When the rain forest of the North Island was felled and burnt, the hills were surface sown with the seed of English grasses and clovers. Pastures usually established well on the ash of the forest fires and the accumulated humus, but the early farmers were unable, in most cases, to provide sufficient stock to eat the rank grass and control the fern, manuka, and other woody weeds which soon appeared in many localities. At that stage of hill-country development, cattle of the right kind were unprocurable in numbers adequate to control the grass and weed growth and, mainly as a consequence of this shortage, large tracts of the newly brought-in hill country reverted to second growth. A cattle beast to every five or seven sheep was considered necessary wherever there was a real threat of second growth invading the pasture, but this stocking ratio was seldom attained. Nevertheless, a tradition was established in the use of cattle which remained their dominant and unique role in the pastoral economy of New Zealand. Thus beef cattle, employed as “animated mowing machines”, have been responsible largely for controlling the woody weeds of the unploughable hill country as well as for maintaining the excellent quality of many of the pastures of the flats.

Beef cattle, when grazed in conjunction with sheep, prevent the grass from becoming too rank and unpalatable for sheep. There is a belief that sheep thrive better when mature cattle are associated with them because they perchance eat, along with grass, the infective larvae of the internal parasites of sheep, which fail to develop in the digestive tract of adult cattle. Cattle also alter the botanical composition of the pasture sward so that the finer grasses and the clovers relished by sheep are likely to be more abundant. The grazing together of the two species of animals is therefore probably of greater value to the sheep than the cattle, but there is insufficient profit in beef cattle to make them an attractive undertaking on their own. High land values, the slow biological turnover of generations, and relatively low prices for beef are the prime reasons why beef cattle production as the major enterprise is undertaken on only 14 percent of the 90,290 classified farm holdings in New Zealand. The unfavourable monetary returns from beef production accounts for its lower rate of expansion in comparison with wool and lamb. Until there is a substantial improvement in the financial gains from beef production, cattle in New Zealand will remain secondary in importance to sheep.

1. Aberdeen Angus. This breed came from northeastern Scotland. Aberdeen Angus cattle are hornless (hence sometimes referred to as Polled Angus). When they are mated to horned animals, their offspring are polled. The coat colour is black, sometimes tinged with brown at birth and in winter. The body conformation of cattle of this breed is regarded as being closest to the ideal. The animals are early maturing but are smaller than those of most other beef breeds. The Aberdeen Angus is now the most popular beef breed in New Zealand and is found in a wide range of environments.

2. Hereford. From its home in Herefordshire, cattle of the Hereford breed are now found in large numbers in all cattle-raising countries. There are two types of Herefords: horned and polled. The Polled Hereford was evolved in the United States of America and is gaining rapidly in numbers there and in other countries, including New Zealand. Herefords have white heads, necks, dewlaps, and underlines; the colour of the remainder of the coat ranges in intensity from a deep cherry-red to yellow-red. The cattle are docile and good rustlers and their beef propensities are not far behind those of the Aberdeen Angus. In New Zealand these two breeds are often crossed to produce offspring with the desirable qualities of both. The progeny of this cross are black with white faces and are polled.

3. Shorthorn. County Durham is regarded as the cradle of the Shorthorn breed where the brothers Charles and Robert Colling (1749–1836) were its first improvers, but others (Thomas Bates, 1775–1849, the Booth family in Yorkshire, and Amos Cruickshank, 1808–95, in Aberdeen) also played an important part in developing the breed. Originally Durham cattle were dual-purpose animals but the Booth family and Amos Cruickshank developed a beef type, and later the breed was divided into the Milking Shorthorn and the Beef or Scotch Shorthorn. The Beef Shorthorn, like the Hereford, now has a polled branch, known as the Polled Shorthorn, which was evolved in North America and is gaining in popularity in many countries.

   The Beef Shorthorn can be of three main coat colours; viz., red-roan, white, or cherry-red. The body conformation has been altered greatly within recent times so that modern animals of this breed are more compact and have an outline more nearly like that of the Aberdeen Angus. The Shorthorn is frequently crossed with either the Hereford or the Aberdeen Angus, and some cattlemen prefer to mate white Shorthorn bulls to Aberdeen Angus cows to give offspring which are blue-roan in colour as these are favoured by some fatteners.

4. Galloway. The origin of this old breed is obscure but Scotland has been its home for at least two centuries. There are now two breeds of Galloways which are registered separately, viz., Belted Galloways and Galloways. The former cattle are polled, have black coats and a very characteristic wide white belt round the barrel or middle of the body. This belt distinguishes them from other British breeds. Galloways of the non-belted breed are either black or dun coloured. Belted Galloway and Galloway cattle are polled.

   Galloway cattle were first brought to New Zealand in 1948. They are regarded as possessing greater hardiness than other British breeds and have therefore been used where the climate is rigorous and the terrain is steep. Cattle of this breed are small bodied and relatively slow maturing, but the carcasses of the non-belted Galloway are of high quality. The winter coat is long and this affords them protection against storms. In New Zealand, Galloways are used exclusively for crossing with other beef breeds.

5. Devon. This breed, developed in Devonshire, has been brought to New Zealand in small numbers and is restricted mainly to North Auckland, though recent importations have gone to Canterbury. Devon cattle are horned, large in size, and their coat colour varies from light to dark red. The breed is quiet in temperament but its slow maturity and heavy carcass make it unsuited to present-day needs.

6. Red Poll. This is a dual-purpose breed as distinct from the single-purpose beef breeds discussed above. The breed was developed in England and was officially recognised by the Royal Agricultural Society in 1862. The coat colour is uniformly blood-red and the animals are relatively small and they are polled. In New Zealand, Red Poll cattle are found only on the lowlands. Their milk production is below the average of that of dairy cows in New Zealand and their body conformation is below an acceptable standard for beef.

Each breed has its own society which compiles an annual herd book containing mainly pedigree details of all registered cattle.

Stud beef cattle are still being imported from Great Britain, Australia, United States of America, and Canada. On occasions, however, New Zealand exports registered beef cattle, mainly Jersey, to many countries throughout the world.

Cattle were early arrivals in New Zealand. S. Marsden (1765–1838), the founder of Christian missions to the Maori, is generally credited with being responsible for the arrival of the first cattle in New Zealand. In 1814, the year of the establishment of the Maori mission, a bull and two cows of the Durham breed (subsequently called Shorthorns) landed at Kororareka, now the town of Russell, in the Bay of Islands. They were the gift of Lachlan Macquarie (1761–1824), Governor of New South Wales, and had originated from the royal herd. These and later importations were kept for their milk rather than for meat purposes. Their introduction into Canterbury, and the development of cattle farming, is typical of, if somewhat earlier than, that in other parts of the country. The first cattle, brought from Sydney by Captain W. B. Rhodes, were landed in Akaroa in 1839. At the time Akaroa was a busy port with 20 to 30 whaling ships calling in each season. The following year a team of working bullocks was landed at Oasbore (Birdlings Flat) and was used by Heriot and McGillivray to cultivate land at what later became Riccarton, near Christchurch. The French who had settled in Akaroa imported working bullocks from Sydney in 1841. The Deans brothers, who settled the abandoned farm and named it Riccarton in 1843, imported some 61 head from Sydney in that year. By 1844 they had 76 and in 1845 increased this to 130. Hay and Sinclair, after transporting both the Deans and the Greenwoods from Wellington in 1843, settled in Pigeon Bay with two cows and one calf. The following year they traded their boat (which they had built in Wellington) with W. B. Rhodes for 18 cows. It took them several weeks to cut a track through the bush from Akaroa to Pigeon Bay and drive the cattle overland. The Greenwood brothers had 50 cattle at Purau in 1844, and the following year Gebbie and Manson, who had come from Scotland with Deans as stockmen, established themselves at the head of Lyttelton Harbour, each with 14 cows supplied by Deans. From 1845 onwards all these farmers were producing fat cattle, butter, and cheese, for which there was a ready market in Wellington and Akaroa and with the whaling vessels which called into Lyttelton during the season. The general opinion was that cattle were an investment for immediate returns while sheep were for the future. When the Canterbury pioneers arrived in 1850 there were already some 1,400 cattle in the Banks Peninsula–Christchurch area.

During the early European settlement of New Zealand, cattle numbers rose slowly in spite of numerous importations. The highest concentration of cattle was in provinces like Otago with its large human population during the period of the gold rushes of the sixties. Milk, butter, and cheese, as products from cows, were all needed by the settlers, while mutton formed their main meat as it was plentiful and cheap in comparison with beef. By 1861 the cattle numbers of the South Island had reached 97,000 head, which was 1,000 more than the North Island total. Ten years later Otago-Southland had 143,000 cattle, while the Province of Auckland had the next highest number of 80,000. With the advent of refrigeration, in 1882, Auckland Province soon became the largest producer of butter, cheese, and beef from a cattle population which by 1886 had reached 205,000 head. Its lead in cattle numbers at that date has remained to the present day.

Apart from supplying milk, cattle were needed to haul logs from the bush and for other draught purposes. The bullocks, whose parents were of dairy type, were used for this work and when too old they were slaughtered for human consumption. Milking ability, docile temperament, strong shoulders and body were the qualities most needed in those cattle, and accordingly the early settlers chose the Durham which had been evolved in England to meet these requirements. Furthermore, Durham cattle were numerically strong in Australia and many importations were made from that readily available source.

The production of dairy produce and of beef became specialised enterprises once refrigeration demonstrated that perishable foodstuffs could be safely shipped to markets on the other side of the world. When the dairy export industry was established, the Jersey replaced the large-framed Shorthorn cow. Animals of the Jersey breed are small in size and they are more efficient than the Shorthorn in converting grass to butterfat. They were, of course, quite unsuitable for draught purposes. Beef Shorthorns, as opposed to milk-type Shorthorns, became popular as single-purpose meat animals, but these gradually lost favour because they lacked hardiness under the rigorous conditions prevailing in many areas. In most districts the Shorthorn lost ground to the two single-purpose beef breeds–the Hereford and the Aberdeen Angus.

New Zealand beef farming does not follow the overseas pattern. It is a major project only in restricted areas unsuitable for sheep. Unimproved swampland subject to periodic flooding, and mountain pastures which have deteriorated due to sheep and rabbits, are good examples of country on which beef production is the sole objective. The primary function of beef cattle on New Zealand farms is pasture control for the benefit of sheep. The cattle are wholly grass fed from birth to slaughter. Although beef cattle have shown appreciable increases in recent years, the real importance of beef production must remain dependent on the comparative values of beef and lamb plus wool.

As there is still a distinct margin in favour of lamb plus wool, the number of beef cattle carried is determined (in the North Island at least) by the demands of pasture utilisation and sheep management. The production of the beef carcass remains a sideline and a marked change in the market values of beef, wool, and lamb is the only factor which could alter the situation. The economic importance of beef cattle on sheep farms is shown by their contribution to the total farm income. On high-country farms, where there are only small numbers of cattle, they contribute about 3.6 per cent of the farm income; on hill-country farms, where most of the breeding herds are grazed, the annual sale of cull cows, weaned calves, yearlings, and two-year-olds, all as stores, contributes 15 per cent of the farm income, while on the fat-lamb farms, where the stores from the hill country are fattened, the contribution is of the order of 8 per cent of the total income.

Domestic cattle serve man in three ways, as draught animals and as producers of milk and meat. During the past 150 years selective breeding and improved husbandry have enabled breeders to develop breeds which have a high efficiency for either milk or meat production. The former are the dairy breeds, the latter the beef breeds. Between the two is a third class which produces both milk and beef, but less efficiently than the specialised breeds. These are the dual-purpose breeds. Although this section deals with beef cattle, some notice must be taken both of dual-purpose and of dairy cattle as the former played an important part in the development of beef farming while the latter contributes each year to beef production. Cull dairy cows supply manufacturing beef while surplus calves are slaughtered when a few days old for boneless veal. These are the “bobby” calves.

Beef production in overseas countries is a major farm project. The cattle are reared and fattened on roots, forage, and hay grown on the farm. These bulky foodstuffs are supplemented by concentrate grains (oats, barley, peas, beans) grown on the farm and with bought-in industrial by-products, such as linseed, soya bean, peanut or cotton cakes. Pasture is an unimportant contributor to the feeding programme.

(Nothofagus spp.).

Both the common and generic names imply that this genus is found only in the Southern Hemisphere. This is so, and it can therefore be contrasted to the closely related genus of beeches, Fagus, found only in the Northern Hemisphere. At one time the southern beeches were thought to have had an origin around the Antarctic not only because of fossil records there but also because of the southerly latitudes of the living forests in South America, Australia, and New Zealand. In the last one or two decades, forests have been discovered at high altitudes in New Guinea and New Caledonia. While the species of trees in these have been identified as a different section of the genus, nevertheless they are southern beeches. In addition, possible fossil pollen records are now coming forward from the Northern Hemisphere. There is a quickened interest in the whole genus.

New Zealand has four species, one of them with two distinct varieties which are connected by a gradation of intermediates. These four species are all evergreen (Fagus species are all deciduous). Two of them have smallish toothed leaves, red beech (N. fusca) and hard beech (N. truncata), the former reaching heights of 100 ft and diameters of 3–4 ft. The latter is a somewhat smaller tree. Silver beech (N. menziesii), a tree with small, thick, double-toothed leaves and a cherry-like bark on the branches and young trees, reaches heights of about 100 ft and diameters of 2–3 ft. The other species, N. solandri or mountain beech, has small entire leaves. One of its varieties (var. cliffortioides) is no more than a dwarf tree at timber line but reaches much larger dimensions; at the other end of the scale, the second variety (var. solandri) or black beech, reaches heights of 80 ft in lowland forests.

The main forests formed by these species extend from about latitude 38° to the south of the South Island, mostly at higher latitudes and in the drier climates. Pockets of N. truncata are found as far north as latitude 35°. Hybrids between all species, excluding N. menziesii, are common where more than one species is present in a forest.

Forests formed by southern beeches are distinctive in so far as they are more or less pure associations of species. Thus they are a contrast to the mixed hardwood podocarp forests which were the main forests of lowland New Zealand and in which many species are present. Regeneration is gregarious, arising from periodic, bountiful seed years. It has the same habit as Fagus and this characteristic has enabled European foresters to introduce very intensive management into the European beech forests. It will therefore be possible for New Zealand foresters to follow their ideas with southern beeches.

The timbers are useful to commerce and about 12 million board feet or 1.7 per cent of the total timber cut finds its way on to the market each year. The timber from each species has its own special characteristics and between them they have a wide range of uses. Silver beech from forests in the south is an all-purpose timber, but particularly suited for furniture. Red beech is generally durable and is used for railway sleepers and bridge timbers. It is also good general building and furniture timber. True black beech is a very durable timber and was widely used for fence posts when and where available. Mountain beech, its counterpart, is nondurable, but is a good, mild timber that is easily worked.

by Alec Lindsay Poole, M.SC., B.FOR.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Director-General of Forests, Wellington.

(1902– ).

Educationist.

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

p>Born in Leeds, England, on 16 June 1902, Clarence Edward Beeby came to New Zealand in early childhood and was educated at Canterbury University College, B.A. (1923), M.A. (1924). In 1924 he was appointed assistant lecturer in philosophy at Canterbury University. He spent the academic years 1925 and 1926 at the University of Manchester where he obtained his Ph.D. On his return to New Zealand he rejoined the staff of Canterbury University, where he became a lecturer in experimental education and psychology. He also acted as head of the philosophy department for a short time in 1934. In these years he had done much work with the W.E.A., and this experience led to his appointment as Director of the Council for Educational Research, 1934–38. He then joined the Education Department as Assistant Director, and became Director in 1940. From 1946 he was concerned closely with UNESCO in its educational activities. In 1960 he left the education field to become New Zealand's Ambassador to France and New Zealand Representative (and Chairman) on the Executive Board of UNESCO. On his retirement from the ambassadorship in 1963 he took up a six months' research fellowship in education at Harvard. In 1956 he was awarded the C.M.G.

(1883–1962).

Educational reformer.

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

John Beck was born in January 1883 at Kircudbright, Scotland, and was the son of Thomas Fazackerley Beck and of Margaret, née Smith. In 1889 he came to New Zealand with his parents and his father found employment with the Railways Department. In June 1899 young Beck joined the New Zealand Education Department as a clerical cadet. He worked his way rapidly through the basic grades and, in 1915, became officer in charge of the Industrial and Special Schools Section of the Department. His dislike of the system whereby delinquent children were sent to institutions led him to advocate that, except for the most serious of handicapped cases, they should be boarded out in foster homes. Beck's outspoken campaign against the industrial schools drew strong opposition and he quickly became a controversial figure. His arguments, more than any other single factor, induced the Government to close its three industrial schools–at Auckland, Dunedin, and Burnham.

In 1924 the Government sent Beck to study child welfare methods in the United States and Canada. When he returned he wrote a report which laid the foundations for the Child Welfare Act of 1925. When the Act came into force in the following year Beck was appointed Superintendent of Child Welfare. Among the innovations contained in the Act were provisions for the establishment of Children's Courts and for the appointment of Child Welfare Officers. Beck remained in his post until 1938, when failing health obliged him to retire. After this he lived quietly at Ngaruawahia until his death, in Hamilton, on 13 January 1962.

John Beck was twice married: first, on 24 September 1913, at Columba Church, Oamaru, to Ethel Sinclair (who died on 26 July 1932); and, secondly, on 30 January 1934, at St. Kilda, Dunedin, to Doris Mary Catherine Muir, the first woman to be a Child Welfare Inspector in New Zealand. He had four sons and one daughter by his first marriage.

By his singleness of purpose, Beck inaugurated widespread reforms in the New Zealand child welfare system. His forceful exposition soon caused his ideas to be accepted and there has never been any serious suggestion that the industrial schools should be revived. He was greatly aided in his campaign by J. A. Lee, the novelist and member of Parliament, who drew much of the background material for Children of the Poor and The Hunted from the industrial school at Burnham.

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

• Dominion, 17 Jan 1962 (Obit)
• Evening Post, 17 Jan 1962 (Obit).

(1858–1939).

Bank director, company director, and general merchant.

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

Beauchamp was a director of the Bank of New Zealand for almost 38 years, and its chairman for some periods; but he will be remembered longer and more widely as the father of Katherine Mansfield, in some of whose stories he is sharply portrayed (e.g., as “Stanley Burnell” in Prelude and At the Bay). Beauchamp was born on an Australian goldfield, at Ararat, Victoria, on 15 November 1858. His father, Arthur Beauchamp, was a cheerful wanderer of the pioneering and gold-rush days who lived first in Australia and later in New Zealand. His mother was Mary, née Elizabeth Stanley. As a boy in the Marlborough Sounds (he records in his privately printed Reminiscences and Recollections) he tasted the flesh of tuis, “which were delicious”. He was educated at Picton School and Wanganui Collegiate School. At 13 he went to Wellington to work for his father, but four years later joined the importing firm of W. M. Bannatyne and Co. By his keen commercial sense and an assiduous drive that may have represented a determination not to resemble his father, he gradually took charge of the firm, being left sole partner in 1894. Meanwhile he had married (1884) Annie Burnell, daughter of Joseph Dyer, Wellington manager of the A.M.P. Society. His business talents being obvious in the town, Beauchamp was in much demand as a company director, and he served at various times on the boards of the New Zealand Candle Co., New Zealand Piano Co., Gear Meat Co., the New Zealand Times, Wellington Patent Slip Co., Wellington Gas Co., A.M.P. Society, I.C.I. (N.Z.), and Berlei (N.Z.) Ltd. He was also on the Wellington Harbour Board from 1895 to 1908. In 1898 Beauchamp's personal friend (and connection by marriage), the Prime Minister, R. J. Seddon, asked him to be the Government's appointee on the board of the Bank of New Zealand, which was in difficulties. He played a part in helping to restore the bank to stability, and remained on the board, with one break of a few months, until 1936.

Beauchamp was not altogether happy about the fame of his erring daughter, who, for her part, once described him as “the richest man in New Zealand, and the meanest”. Some excuse may be made for him; it can hardly have been easy to be well known as the original of “Stanley Burnell”. Towards the end of her life, however (and after the death of his first wife, and of his only son) there was affectionate reconciliation between them, when they met on the Riviera. A few years later he married Laura, widow of Lewis Bright, of Wellington.

In 1923, having then retired from the Bank of New Zealand, Beauchamp was knighted. And in that year his firm was sold to T. and W. Young for £150,000. In the same year he gave his house in Fitzherbert Terrace (a former home of Katherine Mansfield) to the nation to form a fund for the purchase of pictures for the National Art Gallery. Later he erected a tramway shelter and pergola in Fitzherbert Terrace as a memorial to his daughter. His own Reminiscences and Recollections (1936) outlines his life, and further light is thrown by the biographies of Katherine Mansfield and by her stories and letters.

by Antony Francis George Alpers, Editor, Caxton Press, Christchurch.

• Reminiscences and Recollections, Beauchamp, H. (1936)
• Katherine Mansfield, Alpers, A. (1954).

(1821–1909).

Early settler, pastoralist, and Superintendent of Canterbury.

Samuel Bealey was born in Lancashire and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. in 1851, at the late age of 30. He and his brother John bought land orders for 1,000 acres in Canterbury and sailed in the Cornwall which arrived in December 1851. The brothers made nearly all their land investments jointly and these included a large number of sections in and near Christchurch, two large farms of heavy land, and Haldon Station lying between the Selwyn and Rakaia Rivers, which they later built up to 45,000 acres. They obviously had a great deal more capital to invest than the average settler; also they were practical and levelheaded men who took the best advice for their selections and employed the best managers available. They neither gambled nor lived riotously, and their affairs continued to prosper. There is nothing to show that they took any active part in managing their farming or grazing interests.

Samuel Bealey was elected to the first Provincial Council in 1853, representing Christchurch city, and he was returned again in 1862. In 1863 Moorhouse, being in the throes of one of his periodical financial crises, resigned from the Superintendence and Bealey headed a movement to put up Robert Wilkin in his place; but Wilkin declined and Bealey was finally returned unopposed. Moorhouse and his political chief-of-staff, John Ollivier, regarded Samuel Bealey as a safe man who would run to orders and keep the place warm until Moorhouse was ready to resume it. But in this they were wrong. Bealey indulged in sudden and unpredictable bursts of activity but soon reverted to his usual dependence on stronger personalities. He was fortunate in that he inherited various public works, such as the tunnel and the beginning of the railways which, owing to the extreme buoyancy of the early sixties, had been paid for out of land sales; but the resignation of Edward Dobson, Provincial Surveyor, and James Wylde, Assistant Engineer, show that things were not running smoothly. The fact that he was a likeable, popular man and a wealthy investor in land should have given no reason to believe that he would be a successful Superintendent. Bealey found that he was uncomfortable in the position and made it known that he wanted to resign. Moorhouse in a speech said that Bealey came to him and asked him to “fix” the newspapers, so that they would give him a favourable farewell instead of the harsh criticism which was customary. Suddenly Bealey, evidently thinking Moorhouse had not carried out his part of the bargain, changed his mind and said he was not going to resign after all. His executive (Moorhouse, J. S. Williams (q.v.), Cass, and Maude) immediately resigned and Bealey was faced with the necessity of collecting a new team. He was successful and his new executive was led by H. J. Tancred, with Rolleston as Provincial Secretary, John Hall in charge of Public Works, G. A. E. Ross, and E. C. J. Stevens, then relatively unknown, but an able man, particularly on finance. Bealey rode all the way to Mt. Algidus to persuade Rolleston to join – a tribute to Rolleston's political reputation and demonstrating his own relatively humble position. Hall was the ablest administrator in Canterbury and to him fell the task of getting the road through to the West Coast gold diggings. This was probably the most competent executive in the history of Canterbury.

When the new team got into their stride, Bealey faded into the background and was finally almost ignored. The Lyttelton Times gave him little credit and harped on the theme that weak men are always obstinate. Crosbie Ward was unkind to him in his political skits. One entitled “Poor Cock Robin” ran

“Who is the Superintendent,
I am, says Bealey,
Oh! Yes! I think really
That I'm the Superintendent.”

The Selfe (q.v.) Papers in the Hocken Library, Dunedin, give the reports of the leading men of Christchurch in their gossiping letters to the Canterbury agent in London. E. C. Bowen writes; “Bealey is to be ‘super’–Ollivier has said so–so it must be. He is the Kingmaker. You may fancy what we have come to when a mild platitude-grinding nobody is to be ruler set up by a pottering chattering bookseller! Ichabod!” J. E. FitzGerald describes Bealey as “a shopkeeper in mind and manners”. W. J. W. Hamilton is the only favourable witness: “He is safe and steady, though neither active, energetic nor brilliant. His wife is a lady which is more than one can say of that lot of half-breds, Moorhouse's female relatives.” And Leonard Harper speaks of Bealey as “swayed by every shade of opinion”.

Bealey returned to England in 1867 and, as far as is known, never returned to New Zealand. Though in a quite unspectacular way, he made a fortune out of his Canterbury land investments. Bealey married in 1852 Rose Anne, daughter of Archdeacon Paul. He died in England, 8 May 1909. His son Nowell came back and managed Haldon – the station was cut up in 1910.

by George Ranald Macdonald, Retired Farmer, Kaiapoi R.D.

• Selfe Letters (MSS), Hocken Library
• Early Canterbury Runs, Acland, L. G. D. (1946).