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StraightFurrow_C99_Sept2011.pdf 1 5/09/2011 2:58:14 p.m.
SEPTEMBER 7 - 2011
Men who made Northern Wairoa . . .
William Arthur Marriner by Brian Eastwood Although they worked hard in their business and for the district, you could not say that early Northern Wairoa settler Matthew Marriner or the members of his family always enjoyed good fortune. Marriner arrived in Mangawhare from the Hokianga in 1849, bringing with him his family, including second son William Arthur, then just ten years old. William’s parents sent him to Wesley College for an academic education but he then decided to go to sea as his ‘finishing’ school. He wandered for five years, eventually becoming second mate of the barque ‘Sygnet’. Returning home to Mangawhare, he took over management of the trading store owned by Hasting Atkins, the protégé of Sir Logan Campbell. Atkins retired in 1862 and went back to Europe, gifting the store to Campbell. Marriner stayed on as Mangawhare manager for Brown and Campbell until 1879 when he leased a large block of gum land in Port Albert for one year. Home again, he built a store in Mangawhare, leased Government land near Mangonui Bluff and set up branch stores. When that lease ran out he leased gum digging rights on A. E. Harding’s Aoroa block.
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In the meantime Marriner had married, but his wife Emily nee Boult from Whangarei, died after being thrown from a horse. She left him with three sons. Disaster had struck the Mt. Wesley kauri gum trading business of Matthew Marriner just before Christmas 1866 when his station burned down, taking all the gum with it. Coincidentally in 1875, the same fate awaited Brown and Campbell’s store that Marriner managed. Even more coincidentally in 1903, the late William Marriner’s store in Mt Wesley also burned to the ground, taking all of the gum stock as well as his special collection of gum specimens. All told it was valued at £2000 but insured only for £400. £500 worth had been packed ready for S. S. Aotea to pick up the next day. Their ruined store at the end of Mt Wesley Coast Road on the river-bank, traded in gum, fungus, produce and general goods. It was managed by his son, L. B. Marriner, who became a Dargaville Borough Councillor for one year. In 1872 William married Mary Douglas, the daughter of settler William Douglas. It was a large wedding, starting with the bridegroom’s party arriving from Dargaville by launch. There
Mr William Arthur Marriner
were many toasts proposed, including one from local chief Te Awha Parore, a close friend of William Marriner. 250 people cheering and performing a haka greeted the couple’s arrival back in Mangawhare, with an evening dance completing the day’s festivities. Mary and William were to have four sons and just one daughter but lost her to diphtheria in 1884. Mary died in 1895 and William retired that same year to become official Maori interpreter for the district. Marriner always declined political nomination but was active as secretary and treasurer of Mangawhare Cricket Club and served on the regatta committee. He was elected a member of the racing club committee as a judge and manager of the annual race meetings. Two of William and Mary’s sons were twins and went off to the 1915 Gallipoli campaign where strangely, both were wounded in the left foot. Charles survived but Percy was later killed in action in France. William never knew the fate of his two boys because he died suddenly in 1902 at the age of 62 years. He lies buried in Mt Wesley just three hundred metres from his old home.
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