealand a bombastic announcement of his intentions. Busby responded with a promise of “the most spirited resistance of the whole population”, and organised his Declaration of Independence. De Thierry retaliated with an accusation of republicanism, and left Tahiti for Sydney. There he engaged a large body of settlers (68 on his own authority) and sailed for New Zealand on the Nimrod. Arriving at Hokianga on 4 November 1837 he was derisively greeted by a royal salute; within a few days, due largely to McDonnell's successful intriguing, the majority of his colonists deserted, and his title to the land, allegedly purchased by Kendall, was repudiated.

Whatever the financial resources that had sustained him throughout his wanderings, de Thierry was now penniless. Settling at Tarawana on the Waihou River on a few hundred acres given him by Patuone and Nene, he assured visitors to Mount Isabel – named after his beloved daughter – that an armed vessel, daily expected, would soon put him in possession of his 40,000 acres. As much of this land was now claimed by other European settlers, such talk was not well received. His courageous championing of Bishop Pompallier (de Thierry himself was a Protestant) and his increasingly open avowal of French sympathies following official British colonisation added to his unpopularity.

In 1845 he settled in Auckland, where for a time he earned a living as a music teacher. In February 1850 he sailed for California, two of his sons having preceded him to the goldfields, but on the way was marooned for a month on Pitcairn Island. After six months at San Francisco he took charge of the French Consulate at Honolulu until March 1853, after which he returned to Auckland and interested himself in the processing of Phormium tenax (q.v.). Shortly before his death (Sir George Grey paid him for it), he wrote his autobiographical Historical Narrative of an Attempt to Form a Settlement in New Zealand. He died in Auckland on 8 July 1864 reputedly at the age of 71. The title of baron was carried on by his eldest son, Charles Thomas Frederick, from whose second marriage (to Marata Te Moananui) many Maori de Thierrys are descended.

Notwithstanding its many Ruritanian absurdities, de Thierry's colonising philosophy was not entirely without merit, and the ridicule and distrust which he aroused during his lifetime to some extent resulted from misinterpretation of his self-bestowed titles. Although he styled himself “Sovereign Chief of New Zealand”, the only sovereignty he claimed was that of his supposed 40,000 acres at Hokianga, contending (to quote Grey) “that within those limits, until a regular Government was set up, he could exercise the rights of a chief”. Ironically, his more unscrupulous stratagems do not appear to have been generally known.

by Ruth Miriam Ross, School Teacher and Authoress, North Auckland.

• O.L.C. files (MSS), National Archives
• Historical Narrative… and other Thierry Papers (MSS and TS), Auckland Public Library
• Misc. E. A. 1/1 (p/stats), National Archives
• New Zealand Herald, 11 Jul 1864 (Obit)
• Bulletin de la Sociét des Etudes Oceanniennes (1931)
• Revue des Deux Mondes (1882)
• New Zealand, Martin, S. McD. (1845)
• Busby of Waitangi, Ramsden, E. (1942)
• Historical Records of Australia, Watson, F. (1914-25).

From the very first days of settlement, amateur actors and actresses have maintained a thin but unbroken theatrical line in the history of the theatre in New Zealand. During their first two decades, Auckland, Wellington, and Nelson depended for their theatre on a corps of Gentlemen Amateurs who sometimes swelled out small companies of professionals like George Buckingham or Mrs Foley. At other times they performed for some charity such as the Widow and Orphans' Fund, the Pitcairn Islanders, or the Suffering British Subjects in India. From the forties onwards, however, the arrival of British regiments enlivened the theatrical scene. Garrison theatres were built and soldier-actors staged many plays, sometimes combining with professional actresses, sometimes playing all parts, both male and female, themselves. In the fifties, the 65th Regiment in residence at Wellington, Wanganui, and Napier, and the 58th Regiment in Auckland kept the theatrical banner flying for months at a time.

Amateur support given to travelling stars continued for more than 30 years. Productions by dramatic clubs (generally shortlived) filled the intervals between visits from professional companies and helped to raise funds for needy causes. In the sixties a crop of Garrick Clubs sprang to life from Whangarei to Dunedin. The first of these appears to have been formed at Dunedin in 1862 when Bulwer-Lytton's Money was at the top of the bill. It owed much to the enthusiastic labours of T. W. Standwell who was also associated with the Wellington Garrick Club which opened with a performance of Othello in 1865, when Standwell played the leading role.

The amateur dramatic societies in the seventies and eighties had a longer life than their predecessors. Members of such groups as The Volunteer Amateurs in Wellington or The Foresters' Dramatic Club in Christchurch supported the resident stock companies as extras, and several of them found careers in the professional theatre. In its 11 years of history, the Wellington Amateur Dramatic Club (which was incorporated with the Amateur Operatic Society in 1891) raised thousands of pounds for charities and made 100 appearances in 40 different plays. Most popular plays among similar groups all over the country were the works of Tom Taylor, H. J. Byron, Tom Robertson, and Bulwer-Lytton. These, together with old favourites like Rip Van Winkle and The Hunchback (played by the Dunedin Dramatic Club as late as 1881), were the staple fare of the amateur societies of the day. An occasional Shakespearean production appeared, most often with a professional star engaged for the principal role. The Canterbury College Dialectical Society achieved a high standard of Shakespearean presentation. In 1887 the Dunedin Shakespeare Club made its first appearance in a reading of Hamlet. It has held regular public readings since that date and in 1963 was the oldest dramatic society in the country.

The turn of the century saw well-established societies performing at least twice a year comedies by Pinero, Sheridan, Hawtrey, and Wilde, as well as the old favourites of a generation earlier. Some enterprising groups formed semi-professional touring companies and took productions such as Charley's Aunt on tour of nearby towns.

The Twentieth Century

The growth and progress of the amateur movement is a feature of the twentieth century history of the theatre in New Zealand. Almost every town and village has its own dramatic society, and in the cities this is also true of the suburbs. Amateur organisations no longer play for charity but for their own funds, and they offer a programme of several plays a year to growing audiences.

The 20 years between the First and Second World Wars marked the emergence of the amateur theatre as we know it today. Large repertory societies (in New Zealand a repertory is an amateur society) arose in the main towns and cities of the country. Most of the major societies were established during this period. Some have survived for nearly 40 years such as the Grafton Theatre of Auckland which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1962. The Wellington Repertory Theatre (established 1926), the Canterbury Repertory Theatre (1928), and the Dunedin Repertory (1928) have numbered their membership in thousands. Each of them has at some time employed full-time professional producers, although only the Canterbury Repertory has persevered with this innovation. Most leading repertory societies have developed a small corps of amateur producers over the years. In Auckland a Little Theatre was formed in 1925 but after a phenomenally fast initial growth declined rapidly, and its place was taken by a dozen or so smaller groups. The Auckland Drama Council coordinates the work of these Auckland clubs.

As amateur dramatic societies found themselves more and more the only providers of theatrical entertainment in their communities, the standard of acting and production slowly improved. This was helped in many cases by the work of teachers of dramatic art or artists from the professional theatre such as Mabel Hardinge-Maltby, Paul Latham, Mr and Mrs Culford Bell, Helen Gardner, Ngaio Marsh, and Maria Dronke – to name but a few. The repertoire of these groups was varied; a mixture of West End comedies and melodramas, the plays of Barrie, Galsworthy, Shaw, and Wilde, leavened with an occasional Ibsen and a few Shakespearean productions. Until they went into recess in 1959, The Thespians, Wellington, maintained a policy for over 20 years of presenting annually one of Shakespeare's plays.

Since the end of the Second World War, an increasing number of societies have built their own studio theatres. The high cost of renting theatres has made the amateur movement over-conscious of box office, and this has been a factor in the presentation of the generally unadventurous choice of play – the kind which normally would come from the commercial theatre. It has been left to the smaller groups to explore the less obvious fields of drama and keep alive the classics. Unity Theatre, Wellington (which celebrated its coming of age in 1963), the drama clubs of the four main universities, and Rosalie and Patric Carey's New Globe Theatre have led the way in this regard. In the late forties, the Canterbury University Drama Club, under Ngaio Marsh, made history with its touring productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. In its Student Union Memorial Theatre, the Victoria University of Wellington has one of the three new theatres to be built in the country for nearly 50 years. The University of Otago broke new ground when it appointed John Trevor as lecturer in drama.

In the cities the amateur repertoire has recently included some Shakespeare, Sheridan, Ibsen, and Chekov as well as work by Sartre, Anouilh, Betti, Brecht, Pinter, Behan, and Beckett. In 1960–61, The Diary of Anne Frank was the most successful and popular play of the year with amateur societies; The Shifting Heart met with similar success in 1961–62. New Zealand playwrights whose work has been introduced to the public by the amateur theatre include Frank Sargeson, James Baxter, Allen Curnow, Claude Evans, Jean Lawrence, Marie Bullock, and Bruce Mason.

The New Zealand branch of the British Drama League was founded in 1932 and is organised on a basis of areas throughout the country. Each area conducts its own local festival of one-act plays, and for many dramatic groups these festivals are the highlight of their year's activities. North and South Island semi-finals and a National Final Festival are held annually. The Drama League offers tutorial aid in production and acting to its affiliated groups and maintains a play-lending library. Early in the League's history it began a series of playwriting competitions, and between 1933–36 it published five volumes of one-act plays. Visits from the British Drama League in London by Mr and Mrs E. Martin Browne, Miss Frances MacKenzie, and Mrs Nora Ratcliffe have been highlights in the League's history.

In 1945, representatives of 15 repertory societies formed the New Zealand Drama Council as an association of the larger amateur theatre groups in the country. The Drama Council in 1962 represented more than 100 member-societies, to which it offers tutorial assistance for specific productions, as well as weekend schools on production, acting, and other aspects of stagecraft. The council has, since 1950, held an annual resident summer school of acting and production, and in 1960 it inaugurated an annual winter residential school in production. Directors of the summer school have included Hugh Hunt, Stefan Haag, John Sumner, and Doris Fitton, all from the Elizabethan Theatre Trust in Australia.

As part of their adult education work, the universities of Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago offer many services to dramatic societies. Their regional councils of adult education provide five staff tutors in drama as well as part-time tutors who give tuition throughout the country not only in practical theatre work but in the study of drama as literature.

The Department of Internal Affairs and, more recently, the Arts Advisory Council, have fostered the amateur theatre by making regular annual grants towards the work of the New Zealand Drama Council and the New Zealand British Drama League. They also grant drama bursaries in acting and production for study overseas.

by Nola Leigh Millar, B.A., Director, New Theatre Company, Wellington.

• Prompt Book, Reid, J. and R. (1959)
• A Survey of the Arts in New Zealand, Simpson, E. C. (1961)
• Evening Post, Jun-Jul 1928, “Thespian Memories”, Nicholls, H. E.
• New Zealand Theatre. Music and Stage in New Zealand, Hurst, M. (1943)
• New Zealand Theatre and Motion Picture Magazine (1920–50).

Although most parts of New Zealand, almost from the first years of settlement, have known some form of theatre, there has on the whole been no continuing theatrical tradition, with the result that since the advent of the radio, the talking film, and the economic depression of the thirties, the professional theatre has struggled to maintain a toehold in the Dominion. Geographical isolation, the scattered nature of the population, difficulties and costs of transport have all contributed to making professional theatre an uneconomic undertaking. Because of shipping links – especially prior to 1914 – New Zealand has always been particularly sensitive to theatrical events in Australia, and her theatrical history has been fullest when the Australian theatre has flourished most.

The Pioneer Theatre

David C. Osborne, self-styled Professor of Elocution, gave New Zealand its first recorded performance of a play on Christmas Eve, 1841, when he presented The Lawyer Outwitted in a detached building called The Albert Theatre, adjoining Watson's Exchange Hotel at Auckland.

James Henry Marriott and a comedy of amateurs gave Wellington its first theatrical entertainment with A Ghost in Spite of Himself and The Village Lawyer at the Ship Hotel on 11 May 1843. In September of that year, Marriott opened New Zealand's first theatre proper, the Royal Victoria, behind the Ship Hotel. Eighteen months later this company of shopkeepers and artisans moved to the Britannia Saloon where, by courtesy of the Oddfellows Lodge, in the four years that followed Marriott and his players presented nearly 300 productions to more than 68,000 people.

A theatrical pioneer in Australia, George Buckingham, opened with a small professional company on Boxing Night, 1843, at the Fitzroy Theatre, in the Royal Hotel, Auckland, with The Two Gregories and Lovers' Quarrels. In 1844 Buckingham built his Royal Victoria Theatre but his company disbanded in the following year. A new era began with the arrival at Auckland in 1855 of Mr and Mrs W. H. Foley. This remarkable pair, sometimes together but more often apart, kept the theatre alive somewhere in the country over the next 12 years, and they blazed the theatrical trail through every settlement of the colony. An American acrobat, equestrian, and clown, Foley was a circus veteran of the Californian and Australian diggings. He gave New Zealand its first circus and was its first real showman. But Mrs Foley was the true pioneer of professional theatre in New Zealand. Her repertoire included The Hunchback, The Stranger, The Wife, and a three-act version of Hamlet. On 16 November, 1855, at the theatre in Auckland's Albert Barracks, the Foleys presented The Rough Diamond with the assistance of George Buckingham and the Military Amateurs. At the end of January 1856, Foley imported a dramatic company from Australia which included H. T. Craven, Harry Jackson, Charles Southwell, and Amelia Fisher, and on 3 March he opened with Othello in the Theatre Royal, Victoria Street East. For the next three years, drama held its precarious sway at the Theatre Royal with Harry Jackson, T. S. Bellair, W. Hill, and B. N. Jones as successive lessees. Among the visiting artists was Charles Kemble Mason, a member of the noted Kemble family.

Before following her husband and his circus to Wellington, Mrs Foley held a short theatrical season at the Oddfellows Hall in Nelson. On 18 November 1856, the Foleys reopened the old Royal Victoria Theatre, Wellington, rechristening it The Royal Olympic. After three months Mrs Foley surrendered the lease to Mr and Mrs R. H. Cox. Canterbury saw its first dramatic performance when Mrs Foley appeared on 23 July 1857 at the Lyttelton Town Hall in The Loan of a Lover.

By 1860 she had found her leading man in Vernon Webster and together they gave Dunedin its first theatrical performance, just beating the Australian theatrical invasion that was to follow the discovery of gold. On 26 December 1861, they began a series of drawing room dramatic performances at the Masonic Hall, later transferring to Luhning's Music Hall where they played for more than a month. During 1865–66 their company resided in Napier.

The year 1860 saw the opening of the Oddfellows Hall, Wellington, where sporadic entertainment was staged in the sixties, although this theatre, the Royal Olympic, the Royal Lyceum (formerly the Britannia Saloon), and a bijou theatre in the Empire Hotel were more often closed than open during this period.

The Gold Rush Days

From the time of the gold rush, Otago became a mecca for theatrical companies from Australia and beyond, especially for the weaker marginal companies which had been making a difficult living in the smalls of Australia. On 1 March 1862, Dunedin greeted for the first time Charles R. Thatcher and his wife Madame Vitelli in the concert room of the Commercial Hotel. The “Inimitable” Thatcher's talent for improvising topical verses and setting them to the music of popular songs made him a tremendous favourite wherever he appeared and he was constantly on tour all over the country in the five years that followed his debut. The year 1862 saw the first two theatres built in Dunedin. The saleyards and stables of Jones, Bird, and Co. were converted into the Princess Theatre which opened on 5 March of that year under the management of the Fawcett brothers, presenting The Cramond Brig and That Rascal Jack. On 12 July, Clarence Holt and James Leroy opened the Theatre Royal (also known as the Queen's Theatre) with The Lady of Lyons, in a company headed by Mr and Mrs Holt and Marie Duret. Holt remained in Dunedin for more than two years and presented many stars under his management. Several distinguished artists brought to Australia by the Melbourne manager G. S. Coppin made their way to New Zealand in the sixties. Among these were the American comedian Joseph Jefferson, Mrs Robert Heir, Lady Don, Walter Montgomery, Madame Celeste, Charles Dillon, Miss Cleveland, and Charles Young. The tragedian Henry Talbot toured in 1869 with Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. Among the lesser lights who regularly provided entertainment in the main towns at this time were J. P. Hydes, Harriet Gordon, Mr and Mrs C. W. Barry, J. L. Hall, and John and Marian Dunn. Many of these were to become familiar faces on the New Zealand stage for more than 20 years.

The growing number of British regiments quartered in Auckland swelled the audience for theatre, and during the sixties regular productions were presented both at the Brunswick Music Hall (later the Prince of Wales Theatre) and at the Oddfellows Hall which opened as the Theatre Royal under George Fawcett on 1 September 1864. Fawcett, who was later known as George Fawcett Rowe, appeared with Eloise Juno in a varied repertoire which included his own adaptations of David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, and The Cricket on the Hearth.

At Christchurch the Canterbury Music Hall was converted by J. L. Hall into the Royal Princess and opened on Boxing Night, 1862. The theatre followed the diggers to the West Coast, and music halls, concert rooms, and large theatres multiplied rapidly in the new gold towns. The Royal Visit of the Duke of Edinburgh in 1869 saw Command Performances given at Auckland and Dunedin, including Julius Vogel's dramatisation of Lady Audley's Secret.

The Lean Seventies

The beginning of the seventies brought an end to the major gold rushes and the war in the north. For the next 30 years the country was honeycombed with small dramatic combinations – constantly grouping and regrouping – which struggled to make a precarious living. Many more theatres were built but although they were seldom empty for long, audiences were fickle and times were generally hard.

In 1873, William Henry Hoskins took over the Theatre Royal (the former Princess), Christchurch, where he and his second wife, Florence Colville, engaged a resident stock company which performed regularly there and elsewhere for the next seven years. Hoskins, one-time tutor to Henry Irving and a leading actor with Samuel Phelps at Sadler's Wells, had a deserved reputation as a light comedian and Shakespearean actor. While the Theatre Royal, Christchurch, was under his management, a rival company under Mrs Walter Hill and Charles Burford played at the Academy of Music, which in 1879 became the Gaiety Theatre.

Visiting artists in the seventies included Charles Wheatleigh in The Shaugraun, the American stars Mr and Mrs F. M. Bates, May Howard, G. D. Chaplin, and Mrs Scott Siddons, the veteran Shakespearean actor, William Creswick, Signor and Signora Majeroni, Lytton Sothern, George Rignold in Henry V, Emily Soldene, and the tragedian Henry Talbot. Companies headed by Mr and Mrs George Darrell, Steele and Keogh, and J. P. Hydes were seldom off the scene. Young New Zealand actors and actresses had their first chance under the resident managers to make a career in the theatre, among them being George Darrell, Walter Bentley, Harry Marshall, Harry Diver, Henry Jewett and Rosa Towers.

Throughout the seventies and the eighties many new theatres were built: another Theatre Royal at Christchurch opened under Hoskins with School for Scandal in 1876; the Wellington Theatre Royal began its career on 13 February 1873; the old Princess in Dunedin, destroyed by fire in 1875, was rebuilt the following year; the Queen's Theatre, Christchurch, opened in November 1883; Auckland's new Theatre Royal was launched under the management of Messrs Barnett and Levy in August 1876; and in 1882 came H. N. Abbott's new Opera House, Auckland. An imposing new Imperial Opera House was erected in Wellington in 1877 but was destroyed in a great fire two years later. Its successor, opened in 1886, met a similar fate in March 1888. A third building on the same site was erected by the end of that year.

Theatrical Heyday, 1880–1914

The rise in Australia of the actor-manager J. C. Williamson as an entrepreneur had a marked effect on the theatre in New Zealand. For nearly 50 years Williamson or his firm kept both Australia and New Zealand stocked with comedy, drama, and light opera companies. Williamson, with his wife Maggie Moore, a favourite with New Zealand audiences for 40 years to come, visited New Zealand in 1881 with Struck Oil and Eureka.

Between 1880 and 1900 the plays most often presented in the New Zealand theatres were East Lynne, Hamlet, The Lady of Lyons, The Colleen Bawn, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Shaughraun. Irish melodramas of the Boucicault school were prime favourites but there were more than 70 different Shakespearean productions in these 20 years. The eighties and nineties saw for the first time such popular visiting artists as Frank Thornton in The Private Secretary and Charley's Aunt, Genevieve Ward with W. H. Vernon in Forget Me Not, and the Australasian star Nellie Stewart who, from her first appearance in a family entertainment Rainbow Revels in 1878, was a theatrical idol. George Darrell and George Leitch toured companies of melodramas including works by their own hand. Dion Boucicault gave 36 performances of his own plays in 1885.

Regular visits were made by Shakespearean companies headed by Louise Pomeroy, Daniel Bandmann, Walter Bentley, and George C. Miln. Meynell and Gunn appeared on the scene as entrepreneurs. Special mention must be made of Bland Holt, son of Clarance Holt, whose sensational dramas, spectacularly staged, met with unparalleled success for over 30 years.

Unique in New Zealand theatrical history was the Pollard Lilliputian Opera Company which began as a company of boys and girls, ranging from 10–13 years of age, who kept together for many years. From 1880–1903, under their director Thomas John Pollard, this company toured New Zealand in more than 40 productions of light opera, musical comedy, and pantomime. W. S. Percy, Maud and May Beatty, Marion Mitchell, and Gertie Campion began their career with the Pollard company.

In 1890 J. L. Toole, with the young Irene Vanbrugh in his company, toured the country in several of his most famous roles, and the same year saw Janet Achurch introducing Ibsen to New Zealand audiences. Until his retirement in 1912 the romantic actor Julius Knight paid many visits to New Zealand in such popular pieces as The Royal Divorce, Monsieur Beaucaire, Raffles and The Prisoner of Zenda. Other visiting artists in the 20 years before the First World War were Edith Crane and Tyrone Power in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Trilby, and Wilson Barrett and Lilah McCarthy in The Sign of the Cross and Othello. The Dampier company presented a repertoire of 11 Shakespearean productions and 20 other dramas. The highest reputation was enjoyed by the Brough-Boucicault company, headed by Mr and Mrs Robert Brough, Dion Boucicault junior, and G. S. Titheradge, which set a fine standard of polished production in the works of Wilde, Pinero, and H. A. Jones.

Vaudeville and variety have always found an enthusiastic audience in New Zealand. In the period under review the names of Harry Rickards, P. R. Dix, and the Fuller family were most prominent in this form of theatrical entertainment. Beginning in the nineties as a family entertainment in Dunedin, John Fuller and Sons made “Fullers” a household word in the country. They became promoters of vaudeville and variety and, later, theatre owners and theatrical entrepreneurs, importing artists from overseas for revues, musicals, melodramas and opera. At the turn of the century P. R. Dix had resident companies in each of the four centres for more than six years.

The decade before the First World War brought visits from Tittel Brune, Cuyler Hastings, Oscar Asche, and Lily Brayton in Kismet and Othello, and Ethel and H. B. Irving and Ellen Terry on a recital tour. This, too, was the decade which saw new theatre buildings in most parts of the country, many of which still remain as cinemas and occasional hosts to the live theatre.

Post-1914 Era

The First World War loosened the ties between New Zealand and the theatre overseas. During the war years Sarah Allgood appeared in Peg of My Heart, Katherine Macdonnell and Charles Waldron in Daddy Long Legs, Cyril Maude in Grumpy, and Marie Tempest headed a company in Mrs Dot and Penelope. At the end of the war The Diggers, originally drawn from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force entertainment units for the troops overseas, were phenomenally successful in revue. Their success was matched by that of the Kiwi Concert Party at the end of the Second World War.

Theatrical entertainment in the twenties was marked by the preponderance of musical plays, elaborately staged and dressed, and popular melodramas. The firm of J. and N. Tait in Australia (which later joined J. C. Williamson's Ltd.) introduced overseas artists in the hits of the day. Highlights of the period were provided by Gertrude Elliot, Emilie Polini, Guy Bates Post, Maurice Moscovitch, and the film actress Pauline Frederick, and there were return visits from Oscar Asche, Dion Boucicault, and Marie Tempest. Seymour Hicks and his wife Ellaline Terriss played a successful season with Scrooge and Broadway Jones. Most popular musical stars were Gladys Moncrieff, Marie Burke, Dorothy Brunton, Madge Elliott, and Cyril Ritchard.

Particular attention must be paid to Allan Wilkie and his wife Frediswyde Hunter-Watts who toured Australia and New Zealand with their company throughout the twenties, presenting a most extensive repertoire of Shakespeare's plays in most towns of any size. Wilkie's company was a nursery for young New Zealand players.

Among the New Zealand actors and actresses who made successful careers in the theatre overseas were Harry Roberts, Harry Plimmer, Ethel Morrison, Charles Archers, Maggie Knight and, at a later date, Rosalind Atkinson, Marie Ney, Joan and Betty Rayner, Redmond Phillips, and Clive Revel.

During the thirties an occasional overseas company toured the main towns: Margaret Rawlings in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson in St. Joan and Macbeth, Fay Compton in Victoria Regina, and several smaller Williamson companies in such plays as Night Must Fall and The Wind and the Rain, the latter by the New Zealand playwright Merton Hodge.

The arrival of the talking film and the depression hit the theatre doubly hard; audiences dwindled, the theatres became converted into cinemas; and films succeeded the theatre as the entertainment of the people. From 1930–50 the amateur theatre was almost unchallenged in the field of legitimate theatre.

The years following the Second World War were notable for the visit in 1948 of the Old Vic Theatre company headed by Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre from Stratford-on-Avon toured in 1953. Dame Sybil Thorndike, Sir Lewis Casson, Sir Ralph Richardson appeared in 1955, supported by an Australian cast, in Separate Tables and The Sleeping Prince. Emlyn Williams and Sir Donald Wolfitt have toured in recitals from the works of Dylan Thomas, Dickens, and Shakespeare. Googie Withers has headed Australian companies in The Deep Blue Sea and The Constant Wife. The year 1962 saw records broken by My Fair Lady, and the Old Vic Company, with Vivien Leigh as its star, presented The Lady of the Camellias, Twelfth Night, and Duel of Angels.

There have been signs of the emergence of a permanent professional theatre in the Dominion. Since 1947, the Community Arts Service of the Auckland Regional Council of Adult Education has continuously toured the northern half of the North Island. In 1952, Richard and Edith Campion formed the New Zealand Players, a national touring Company which became a trust in 1956 and collapsed in 1960. Between 1953 and 1960 the company offered 30 plays, five of them by New Zealand playwrights, to an average attendance of 50,000, and it gave employment to more than 100 actors. The Players' Drama Quartette which tours secondary schools with a programme of dramatic scenes, has survived the company, which was succeeded by the New Zealand Theatre Trust with Richard Campion as artistic director. The trust, however, did not survive more than two productions. Earlier post-war attempts to establish a professional theatre had come from Sir Robert Kerridge with a New Zealand Theatre Company and The Pasadena Players. Ngaio Marsh's Commonwealth company collapsed on its first visit to the Dominion. In 1957 William Menlove and William Esquilant founded The Southern Comedy Players, their activities at first being confined to the South Island. Among the productions of their company have been Charley's Aunt, Private Lives, Sailor Beware, Salad Days, and Johnny Belinda. The company has lately extended its field to the North Island.

The State, through the Department of Internal Affairs and the Arts Advisory Council (established in 1960), has subsidised the work of the local professional companies and the amateur theatre, and many students of acting and production have received drama bursaries for study overseas. Moreover, the New Zealand Broadcasting Service has cultivated the theatre in New Zealand by offering work in its productions to actors both from local and from visiting companies.

Nevertheless, the theatre today remains the step-sister of the arts in New Zealand.

(1814–90).

Architect and cleric.

A new biography of Thatcher, Frederick appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Frederick Thatcher was born at Hastings towards the end of 1814, and came of a long-established Sussex family. His father and grandfather had both been riding officers, and his mother was Mary Ann, née Stanford. Frederick was the youngest of four children, two daughters and two sons. At the age of 21 he was working in an architectural office in London, where he continued in practice until his departure for New Zealand. He was one of the earliest associates of the (now Royal) Institute of British Architects, being admitted in February 1836. In 1841 he exhibited at the Royal Academy his design for the present vicarage of St. Clement's Church at Halton, Hastings.

On 23 December 1843 he arrived in the Himalaya at New Plymouth where he took up land. For the following five years his occupations included, in addition to architecture, wheat farming, auctioneering, dispatch carrying, the positions of Superintendent of Public Works, assistant secretary to Sir George Grey, acting clerk of the Executive Council of New Ulster, and a lieutenant in the Auckland battalion of militia (an honorary position). His services as an architect were in constant demand, in particular by Bishop Selwyn. In 1848 he entered St. John's College to train for the ministry, and was ordained deacon the same year and priest in 1853. He was the first incumbent of St. Matthew's parish, Auckland, and at the same time was Chaplain to the Forces. In December 1856 he was obliged to leave on account of ill health. The next four years he spent in England, and from December 1859 he was curate at Winwick in Northamptonshire. He returned to New Zealand in July 1861 and was appointed to St. Paul's parish, Wellington, where he remained until 1864, when he had to resign again for health reasons. His numerous parish and diocesan commitments in Wellington included the designing of the new St. Paul's Church, the interior of which is a fine example of colonial wooden Gothic derived from the late Early English period.

After a second term of office as secretary to Grey, he returned to England in 1868 and settled in Lichfield where he became secretary first to Bishop Selwyn and then to Bishop Maclagan. He retired in 1882 and in the following year was made a prebendary canon of Gaia Major. Along with Bishop Abraham, he worked enthusiastically to establish Selwyn College, Cambridge, and was treasurer of the College. He died on 19 October 1890 at Bakewell, Derbyshire, where his son, Ernest Grey Thatcher, was curate. His body was taken to Lichfield and buried in the cathedral grounds. He married, first, Elizabeth Watt, daughter of Isaac Watt of Holborn, and second, Caroline Wright, a sister of Mrs William Bolland of New Plymouth. One son was born of the second marriage.

Thatcher's major pieces of building in New Zealand were: St. Mary's Church, New Plymouth (1846); the colonial hospitals at Auckland (1847) and New Plymouth (1848); Christ Church, Nelson (1851); St. Matthew's schoolroom, Auckland (1853); St. Mary's Church, Parnell (1860); and St. Paul's Church, Wellington (1866). He assisted Selwyn in planning some of the “Selwyn” churches, but the original concept was probably the Bishop's.

Thatcher was persevering, businesslike, and conscientious – qualities that were appreciated not only by the Governor and the two bishops, but also by the many societies and institutions to which he gave his services as secretary and treasurer. His genial nature, calm and unruffled temper, and his enthusiasm made him always a desirable companion. His buildings reflect a disciplined character. They were faithful inter-pretations of the Gothic Revival in architecture, and his churches appear to have kept to the principles of the Ecclesiological Society. The hospitals, like the vicarage at Halton, were designed in the popular domestic Tudor style of the day. As one of the first professional architects in New Zealand, Thatcher made a special contribution to nineteenth-century architecture in the field of church building which showed his sympathetic adaptation in wood of the salient features of the Gothic Revival.

by Margaret Hilda Alington, B.A., formerly Reference Librarian, Turnbull Library, Wellington.

• Frederick Thatcher Papers (MSS), Turnbull Library
• Reminiscences, 1809–1867 (Typescript), Selwyn, Mrs S. H. (1961)
• Lichfield Mercury, 25 Oct 1890 (Obit)
• Lichfield Diocesan Magazine, Nov 1890 (Obit).

(1831–78).

Entertainer.

A new biography of Thatcher, Charles Robert appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Charles Robert Thatcher was born in Bristol in 1831 where his father was a natural history collector. The family soon moved to Brighton and there they opened a “Foreign Warehouse”. While yet a youth, Thatcher left for London and before long was playing the flute in theatre orchestras. In 1853, however, he emigrated to the goldfields of Victoria. He was unsuccessful as a digger but was able to earn his living by taking part in concerts at Bendigo. Soon he attracted notice by his gift for making up local parodies of well-known tunes which he sang in a pleasing tenor voice. In 1854 the first Thatcher “Locals” were printed in Melbourne as broadsheets. His fame as a comic singer spread, and before long the “inimitable” Thatcher, as he was henceforth known, was able to tour the goldfields as an independent entertainer.

The language of his songs was the racy speech of the diggers, spiced with words and expressions coined by Thatcher himself. Students of Australian and New Zealand slang have found a rich vein in these ballads. The subject-matter of Thatcher's songs was confined at first to episodes of life on the goldfields, the differences between England and Australia, and the troubles of the “new chum” on the diggings. Later, Thatcher branched out into satiric comments on local scandals, private or political. This caused him to become involved in fist fights, horsewhippings, and court cases, but they served to increase his fame and popularity among the diggers. In 1861 he married at Geelong a fellow entertainer, Annie Vitelli, the Australian-born widow of an Italian singing teacher. The Thatchers followed the gold rush to Otago. On 1 March 1862 the “Inimitable” and Madame Vitelli gave their first concert in Dunedin's Commercial Hotel. The solid citizens of Dunedin (the “old identities”, Thatcher called them) affected to despise his vulgarity, but with the immigrant gold miners, the “new iniquity”, he was an immediate success. Unquestionably his song, The Old Identities, was the “hit” of the gold-rush era. One verse runs as follows:

Go on the same old fashion and ne'er improve the town,

And still on all newcomers keep up a fearful “down”,

Touch not that old Post Office, let that old jetty be,

And thus you'll be preserving the Old Identity.

After singing nightly for four months in Dunedin, the Thatchers went on a tour of New Zealand which took them to Auckland and back again to Otago. Early in 1863 they were singing on the goldfields. They appeared at Arrowtown under the auspices of the notorious Bully Hayes, and were for a time at Queenstown where Thatcher ran his own hotel.

After a brief absence in Australia, Thatcher returned to Invercargill in December 1863, and set out on a second tour of New Zealand. From Auckland he visited the British troops at Drury and Queen's Redoubt (now Pokeno) and sang to them in their encampments. In Hokitika, which he reached soon after the opening of the goldfield in 1865, he was the victim of a celebrated hoax when a distinguished gathering presented him with a toy watch instead of the genuine article in gold.

Thatcher left New Zealand in November 1865. For several years he toured Australia with a painted panorama of “Life on the Gold-Fields”, each picture of which he illustrated with songs and anecdotes. In 1869 he brought this exhibit to New Zealand for his third and final tour. Starting at Auckland and the newly opened Thames goldfield, Thatcher and his company, which included another popular comic singer, Joe Small, continued on south, taking in many smaller centres which he had not previously visited. In May 1870, Thatcher's company broke up at Temuka and he left for Australia and then England. He gave up the stage and set up as an art dealer in London's West End. Several times he travelled to the Far East to buy curios and on his last trip, in September 1878, he died at Shanghai of cholera.

The brightly coloured “Songsters” and “Vocalists” which Thatcher published have become collectors' items. The songs themselves remained popular long after his death. “Bush camp classics”, James Cowan called them, and many have been revived and recorded by folksinging groups in New Zealand and Australia.

by Herbert Otto Roth, B.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S., Deputy Librarian, University of Auckland.

• The Colonial Minstrel, Anderson, H. (1960)
• The History of Otago, McLintock, A. H. (1949).

Thames is situated on the south-east coast of the Firth of Thames on the banks of the Kauaeranga River and about 1 mile north of the mouth of the Waihou River. Most of the town occupies a narrow coastal strip of flat land at the western base of the Coromandel Range. On the south the country opens to the wide expanse of the Hauraki Plain. A branch railway from Frankton terminates at the town. By road Thames is 74 miles southeast of Auckland via Pokeno and Kopu (146 miles by rail via Frankton), 68 miles north-east of Hamilton (60 miles by rail), and 35 ½ miles south of Coromandel. Thames is a port for small cargo vessels, but the nearest deep-sea facilities are at Auckland, 42 miles north-west.

The main farming activities of the district are sheep and cattle raising, dairying, market gardening, fruitgrowing (pip, stone, and citrus varieties), and viticulture. Butter is manufactured at Ngatea (13 ½ miles south-west), cheese at Hikutaia (13 ½ miles south-east), casein at Wharepoa (12 ½ miles south-east), and at Turua (9 miles south), and milk powder at Kerepehi (about 14 miles south). Wine is made at Totara (about 2 miles south-east). Flaxmilling is carried on at Ngatea. Timber is logged chiefly from the western slopes of the Coromandel Range and there are sawmills at Matatoki (7 miles south-east) and at Ngatea. Exotic plantations in the Kauaeranga Valley, extending north-east of Thames, are managed by the New Zealand Forest Service. Thames is a trade and servicing centre with associated secondary industries. It is also an important base for commercial fishing in the Firth of Thames and elsewhere in Hauraki Gulf. Town industrial activities include fish packing and curing; sawmilling; general engineering; the manufacture of steel tubes and other products of heavy, medium, and light metal industries; concrete products; knitwear and other clothing. There is a brass foundry at Parawai on the south-east of the borough. Since the late 1950s active re-examination of old gold workings has been undertaken and there has been some prospecting for new ore bodies.

The Thames district was settled by the Ngati Maru. On 16 November 1769 Captain James Cook in his ship Endeavour cast anchor off Tararu Point, about 2 miles north-west of the present town, and made a short excursion on the Waihou River by ship's boat. In 1794–95 the Fancy, seeking spars for East India Company naval vessels, landed sawyers and an Indian guard in the vicinity of Thames. HMS Coromandel brought the Rev. Samuel Marsden to the district in June-July 1820. In 1821 Hongi Hika and a large war party arrived in the district and, by an act of treachery, captured the impregnable Te Totara pa and killed at least 1,000 inhabitants. The Rev. Henry Williams and party passed through the district in October 1833 and chose a site for a mission at Te Puriri (now Puriri, 9 miles south-east). The site proved to be unhealthy and in 1838 the station, occupied by the Rev. James Preece since 1834, was transferred to Parawai (part of the present town of Thames). Preece worked there until 1847. On 27 July 1867 J. Mackay, Civil Commissioner for the Hauraki district, secured gold-mining rights from three Maori chiefs. In August Mackay laid out the town of Shortland and brought a party of 40 miners and officials from Auckland. A general rush followed. The first important reef, called the Shotover, was discovered on 10 August by William Hunt; it lay beneath a waterfall on Kuranui Stream. Gold to the value of nearly £2,000,000 was produced in the peak year of 1871. Although there was occasional heavy production in certain subsequent years, the output of the field steadily declined until, by 1924, it had almost ceased. Renewed activities since the late 1950s have produced no spectacular results.

Shortland quickly became a compact town with a wharf and good port facilities for small vessels in the nearby river. Robert Graham secured a lease for a township – Grahamstown, which was laid out according to a Government plan. There were some major mining properties nearby and a deep-sea wharf was built at Tararu Point and connected to the township by railway. These two towns merged into one residential area after 1870 and, together, became known as Thames. Shipping services on the Waihou River had extended to Te Aroha by the early 1880s. All shipping on the river ceased in 1947. It was not until the early 1880s that a road suitable for wheeled traffic was opened between Thames and Te Aroha. Thames was linked to Te Aroha and Hamilton by rail on 19 December 1898. The borough of Thames was constituted on 8 November 1873. The name is derived from that given the Waihou River by Captain Cook.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 4,551; 1956 census, 5,001; 1961 census, 5,314.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

(1874?–1952).

“Yellow Peril” fanatic.

A new biography of Terry, Edward Lionel appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Lionel Terry was born in Kent, probably in 1874. He is said to have come of a well-to-do family, allegedly related to Napoleon. Terry claimed to have been educated at Eton and Oxford. In 1892 he enlisted in the Royal Artillery at Woolwich but transferred soon afterwards to the Royal Horse Guards. More than 6 ft in height and of athletic build, he served as a private, doing guard duty at Whitehall. In September 1895 Terry bought his discharge. After studying art for a time in London, he went to South Africa where he joined the mounted police in Bulawayo. His travels later took him to the United States and Canada where he is said to have been secretary of a trade union.

Terry arrived in New Zealand in May 1903 and found employment in the Head Office of the Department of Lands and Survey. A few months later he left for Taihape where he worked at bush felling and announced his intention of buying land and settling down. In 1904, however, he was back in the Department, which sent him as a surveyor to Mangonui in North Auckland. In South Africa, and later in British Columbia and the western United States, where he lived and worked in close contact with Chinese immigrants, Terry had become obsessed with a hatred for coloured races. His lonely existence in Mangonui increased this obsession. He wrote a pamphlet entitled The Shadow containing a lengthy introduction on the need for racial purity and two poems on the same theme. Dedicated “To my Brother Britons”, he had this printed in Auckland with a crudely executed melodramatic cover by his own hand. On 19 July 1905 Terry left Mangonui and walked 878 miles to Wellington through Auckland and the Rotorua district. Everywhere on the way he handed out copies of his pamphlet. When he arrived in Wellington, on 14 September, he went to interview members of Parliament and the Commissioner of Customs to urge action against coloured immigration. He also wrote to Dr Maui Pomare suggesting that the Maori people be confined to Stewart Island and the Chathams. Meeting with little response and, in an effort to arouse from apathy “the Pig Islanders” – as he called his fellow New Zealanders, Terry took the dramatic step of murdering an elderly Chinese in Haining Street on the night of 24 September 1905. His victim, Joe Kum Yung, was a penniless semi-invalid almost 70 years of age, who had spent most of his life mining for gold in Westland. Shot through the head, Kum Yung died soon afterwards in hospital. Next day Terry surrendered to the police, handing in his revolver and a copy of The Shadow to explain his crime. His trial aroused tremendous interest in New Zealand and overseas. On 27 November, he was sentenced to death by the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, but two days later his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Terry was sent to the Sunnyside Mental Hospital but, after several escape attempts, he was transferred to Seacliff Mental Hospital where he remained till his death. He spent his time gardening, walking, reading, and writing verse. At times he succeeded in escaping, thus reviving interest in his case. In his later years, Terry became convinced that he was a second Messiah. He wore a white robe and sandals, grew a beard and long hair down to his shoulders, and spoke of the menace of communism. He died at Seacliff on 20 August 1952.

by Herbert Otto Roth, B.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S., Deputy Librarian, University of Auckland.

• The Kaiwarra Mystery and More Famous Trials, Carson, W. H., and Sheehan, J. R. (1935)
• Freedom, 10 Sep 1952, “The Strange Story of Lionel Terry”, Hardwick, J. M. D.