SamuelDuncanParnell

Samuel Duncan Parnell
1813 - December 17th 1890

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The Colonial Custom - Samuel Duncan Parnell and the Eight Hour Day
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In 1840 Samuel Duncan Parnell landed at Petoni, having arrived as a Cabin passenger on the Duke of Roxburgh determined that the idealism that drove him from England would not be thwarted in New Zealand. Considering the social and economic conditions in the colony, his determination to work no more than eight hours a day was daring.

According to the New Zealand Company's plan, most of the immigrant labour force would be occupied in farming. But the bulk of the men who came in the first 10 years to Port Nicholson were tradesmen and labourers - those who would have to depend on wages for a living. The consequence was a period of economic depression, unemployment and considerable hardship. These ills were endemic in all the New Zealand settlements in the 1840's because of a shortage of Government revenue and capital for development. The Wakefield dream of a colonial cross-section of English society, rurally based, could not work when there was not enough money to set it in motion. The only economic export from farming was wool, and sheep farming had little need of a big agricultural labour force.

With unemployed men and families scratching for food such as fern roots and berries, sow-thistle, dock and shell fish or a native pigeon or two to supplement bully beef and "fusty and mouldy" Company biscuits - it could have been expected that socialist ardour would be sacrificed to expediency.

Parnell, however, had planned well. He brought with him his own prefabricated house and erected it on the bank of the Hutt River. A fellow passenger asked Parnell to build a store for him at Korokoro. "I must make this condition" Parnell replied, " that on the job the hours shall be only eight for the day". The would-be storekeeper fumed but Parnell insisted. "There are 24 hours per day given us" he said "and eight of these should be for work, eight for sleep, and the remaining eight for recreation and in which for men to do what little things they want to do for themselves". Though a wage of 5/- per eight hour day was agreed on, Parnell quarrelled with the storekeeper and did not finish the job.

Parnell's idealism was born among the carpenters and joiners of London during the agitation inspired by men like Robert Owen and the movement to for the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. He was born in London on February 19th  1810 and after his apprenticeship worked in a joinery shop from 1834. He refused to join the union unless it fought for shortened hours of labour. His fellow joiners laughed at him so he set up his own business. He saved �126 for an intermediate-class passage for himself and his wife and the right to select 100 acres of country land and one town acre in the Port Nicholson settlement.

In spite of the unkind economic climate in the colonies the eight-hour day caught on. New Immigrants were told not to accept any other conditions. Wages slumped to 3/6 a day but the hours remained the standard for most classes of labour, even though later in the century many scandalous injustices would be wrought on labour groups like the seamstresses. The eight-hour day was a guiding light.

Parnell himself believed in the pre-eminence of his own claim to have originated the eight hour day. Fifty years later, while being honoured at the first eight-hour day demonstration, he proclaimed that "the chord struck at Petoni fifty years ago is vibrating around the world".

When Parnell died on December 17th 1890, he was given a public funeral. Relays of working men acted as pall bearers on a march to the cemetery, where he was given a socialists burial service. The annual Labour Day holiday commemorates the introduction of the eight-hour day by him and later labour leaders in other provinces.

Copyright Denise & Peter 2000 - 2005