BOSLEY, AGNES nee SPACKMAN

Agnes Spackman was born at Silverstream, Hutt Valley, on the 17 January 1847, the daughter of George and Sarah Spackman nee Southam, who had arrived in Wellington on the Bolton in 1840.  Agnes was the first white girl born in Silverstream.

On the 7 October 1867 Agnes married William Henry Bosley at Lower Hutt.  The couple later moved to Normanby where they lived until 1878 before moving to what is now Eltham.  The first settlers began arriving in the Eltham area in the late 1870s and took up farm sections, mainly 50 acres blocks along Mountain Road.  The area was covered in very thick bush and until enough land was cleared to pitch a tent and later build a whare, everyone and everything came from Normanby through the bush along the old Mountain Road.  Eltham township was not surveyed until 1880.  William and Agnes took us land on what is now Rowe’s honey farm.

The settlers only form of income often was to take work wherever possible, and William worked at various sawmills in the area.  Agnes’s father was often referred to as “Doctor Spackman” and even though he did not qualify as a doctor, it was understood that he had trained to be one.  This is probably the reason that Agnes became the first midwife in the Eltham area.

Agnes and William’s daughter Sarah Jane, who was born on the 25 August 1881, was reported to be the first white girl born in Eltham.  She married George Lawrence Taylor in the Primitive Methodist Church, Eltham on the 3 September 1902, and the couple farmed all over South Taranaki.  Sarah died on the 21 January 1961 at New Plymouth and is buried at Awanui cemetery.

Agnes Bosley died on the 23 September 1938 aged 91 years, 40 years after her husband, and is buried at Te Henui cemetery, New Plymouth.

SOURCE

Myrtle Willis, Matapu (granddaughter)