The construction of the Main Trunk railway provided the initial impetus to the settlement of the region. Europeans, especially missionaries, had appeared on the fringes of the region in the earliest period of settlement. The Wesleyans were established at Kawhia Harbour in 1834 and at Arapae (near Piopio) in 1843, and at this period prosperous Maori farms were established north of Otorohanga. As a result of the Maori Wars, most of this prosperity was destroyed and in 1864 the boundaries of the King Country were drawn, prohibiting white settlement south of Te Awamutu. The prohibition was lifted in 1885 and two years later Te Kuiti became the railhead. From that time until after the First World War, European settlement pushed southwards, eventually linking with pioneer farms established along the Main Trunk in the valley of the Rangitikei and towards Ohakune and with those which had been established along the Stratford-Whangamomona route.

In 1911, three years after the completion of the Main Trunk, the total population numbered only 15,043 and Te Kuiti and Taumarunui each had few more than 1,000 people. By 1936 the population had doubled, both in the rural and in urban areas, but in the following 15 years the rural population increased by only 167 persons. These general figures obscure a number of divergent trends. The population of the dairying areas, as represented by Otorohanga County, continued to increase (by 700 persons) and the more favoured ridings of Clifton County increased slightly or maintained their population. In Waitomo County the population of the Tangitu riding increased by 633, the Mahoenui riding by 190, whilst the population of the Aria and Awakino ridings decreased by 268 and 305. The total population, both of Ohura and of Whangamomona counties, fell by 273 and 500. It was in Whangamomona that the most spectacular and therefore the most memorable setbacks to pioneering ambitions occurred, as is evidenced by the case of Aotuhia.

The only way to appreciate the Western Uplands is from the air; on the ground the view is restricted to one isolated and confined valley. An observer on a flight from Wellington to Auckland can judge the extent, remoteness, and limited degree to which settlement has penetrated the area. From the coastal area between Wanganui and Patea, clay and metal roads strike inland like the fingers of a splayed hand. Along them the green of exotic pastures contrasts with the denser colours of the bush and the regenerated bush areas which cover the ridges separating the valleys. Eventually the roads come to an end and virgin forest prevails, until further north the same pattern is repeated by the roads reaching down towards the southern extremities of the Waikato. The bush hides the heavily dissected nature of the terrain which has made settlement so costly and often a failure. The region is underlain largely by the same Tertiary deposits which are found in the Wanganui-Rangitikei region, but the more westerly location is associated with a very high rainfall of 60–80 in. and in the higher parts of 80–100 in. High rainfall, combined with inaccessibility and infertile soils, has provided the greatest barrier to successful human occupancy.

It is impossible to cross the region from north to south, even though the Wanganui River flows through the greater part of the district, since the road which follows it ends at Pipiriki. One must traverse the region from Stratford in the west, following the railway line (completed in 1932) as far as Ohura, and then proceed to Taumarunui, where nearby the Stratford line joins the Main Trunk. The only major settlements along this section are Whangamomona, accounting in 1961 for 186 persons, and Ohura (654), whose development is linked with a number of small coalfields. The total output of lignite and sub-bituminous coal is negligible: 130,810 tons, or 4·34 per cent of the national output in 1960. A better route runs from Ahititi on the New Plymouth – Hamilton State Highway (Number 3) eastward to Ohura and then via Tokirima to Taumarunui. Except for tourists, who use the Whangamomona Road, this is the preferred route. The New Plymouth – Hamilton highway stays close to the coast until it crosses the mouth of the Mokau River (bridged only in 1927). It then turns inland along the valley of the Awakino and Mahoenui, where some of the better class farming land of the region is to be seen. The valleys are deep and broad, but large areas of scrub and regeneration create an impression of untidiness. Before reaching Piopio (population, 457) quite good views are obtained across the region. The accordance of summits at about 1,000 ft is very apparent; the only break in the level surface is created by Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu.

A little to the north of Piopio, at Eight-mile Junction, the New Plymouth – Hamilton highway is joined by Highway Number 4, connecting the Waikato with Taumarunui and National Park. Taumarunui is the only settlement of any size in the district, owing its importance to its function as a centre for the local farming and timber-milling populations and to its location upon the railroad. Highway 4 follows a course determined by the ridge and valley pattern so characteristic of the region, the landscape being composed of store-sheep farms, timber-milling settlements, and areas of bush and reversion. The overwhelming impression is of an environment disrupted by human occupancy, but never mastered. To the north of Piopio and a little beyond Te Kuiti lies the southern Waikato dairying district, with a landscape that seems in contrast to be all man-made.

The Western Uplands, or King Country region, is a broad extent of hill country which lies to the west of Lake Taupo and Ruapehu and reaches the coast between Kawhia and Urenui. The region is referred to under a variety of names, the term King Country stressing its historical associations and the term North Taranaki stressing its provincial associations. Inland Taranaki is purely locational in emphasis and Western Uplands is quite neutral and recent in origin. No name has become the customary one – hence the dual title. Four counties, Otorohanga, Waitomo, Taumarunui, and Clifton, together with their interior boroughs, are the principal units for the collection of statistics. Their limits exceed the boundaries of the hill country so that Clifton County includes a portion of the rich Taranaki dairying land, and Otorohanga County lies at the southern extremity of the richer and lower Waikato region. The southern part is included within the counties of Patea and Stratford, in which has been incorporated Whangamomona County, one of the most renowned districts of the region. While reference is made to this county, no account of it is given in the statistical tables. The heavy maintenance costs arising out of the rugged topography of the region and the problem of financing four county council administrations out of the pockets of a limited number of ratepayers are shown in the recent elimination of a number of counties. Kawhia County, once part of Waitomo County, was established as a separate unit, only to be divided subsequently between Waitomo and Otorohanga counties. Few people will remember there was once an Awakino County, now part of Waitomo. Taumarunui County now incorporates both Ohura and Kaitieke counties, and for both of them and Kawhia, no separate figures are shown. In 1961 the total population of the region was 41,516, 25·50 per cent of which were Maoris, and it represented 1·71 per cent of the national total. There are only two towns of any size, Te Kuiti (4,492) and Taumarunui (4,961).

The King Country, or Rohe Potae, was originally a large tract of the western central North Island and comprised the tribal lands of Ngati Maniapoto, Ngati Tama, Ngati Tuwharetoa (the portion lying west and south of Lake Taupo), the Waikato lands which escaped confiscation, and the northern fringes of Ngati Ruanui and Ngati Hau lands. The district lay principally in the Auckland Province but there were extensive portions in Wellington and Taranaki and, at one point, a contiguous boundary with Hawke's Bay. Its northern boundary was the Puniu Stream, which marked the extent of the Waikato tribal territories confiscated after the Maori Wars. In Taranaki the confiscation line (north of Waitara) was another boundary. Both of these lines were proclaimed under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863; but, beyond these proclamations, the boundaries could only be guessed.

Europeans called the area “the King Country” because it was here that Tawhiao sought refuge following the Maori Wars. It was terra incognita to the colonial Government and a place of refuge for all who refused to make peace with the Queen. Maoris knew the district as Rohe Potae (“the edge or brim of the hat”) which name arose – according to tribal tradition – because Tawhiao threw his hat on a large map of the North Island in order to demonstrate the area he claimed. Within this district the “King” ruled as an independent monarch and strangers entered his realms at their own risk.

In the 1880s the colonial Government negotiated with several influential chiefs to have the King Country boundaries delineated. On 19 December 1883, at Kihikihi, S. P. Smith, the Chief Surveyor for Auckland Provincial District, reached an agreement with Wahanui, Taonui, Rewi Maniapoto, and other chiefs “to make an accurate survey of the external boundaries of the block, in order that a Crown Grant might issue to the tribes possessing it”. The survey (triangulation) commenced on 8 January 1884 and was completed by 30 July of the same year.

As a result of this survey the boundary of the King Country was defined for the first time. It ran from the west coast at a point due west of Oporangi Lake, curved east-north-east to Pirongia Mountain; then east-south-east, to cross the Waipa River and followed a line, parallel to the Puniu Stream, to meet the Waikato River slightly east of Rotongata Lake. The boundary then followed the south bank of the Waikato River to the Waipapa Stream, where it turned south to enter Lake Taupo at Whangamata Bay. It crossed Lake Taupo to Mt. Motuopa and turned south-south-east to reach the Kaimanawa Range at the headwaters of the Whitikau Stream. It followed the mountain crests, paralleling the Rangitikei River to the headwaters of the Whangaehu River, before curving westwards to the headwaters of the Upper Waikato River, and Paretetaitonga (Ruapehu). From Te Kohatu it turned north-north-west to Panepane, and then curved westwards, skirting the Waimarino Plains, to meet the Wanganui River at the Whenuatere Stream. It then followed the southern boundary of Ngato Maniapoto tribal lands westward to meet the Taranaki confiscation line near Mt. Tatu. From there it followed the confiscation line and the boundaries of the Mohakatino, Parininihi and Mokau-Mohakatino Blocks northwards to, then westwards along the Mokau River. It turned north again to follow the eastern outline of the Awakino, Taumatamaire, and Pauroa Blocks to the Whenuikua Stream, where it turned west to meet the coast at the north of the Hiakomako Stream. All land within this boundary – about 7,000 square miles in all – formed the King Country Block.

Since the survey was made, many portions of the King Country have been opened for settlement, and much land has been sold or leased to settlers. Te Kuiti, Taumarunui, and Otorohanga, which were once Maori villages, are now thriving towns. No vestige of the Maori “King's” independent “principality” remains but, for many years, the district was subject to special provisions about the sale of liquor. This took place on 3 December 1884 when the Government of the day issued a Proclamation under section 25 of the Licensing Act of 1881. There was nothing secret about this action (for years there was talk in some quarters of a secret “pact” or “pledge”); any other Maori district, if it so desired, could be declared a no-licence area under the Act of 1881.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

(The spelling of certain place names in this article is in accordance with that on the original survey map. Ed.)

• Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives: C–1, Sess. II, 1884
• G–9, 1885; H–25, 1953, “Liquor and the King Country”, McLintock, A. H.;The New Zealand Wars, Cowan, J. (1955)
• The King Country, Kerry-Nicholls, H. (1884).

(1858–1938).

Medical reformer.

A new biography of King, Frederic Truby appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Frederic Truby King was the fifth child of Thomas King, an original member of the Committee of Colonists appointed in October 1840 at Plymouth, Devon, to make arrangements for the New Plymouth and Taranaki settlement, under the aegis of the New Zealand Company.

Thomas King was educated at the City of London School and at Oxford, which he represented for a time in Parliament. He was among the first colonists of the New Plymouth settlement to obtain a title to a sizeable farm holding, whilst at the same time retaining an interest in trading. In 1846 he married Mary Chillman, daughter of Richard Chillman, who was one of the original New Plymouth settlers. Thomas King was of an independent turn of mind and exercised his many qualities of intelligence and personality in the community interests, becoming Provincial Treasurer for Taranaki and serving as a provincial representative in Parliament in 1854, 1855, and again in 1860. From 1861 until his retirement in 1878, he was manager of the Bank of New Zealand at New Plymouth.

Frederic was born at New Plymouth on 1 April 1858. The King household, despite the troublous times of the early settlement, was a happy one. At the age of two, Frederic, together with “all women and children without distinction”, was evacuated by sea from New Plymouth to Nelson in August 1860 when New Plymouth was closely besieged by Maori forces who later burned the Mangorei homestead on Thomas King's holding. Young Frederic, stimulated by a gifted tutor, Henry Richmond, and encouraged by Thomas King's family reading, showed early promise as a scholar. After a brief experience of banking at New Plymouth and Masterton, Frederic turned his interests to medicine and, in 1880, he set off to commence studies at Edinburgh. En route he spent some weeks in Paris, where Charcot's demonstrations of hysteria and neurological disorders made a lifelong impression. Although Truby King believed that he lacked the temperament for competitive scholarship, he gained distinction in logic in his “Preliminaries” and, in addition, read history and “dabbled” in Greek, both of which were outside the curriculum. In his second professional he passed with honours and was medallist in all three subjects. Subsequently, he graduated M.B., C.M. with honours in 1886. Despite some manifestation of a family susceptibility to tuberculosis, and some loss of vision in his left eye, he went on to complete the then newly instituted B.Sc. in Public Health (Edinburgh).

Early attracted to surgery, Truby King was appointed resident surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 1887. In October of that year he married Bella Coburn Millar. Shortly afterwards he was appointed medical superintendent of the Wellington General Hospital. The Kings were not long in Wellington. In April 1889, he left to take up the appointment of medical superintendent at the Seacliff Mental Hospital, then the largest in the colony. At the same time he was lecturer in mental diseases, University of Otago.

Between 1889 and 1907, when the Plunket Society was formally inaugurated, Truby King made notable contributions in the field of psychological medicine, medical jurisprudence, nutrition, agriculture, control of coastal erosion, child care, and alcoholism. Many of his early achievements and successful innovations in the widely differing fields that engaged his attentions have largely been obscured by the acclaim of his mothercraft and child-care movements and the intense popular support accorded it by women's organisations. A contributory factor to the undeserved obscurity which has overtaken many of Truby King's early achievements was his reluctance “to bother about scraps of paper” and his preference for unusual channels of communication for much of his work. For example, he made ingenious use of the annual report of his hospital to the Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals as his preferred organ of publication. But the path of reform was not an easy one to follow.

Within his hospital some of Truby King's dietary innovations, privileges accorded to patients, discipline imposed on staff, and public expenditure incurred for the improvement of the needs of patient care, aroused considerable opposition that was effectively dispersed by a Commission of Inquiry which completely vindicated him. To Truby King must be given the credit of establishing, with every encouragement from Duncan McGregor, Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals, the first open reception and early treatment ward in New Zealand, named by him “The Cottage”, at Seacliff in 1898; and for extending the principle to Simla Ward in the following year. Truby King's advocacy of small and dispersed wards led to the very early formulation of the villa hospital principle in New Zealand and this policy was put into effect on an enduring basis when Tokanui Hospital was founded in 1912.

Truby King had, to a remarkable degree, the capacity of focusing his attention and energies on whatever problem was engaging his interest at the time. Often, to the onlooker, he appeared preoccupied or even absentminded, as indeed he was in matters of time and in the observance of customary routine. Working long and unusual hours as the spirit moved him, he sometimes forgot that most other people lived otherwise. Very early in his term of office at Seacliff, when there was widespread lack of understanding of his dietary and occupational innovations, he said, “I am always at my best in the face of opposition or fighting for a forlorn hope”. Opposition acted as a stimulus, and difficulties existed to be overcome, often by most unorthodox means. His hospital needed a bakery extension; a derelict mission building at Karitane was moved to serve the needs. A nurse was needed for the first Karitane baby; he prevailed on one of his hospital nursing staff to undertake the work. He needed a larger output of emulsified fat for his artificial feeds; power was supplied by an additional driving wheel and belt on the hospital stone crusher.

Within less than a year of the foundation of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, now so much better known as the Plunket Society, Truby King turned much of his energies and attention to three other activities: the influence of dental disease in his hospital patients on their general health and mental state; the nutritional requirements of potatoes and other crops in differing soils at Seacliff and Orokonui; and alcoholism – an interest which had led to his taking over the administration of the Orokonui Inebriates Home at Waitati, near Dunedin.

By 1912, Truby King, ably supported by his wife, was devoting more and more of his energies to the work of the Plunket Society. In 1913 he was appointed to represent New Zealand at the Child Welfare Conference in London. Four years later he was invited to establish in England work similar to that of the Plunket Society. In 1919 he was appointed one of the British Representatives at the Inter-allied Red Cross Conference at Cannes and, subsequently, visited Austria and Poland on behalf of the War Victims Relief Committee.

Soon after his return to New Zealand in 1921 he was offered the post of Director of Child Welfare in the Department of Health. He resigned his mental hospital appointment and Otago lectureship to take up his new duties. Three years later, owing to the illness of the then Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals, Truby King was appointed Acting Inspector-General. His report for 1924 to Sir Maui Pomare also embraced “matters to date bearing on the further development and organisation of mental hospital services”, in which he made many important recommendations regarding early treatment, “preventive psychiatry”, nutrition, the need for outpatient services staffed jointly by physicians from the public and mental hospitals, and for new reception units. Concerning certain expedients then in vogue, he aptly remarked that “nothing could be more depressing and dispiriting than a fortuitously assembled group of patients (male or female) isolated as a small community compelled to live together on the mere ground of their manifestations of insanity being recent and being deemed curable …. Such patients tend to be self-centred, depressed and (for a time at least) more or less uncompanionable”.

In 1917 Truby King received the C.M.G. and in 1925 he was knighted. He continued to combine the posts of Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals and Director of Child Health in the Health Department. His annual reports for 1925 contained many passages which revealed the extent to which his work with the Plunket Society had led him to recognise the increasing importance of Health Education. In 1927 he retired from his Government appointments and devoted much of his declining energies in his retirement to the enjoyment of the rhododendrons and gardens around his home at Melrose, Wellington, adjoining the Karitane Hospital. Following the death of Lady King in 1927, his social outlets were gradually restricted, and many of his eccentricities became more pronounced. He died on 10 February 1937 at Wellington and was accorded a State funeral.

The world-wide recognition of Sir Truby King's pioneer work in the feeding and management of infants – infant mortality in New Zealand falling from 88·8 to 309 per 1,000 childbirths in the last 30 years of his life – has tended to obscure his other contributions to knowledge in the fields of plant and livestock nutrition, psychological medicine, health education, and plant acclimatisation.

R. M. Burdon, in his New Zealand Notables, gives the following vignette of Truby King as he appeared in middle age: “… still slim and slight of frame, he had begun to stoop a little from the shoulders. In repose his features had an air of melancholy which disappeared at once when his interest was aroused. His head was massive, his hair dark and abundant. A strong prominent chin, full but firmly closed lips and a clipped military moustache suggested a soldier or administrator, but the large, sad, sombre eyes were those of a visionary …”. The cause he worked for was more important to him than the well-being of any individual connected with it. He was impatient of opposition and cared nothing for conciliating opponents. His intransigence often alienated those in authority who opposed him, but, in the long run, even they came to admit the soundness of the views he had put forward. Truby King was a very forceful public speaker and, with his material always meticulously prepared beforehand, could dominate any meetings at which he spoke.

by Geoffrey Blake-Palmer, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., D.P.M., L.D.S., R.C.S., L.R.C.S., Director, Division of Mental Health, Department of Health, Wellington.

• New Zealand Notables (Second Series), Burdon, R. M. (1945)

(1882–1939).

Magnetician and meteorologist.

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

Edward Kidson was born on 12 March 1882 at Bilston, Staffordshire, England. In 1884 his parents moved to New Zealand and took up residence first at Nelson and then at Christchurch. Kidson received the first part of his secondary education at Nelson College and later attended the Christchurch Boys' High School. While there, he won successively a junior and senior national scholarship and proceeded to Canterbury University College. At Canterbury he won a senior scholarship and in 1906 graduated M.Sc. with first-class honours in physics. He also completed the honours course in mathematics and was awarded the degree of M.A. in 1907. After a short time on the staff of the Magnetic Observatory at Christchurch, Kidson accepted an appointment with the Carnegie Institution of Washington and worked with them from 1908 to 1914 on magnetic survey duties in many countries. These included South America, Newfoundland, and Australia.

In 1915 Kidson joined the British Meteorological Office with a view to taking up military service overseas. He was gazetted a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and in 1916 proceeded to Salonika to join the Meteorological Section at the headquarters of the British Salonika Force. In 1917 he became officer commanding the section and was promoted to the rank of Captain. While serving with the Meteorological Section, he developed military forecasting services and was especially concerned with the application of meteorology to gunnery. For this work he was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the O.B.E.

After the war he resumed work with the Carnegie Institution, and in 1919 was placed in charge of the new magnetic observatory then being set up by the institution at Watheroo in Western Australia. This post meant a considerable degree of scientific isolation for Kidson and it is not surprising that in 1921 he accepted an appointment in Melbourne with the Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau. In taking this step, Kidson seems to have finally decided on meteorology as his life work, and from henceforth we find him working only in this field. While at Melbourne he carried out a considerable amount of meteorological research and was awarded the degree of D.Sc. by the University of New Zealand for his photographic determinations of cloud heights.

In 1927 he was appointed Director of the New Zealand Meteorological Service and immediately threw himself into the task of expanding the work of the Service to meet the rapidly increasing demands of the times. During these years Kidson published many original scientific papers on the weather and climate of New Zealand, and also found time to prepare meteorological studies with a wider background. He was specially interested in upper-air research and its bearing on the planetary air circulation in the Southern Hemisphere. In this connection Kidson showed much interest in the circulation prevailing in high southern latitudes and paid great attention to the results of the various Antarctic expeditions. He was the author of the volume on meteorology published in the Reports on the Scientific Observations of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1907–1909, and during the last 10 years of his life much of his time was spent in compiling the meteorological results of the various expeditions led by Sir Douglas Mawson. As a result of these works Kidson was regarded as one of the world authorities on Antarctic meteorology. In addition to his Antarctic work and his studies of New Zealand weather and climate, Kidson also pioneered the introduction of frontal and air-mass analysis (then being developed by the Scandinavian meteorologists) into the Australian – New Zealand region. In furtherance of this work he twice visited Norway and returned to New Zealand with first-hand knowledge of the latest developments in this field. He died at Wellington on 12 June 1939 at the age of 57.

Kidson was the first New Zealand meteorologist with a thorough training in mathematics and physics. Apart from his personal scientific output, his main achievement in this country was the establishment of the Meteorological Service on a firm scientific basis, while at the same time directing the rapid expansion of forecasting and climato-logical services to meet the urgent demands of the community.

by Jack William Hutchings, B.A., M.SC., Senior Principal Meteorologist, Meteorological Service, Wellington.

• Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Vol. 69, May 1940 (Obit).

Cape Kidnappers is at the southern end of Hawke Bay, on the east coast of the North Island. The name Kidnappers refers to an incident during Cook's first voyage when an attempt was made to trade with the occupants of an armed canoe. Tiata, the Tahitian servant of Tupia, Cook's interpreter, was seized by the Maoris and escaped by jumping into the sea when the canoe was fired on. The cape was named to commemorate the event; Sunday, 15 October 1769. The cape lies 7 miles by coastal route, negotiable between tides on foot or bicycle, from Clifton at the far eastern edge of the Heretaunga (Ahuriri) Plains. There is also an inland route which passes through private farm land. The high plateau area between Kidnappers and Clifton is deeply gullied and accessible from the shore by a few routes only. The cliffs behind the beach are vertical and largely unclimbable. The plan shape of the cape is an acute-angled triangle. It is flat, probably a sea-cut bench at a height of between 200 and 300 ft, rising moderately steeply at its inland edge. It is composed of Lower Pliocene (Opoitian) blue-grey sandy mudstone, with large irregular calcareous concretions.

The cape is the site of a thriving gannetry which has grown in numbers in the last few years to the point that nesting now occurs as far as the inland edge of the rising slope from the cape plateau, and outlying colonies nest on the stacks of nearby Black Reef. The gannetry is administered by a domain board and permits to visit it are issued by the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Napier.

The Maori name for Cape Kidnappers is Mataupo Maui – the fish hook of Maui. Another less common name is Tapuwaeroa – the long footsteps. These, according to legend, were made by the giant Rongokako who left other impressions of his feet at Mahia and East Cape.

by Thomas Ludovic Grant-Taylor, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

(1820–62).

Surveyor, explorer, and politician.

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

Charles Henry Kettle was born in 1820 at Sandwich in Kent. He received a good education and became a mathematics master at Faversham School, Kent. In 1839 he decided to emigrate to the New Zealand Company's incipient settlement at Port Nicholson, and arrived there in the Oriental on 31 January 1840. Kettle joined the New Zealand Company's survey staff under Mein Smith who put his mathematical accomplishments to good use. For the next two years he explored and surveyed at Wellington, Hutt, and Porirua districts. In May 1842 Kettle and Alfred Wills made a notable exploration, crossing the Tararuas from the west side into the Wairarapa, and then traversing the Rimutakas to Port Nicholson.

In the following year Kettle returned to England where he became interested in George Rennie's proposals for the establishment of a Scottish colony in southern New Zealand. He visited Edinburgh with Rennie and noted its features in anticipation of their partial application to the proposed “New Edinburgh” site in New Zealand. In due course the New Zealand Company appointed Kettle as surveyor and civil engineer for a three-year period. Shortly before leaving England he married Amelia Omer, and the young couple sailed for New Zealand in the Mary Catherine which arrived at Otago Harbour on 23 February 1846.

The Otago Block, extending from Otago Harbour to Nugget Point (a little south of the modern Balclutha) had been purchased by the Government in 1844 on the recommendation of the New Zealand Company's Surveyor, Frederick Tuckett. Tuckett's successor, William Davison, had surveyed a portion of the harbour and the neighbouring coastline before Kettle's arrival. Kettle, however, was the organiser and supervisor of the first effective survey of most of the Otago Block. The work in the Otago Harbour area was done for the most part by Kettle and his assistants, while the rural and suburban surveys were let out to contractors. Late in 1846, when the plans of the port town of Koputai (later Port Chalmers) were finished, Kettle moved his headquarters and residence to Dunedin, then little more than a wilderness, at the head of the harbour. Here, despite difficult topography, Kettle and his assistants laid out the future town and, by the time the first settlers arrived from Scotland in March 1848, the survey was almost completed.

In 1851 Kettle made two inland expeditions while inspecting lands for settlement west of the Otago Block and contributed considerably to the exploration of the province. In 1854 he took up land as a sheep farmer in the Clutha district but returned to Dunedin in 1860. In the following year he was elected to the House of Representatives as member for Bruce, and in 1862 J. L. C. Richardson appointed him Provincial Auditor for Otago. Kettle died at his home, “Littlebourne”, Dunedin, on 5 June 1862, a victim of the typhoid epidemic caused by the city's lack of sanitation following its sudden expansion during the gold-rush era.

In the early years of the Otago Scottish Free Church Settlement, when the official class in Dunedin – mainly Englishmen – were at logger-heads with the Scots who dubbed them the “Little Enemy”, Kettle, a staunch Anglican, faced much hostility. But he gradually lived this down and was in time regarded by the community as a man of mark. On the occasion of his death the Otago Colonist paid him this tribute: “He had a most liberal, enlightened mind, and his christianity was full of charity to his fellow men, and singularly free from every particle of bigotry or narrow sectarianism.”

by Charles Andrew Sharp, B.A.(OXON.), M.A.(N.Z.), Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• History of Otago, McLintock, A. H. (1949)
• Otago Colonist, 24 Jun 1862 (supplement).

(1901– ).

Theatre magnate.

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

Robert James Kerridge was born at Banks Peninsula on 29 October 1901. He entered commercial life by joining the Booth McDonald Co. in Christchurch and then moved to Gisborne in 1918 where he opened the Kerridge Commercial College. For a time he managed a motor transport company on the East Coast, but in 1927 he acquired a controlling interest in Gisborne Theatres Ltd. and in 1943 New Zealand Theatres Ltd. (Kemball interests). Two years later he acquired the Fuller interests, followed in 1947 by those of J. C. Williamson, thus giving him in all a circuit of 130 theatres. In addition he controls today a number of smaller merchandising concerns in conjunction with his theatre circuit. Since 1946 Kerridge has been associated with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation. He was knighted in 1962.

The most remarkable feature of the Pacific Ocean floor in the vicinity of New Zealand is the long, narrow, and very deep Kermadec Trench that runs north-easterly towards Tonga in the general direction of the main mountain axis of the North Island. The Kermadec Islands stand on the inner edge of it in latitude 30° S and longitude 178° W, some 600 miles north-east of Auckland. Instability of this part of the ocean floor is reflected in the volcanic structure of the islands, the evidence of volcanic activity in the recent past, and the frequency of local and sometimes severe earthquakes.

The biggest island of the group is Raoul (or Sunday) Island (7,260 acres), of volcanic origin with a large crater occupying much of its area. Though the highest point is only 1,760 ft, its surface is broken by deep ravines and rocky spurs that end at the sea in steep cliffs. North-west of it is the little group of the Herald Islets, seven in all and of similar volcanic origin, and a little to the south are Curtis, Macauley, and L'Esperance Islets. These, too, are of volcanic origin with evidence of recent activity in Curtis Island.

Macauley and Curtis were discovered by Lieutenant Watts, RN, in 1780, but it was d'Entrecasteaux who found the whole group in 1785 and gave it the name Kermadec after the captain of one of his ships l'Esperance. The first settlers (Baker and Reid) came in 1837 and lived by growing potatoes and subtropical crops for sale to visiting whalers. The islands were abandoned on account of volcanic action in 1872, but in 1878 settlement started again with the coming of the Bell family. The last of these was evacuated on the outbreak of war in 1914. It was in this war that the island group became better known in connection with the German raider Wolf and the recapture there of Count von Luckner. The islands were formally annexed by New Zealand in 1886. Settlement since the 1914–18 war has been sporadic and unsuccessful, mainly on account of the isolation of the group.

Before and during the 1939–45 war, new interest was taken by the New Zealand Government in setting up a military outpost, and later some Cook Islanders were settled there to grow oranges. At present a meteorological and radio station is maintained on Raoul (Sunday) Island. The total population of this, the only inhabited member of the group, including the official staff of the station, numbers only 10.

by George Jobberns, C.B.E., M.A., D.SC., Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of Canterbury.