SAMUEL MANSON
And
His wife
Jean, nee SMITH
From "The Cyclopedia of New Zealand", Canterbury Volume, 1903….
Mr SAMUEL MANSON, sometime of Teddington, was one of Canterbury’s earliest settlers. He was born at Caperton, Ayrshire, Scotland, and was a carpenter by trade. Mr Manson came to the Colony in the ship "Thomas Harrison" in 1842, with Mr John Deans, and in 1843 he helped to build the first house on the Canterbury Plains. The house was built without nails, as these had been left in Wellington by mistake. Mr Manson remained for two years at Riccarton, and then leased from the Maoris a piece of country which extended from Lyttelton Harbour to the place now known as Teddington. He named his run "Kainshill", and stocked it with dairy cows. Butter and cheese were made in large quantities, and sold in Wellington for transhipment to Australia. In 1850, Mr Manson sold his dairy produce to Mr Peacock, who kept a store in Port Cooper, now known as Lyttelton. Mr Manson was married in 1839, to Miss Smith, and died in 1890, leaving a family of sixteen.
KAINSHILL (T.S. MANSON, manager), Teddington. This property comprises 1850 acres of freehold land, which is devoted to the rearing and fattening of crossbred sheep for the export trade.
Mr T.S. MANSON, the Manager, was born on the estate in 1857, educated at Teddington, and brought up to farming by his father, the late Mr S. Manson. He is a member of the road board, chairman of the school committee, and a vestryman in the church.
SOME DOCUMENTS RELATING TO SAMUEL MANSON & FAMILY:
Letter written to John Robert Godley, Chief Agent of the Canterbury Association, 12th May 1851:
[Addressed to] Mr John Godley Esquire
Chief Agent of the Canterbury Association
Lyttelton.
Head of the bay Port Cooper May 12th 1851.
Sir,
Mrs Gebbie she has been lattle left a widow with six children and Mr Macquin and myself are very anxious to secure if poseble the services of a school master among us who would undertake the education of our children you are most probable aware that our means are limeted but still we should be willing to find a resedance for a school master with a school house attached and would guarantee £30 per annum towards the mantanance of the master and also engage to provide him wood for fuel delivered fre of charge at his door. We hope you will be able as Chief Agent of the Canterbury Association to assist us in matter so imtimately connected with the best interests of those on whose we feel naturally so anxious. Mrs Gebbie and myself have each purchased 50 acres of rural land though not derict from the Association and have taken pasturage Licance for 750 acres each,
Waiting your reply
Your obident servant
Samuel Manson.
[Inward Correspondence, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, NZ]
Extract from the "Journal of Edward Ward":
Tuesday, April 22 [1851]……Met Manson in the Port; he has offered to Godley to build a schoolhouse worth £50, draw firewood for it, and give £30 a year to a schoolmaster, if the Association will make up the rest and provide a schoolmaster near him at the head of the bay – a most liberal offer which I hope Godley will meet liberally.
[The Journal of Edward Ward, published by Pegasus Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, June 1951].
Extracts from the "Deans Letters", by John Deans:
2 Sept 1845……John Gebbie and Samuel Manson have taken a bowen of fourteen cows each and gone to the head of Port Cooper; they are to bring up all the calves for us and to pay 50/- for each cow. John’s time expired four months before he left, and he had saved nearly as much as to furnish him in a steading, provisions for twelve months , and to buy a mare and two good cows. Of course Samuel had not time to lay past so much, but he made an effort to get a steading and plenty of provisions. His time was only half run, but as he was anxious to be his own master, and had got nearly all our carpenter work finished, we let him go. We have sent to Sydney for cheese-making materials for them both.
20 Dec 1847…..John Gebbie and Samuel Manson continue to hold bowens of cows from us, and they intend next year to increase the number. They are both doing well, and are gradually increasing their own stock; by next spring Gebbie should have six cows of his own to milk besides some young stock, a mare, a colt, and a foal. Manson should have at least three cows and some young stock of his own.
4 June 1851…..[William Deans, in New Zealand, to his father in Scotland]….Samuel Manson is desirous that his wife’s father and mother and some of her brothers and sisters should join them here. For that purpose he will advance a sum of £50 or such smaller sum as may be required to assist in getting passages for them. I understand from the emigration agent of the Canterbury Association that they will grant assisted passages to emigrants of the proper class, on their paying one-third part of the passage money, which will amount to £5 or £6 per head per adult, and a proportionately smaller sum for the children. I have promised Manson that James [his brother in Scotland] would manage the matter for them and get the money required, drawing on him or us for the amount. The following memorandum taken from Manson’s dictation will instruct you as to the parties he wishes to assist. Some of the other brothers and sisters wish also to come, but as they should be able to manage for themselves, Manson declines to assist them. "Samuel Manson and his wife wish Mrs Manson’s father and mother and her brothers Matthew and David to join them in New Zealand, and likewise her sister Agnes and her children; for that purpose they agree to pay £50 towards their passage, and likewise they wish £10 to be advanced to Mrs Manson’s father to bring some articles with them that Mr and Mrs Manson have written for. The above sum of £50 is to be paid to enable them to get a passage, but they are not to have the money unless for that purpose. If Mrs Manson’s sister Margaret has not already sailed for New Zealand, they wish her to join the party."
Much has been written about the Manson family over the years, some of it correct, and some inaccurate. But no account could ever be considered complete without reference to their very large family. They had seventeen adult children; I was once told by an elderly family member that Jean Manson actually gave birth to twenty-one babies, nineteen of these surviving birth. Certainly in our branch of the family, my great-grandmother, Jeannie, the fourth-born child, could recall her father, on more than one occasion, riding off to the Governor's Bay churchyard, a tiny coffin balanced on the saddle. The first two of the children, Agnes and Robert, were both born in Ayrshire; Marion was born on board ship during a storm in the Bay of Biscay; Jeannie at Deans' Farm, Riccarton, and credited with being the first white child to be born on the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand. And the next-born John, arrived within weeks of the family's removal from Riccarton to the Head of the Bay. With the arrival of the so-called "First Four Ships" to Canterbury in 1850-1851, the family was able to obtain domestic help. One young girl to work for the Mansons at this time was Susannah Chaney; years later she remembered "We had not been long in Port when Mr Samuel Manson, who lived at the head of the bay, came to the township to engage a domestic servant, and I took the position at 10s a week. I thought that my fortune was made, as for such a place at Home the weekly wage was half a crown. I went across the head of the bay in a whaleboat, and when we arrived there the tide was out, and there was a big expanse of mudflats. I was taken ashore on a sledge drawn by two bullocks. There was a tub lashed to the sledge, and to this a seat was fixed. Manson's was the first farm I ever saw in my life. The home was just one big room partitioned off into apartments. Mr and Mrs Manson were very nice people indeed, Mrs Manson a lovely big Scotswoman......There was some beautiful bush at the bay then, and plenty of native birds. I have seen Mr Manson go into the bush on a Sunday and return with two wild pigs on the sledge and the muzzle of his gun loaded with native pigeons - fine plump birds, the size of a young pullet......I stayed with the Mansons twelve months, when I decided to return home to Lyttelton."
It was 1864 before the bigger homestead at Kainshill was built; this also was the year of birth of the last-born child, Quinton Campbell. Many of the Manson children themselves produced large numbers of offspring; there was at one time in excess of 120 grandchildren.
On 18th April 1890, Samuel Manson, aged 75, died after a week's illness, at his home at Kainshill. It must have been with some consternation that the family discovered that he had left no will. Administration of his estate was eventually granted to his sons Thomas, Hugh and Campbell; but to ensure that there was no repeat of this situation, Jean, on the day of her husband Samuel's burial, visited a solicitor and made her own last will and testament. To this a codicil was added 5th June 1896. Jean died 18th February 1898, aged 79. Both lie buried in the picturesque Governor's Bay churchyard, their graves marked by a tall stone, said to have been sledged down from high above on Cooper's Knob, overlooking the Kainshill estate.
An article published in a Canterbury newspaper, The Weekly Press, in 1901, concerning the Manson family can be read Here