Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Around Anzac Day the headmaster of my old school, Broadgreen Intermediate in Stoke, Nelson, would always relate the story of Simpson and his donkey. Australian Private John Simpson, real name John Simpson Kirkpatrick, landed at Gallipoli on the 25th April 1915. He soon ‘acquired’ a donkey, known variously as ‘Murphy’, ‘Abdul’ or ‘Duffy’. Simpson and Murphy then worked together, bringing in the wounded from the firing line.

'Simpson' (centre) and his donkey carrying a wounded soldier, Gallipoli, 1915

The image of the humble private and his donkey bearing wounded soldiers to safety has a universal resonance, with Biblical overtones of donkeys and Good Samaritans. Simpson was killed on 19 May 1915, less than a month into the Gallipoli campaign. He became a folk hero in Australia, his story combining self-sacrifice, mateship, courage and compassion. He was held to represent all the finest qualities of the Anzacs, in particular the stretcher bearers. Simpson’s image is represented in a statue near the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, and another at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. His grave at the Beach Cemetery, Anzac Cove, has become a site of pilgrimage.

There is an ironic New Zealand connection to the John Simpson Kirkpatrick story. The most famous image of ‘Simpson’ is a painting by New Zealand soldier-artist Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones, entitled Private Simpson D.C.M. & his donkey at Anzac. Moore-Jones was at Gallipoli until November 1915, when he was evacuated wounded. He does not appear to have met Simpson. The artist painted at least two versions of his ‘Simpson’ painting, the first of them painted in Dunedin, in 1918. Moore-Jones based his ‘Simpson’ on a photo of a man with a donkey. The photo was in fact of New Zealand medic Richard ‘Dick’ Henderson. There had been a number of men and donkeys rescuing wounded soldiers at Gallipoli, although Simpson was the most well known. Moore-Jones, who died in 1922, appears to have been unaware of his error, which was only cleared up in 1950. There is a statue of Henderson in front of the National War Memorial in Wellington.

Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones's painting of Simpson and his donkey

Despite my assumed familiarity with the Anzac story, I knew nothing of Simpson’s connection to South Shields, my partner Janis’ hometown in the North East of England. During a recent visit, I was surprised to come across a large statue of John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey in the main thoroughfare of Ocean Road. I learned that John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the sum of all Anzac virtues, was in fact a Geordie. He was born in Tyne Dock, a tough working-class neighbourhood of South Shields. Young Jack, as he was known, is said to have always had a love of animals. He was particularly fond of the horse he drove in his childhood job on the milk rounds and the donkeys that people rode at the South Shields seaside.

A statue of John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey in South Shields

In 1909 the 17-year-old Jack went to sea, leaving home a few days after his father died. He jumped ship at Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1910, having long desired to spend time in Australia. Jack worked as an itinerant miner, farm labourer and sailor around Australia and its coasts. Although he liked a drink and the occasional scrap, Jack always sent about a quarter of his pay home to his widowed mother in South Shields. By the time war came in 1914, Jack was thinking of a return trip to England – apparently a motivating factor in his enlistment in 1914. For reasons that remain mysterious, he enlisted under the name John Simpson.

Instead of a direct trip home, Jack ended up at Anzac Cove, where his exploits and early death brought him lasting fame. The figure of Simpson, the man with the donkey, was held up by pro-conscriptionists and recruiting sergeants as a great example of loyalty to king and empire, and support for comrades at the front. This image fed into the huge debate going on in Australia over the introduction of conscription. With casualties mounting and the Mother Country calling for more men, the New Zealand government had introduced conscription in 1916. In contrast to New Zealand’s direct approach, the Australian government held two referendums on conscription. In each of the referendums, held in 1916 and 1917, the majority of voters rejected its introduction.

The Kirkpatrick pub – a fitting tribute to John Simpson Kirkpatrick

The use of John Simpson Kirkpatrick as an image of Australian loyalty to empire had a deep irony. Not only was Jack a recent Geordie immigrant to Australia, he was also a staunch socialist. Having grown up working class in a depressed industrial area, Jack referred to England as ‘that louse bound country’ (quoted in Peter Cochrane, Simpson and the donkey: the making of a legend. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1992, p. 19). He wrote home to his mother, ‘what they want in England is a good revolution that will clear some of these Millionaires and lords and Dukes out of it’ (quoted in Simpson and the donkey, p. 18). Despite these views, Jack still ended up dying in the Great War after having rescued many of his comrades. Along with the memorial statue, there is another monument to him in South Shields: the old South Shields School for Mariners building, right by the statue, is now a pub and nightclub, named The Kirkpatrick in his memory. Jack, a canny South Shields lad who enjoyed a good ‘bit a crack’ (a good yarn), a ‘bloo aat’ (drinking session) and the occasional punch up, would surely have approved of such an honour.

Headline from the Thames Star, 17 April 1912, p. 2 (from Papers Past)

The centenary of the Titanic disaster on 15 April has brought extensive media coverage of this historic event. But how did the New Zealand media of the time – which in 1912 meant newspapers – cover the tragedy? A glance at the wonderful resource of Papers Past, the National Library’s digital newspaper archive, gives us some clues.

The Titanic disaster received wide-ranging newspaper coverage in New Zealand. The fact that the ship was equipped with modern Marconi wireless meant that word of the sinking was transmitted to Britain and North America as it was happening. This in turn meant that newspapers in London and New York were cabling news outlets around the world with accounts, often not very accurate, of the unfolding drama.

One of the optimist first headlines: Marlborough Express, 16 April 1912, p. 5 (from Papers Past)

Titanic sank at 2.20 a.m. (ship’s time) on Monday 15 April 1912, less than three hours after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic. This was around 5.20 p.m. on 15 April in New Zealand. The first reports of the accident were in the New Zealand papers the next day. The Evening Post’s headline was typical ‘Shipping Disaster: Titanic Sinking: Mammoth Liner Collides with Iceberg’ (Evening Post 16 April 1912 p. 7). The Evening Post gave little detail of the accident, but commented on the size of both Titanic and of the ice floes in the Atlantic, plus details of previous accidents with icebergs. Some of the distinguished passengers on board were mentioned. At this point New Zealand papers simply reprinted the cables they received on the disaster, including the line that all the passengers had been saved (Marlborough Express 16 April 1912, p. 5).

The next day’s papers brought the grim news of ‘Fifteen hundred drowned: Titanic gone under: Unprecedented disaster‘. Some papers gave figures for the number of survivors, varying between 675 and 866. These seem to have been more guess work by journalists than based on any hard information. (Bay of Plenty Times, 17 April 1912, p. 5, and Ohinemuri Gazette, 17 April 1912, p. 2.)

Marlborough Express, 24 July 1911, p. 2

The reading public was already familiar with Titanic and its sister ship Olympic, as New Zealand newspapers had carried many reports on the planning and construction of the ‘mammoth’ White Star liners (Grey River Argus, 24 January 1910, p. 4, and Poverty Bay Herald, 22 February 1910, p. 5 ). Titanic had been heralded as the ‘Largest ship afloat’ on its launch at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast (Marlborough Express, 24 July 1911, p. 2).

Within days of the sinking, the papers recounted tales of manly British heroes going down with the ship. Americans were also conceded to be heroic, being of course members of ‘the English-speaking race’. Those passengers and crew from France or from southern or eastern Europe did not rate a mention (Grey River Argus, 18 April 1912, p. 4). Some papers went beyond the tales of heroism to ask why the disaster had happened. Were the liners too big, was the route safe, had the ‘rage for speed’ in trans-Atlantic crossings led to neglect of safety? (Evening Post, 18 April 1912, p. 6.)

New Zealand papers also began to report the accusations against some of the male survivors, in particular Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line. It was reported that Ismay claimed he was ‘simply a passenger’ on the Titanic and did not make any suggestions to the captain regarding the ship’s speed or route. He also claimed to have only entered a lifeboat when there were no women or other passengers remaining on deck (Evening Post, 23 April 1912, p. 7).

Poverty Bay Herald, 19 April 1912, p. 5 (from Papers Past)

Some of the reactions of New Zealand newspapers to the sinking of Titanic seem very familiar. One of the earliest questions asked was ‘Were there any New Zealanders on board?’ (Poverty Bay Herald, 19 April 1912, p. 5.) The papers were unable to identify any New Zealand passengers, but did find the lucky Mr J. A. Frostick, of Christchurch. While in Britain he had booked to cross the Atlantic on Titanic, but was forced to cancel the trip due to business engagements (Grey River Argus, 19 April 1912, p. 5).

A number of papers reported that the ‘adventuress’ May Hallet had been made a widow, as her husband, Donald Campbell, was assistant purser on Titanic. May Hallet was a jewel thief, car thief and confidence trickster who, between 1909 and 1911, had gained notoriety in New Zealand through conning the well-to-do. Her husband, an Australian, had formerly been purser on the Ulimaroa, a trans-Tasman steamer (Wairarapa Daily Times, 14 May 1912, p. 4, The Observer, 18 May 1912, p. 5 and NZ Truth, 30 January 1909, p. 4).

New Zealanders rallied round, raising funds to help the victims of the Titanic sinking (Marlborough Express, 25 April 1912, p. 4). Special church services and concerts were held to raise money for survivors, while sailors gave money from their pay to help the widows of their fellow seafarers (Evening Post, 19 April 1912 p. 7). One unnamed Wairarapa resident offered to adopt the one-year-old child who had been saved from the disaster (Wanganui Chronicle, 2 May 1912, p .4).

The Titanic disaster raised many maritime safety issues, including the shortage of lifeboats on liners and other passenger ships. New Zealanders were led to question whether the ships that plied their own coasts were safe and whether they had adequate provision of lifeboats (Colonist, 23 April 1912, p. 5).

While all parties saw the Titanic’s sinking as a tragedy, the varying conclusions drawn from it illustrate the polarised views common in 1910s New Zealand. A. A. Adams, rector of the state school of Greymouth, lectured his pupils on the King’s Birthday. He explained that ‘the thrilling accounts of the wreck of the Titanic … cause us to thank God we are British’ and went on to hail the heroism of the British seaman ‘from the humble stoker to the commander’ (Grey River Argus, 5 June 1912, p. 2).

Maoriland Worker, 14 June 1912 (from Papers Past)

In contrast James Thorn, writing in the socialist newspaper the Maoriland Worker, analysed the death rate among the different classes of Titanic’s passengera. He argued the disaster illustrated the results of class distinction and that charity towards the survivors was being ‘utilised to shield from well-deserved censure the negligently criminal powers that be.’ (Maoriland Worker, 14 June 1912, p. 2.) He also pointed out that the chivalry of male passengers was being used by British politicians as an argument against giving votes to women.

This assertion was also being used closer to home, as in a Press article that considers whether ‘women and children first’ is an outdated rule (Press, 8 June 1912, p. 10). It concludes:

There comes now and then a time when man proves himself greater than Nature, when he commands the survival of the weakest instead of the strongest. The ’sacred law of the sea’ must abide. And no true man would have it otherwise.

More connections between New Zealand and north-east UK, as discovered during the recent holiday I spent with my partner Janis, visiting her family in South Shields. (Click for part 1 and part 2.)

Thursday 29th March marked the centenary of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s last entry in his diary, made on the fatal trip back from the South Pole in 1912. At some point soon after that entry Scott became the last of the five-man polar party to die.

As a child in the 1960s I grew up reading the ladybird book Captain Scott: an adventure from history. I knew by heart the names of that lost polar party: Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates and Evans. With Scott Base, Scott’s Hut and our sprinkling of Scott memorials, New Zealanders could be forgiven for feeling some sense of ownership of this story.

The Discovery, one of Captain Scott's ships

The dramatic tale of the escape of Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition also seems to hold resonance for New Zealanders, with the added connection that the Endurance’s captain, Frank Worsley, hailed from Akaroa. Scott’s Discovery (1901) and Terra Nova (1910) expeditions, and Shackleton’s Nimrod (1908) expedition, all departed south from either Lyttelton or Port Chalmers, in each case to the accompaniment of massed cheering crowds. In the ensuing years neither criticisms of imperialism nor the recognition of Scott’s human flaws seem to have diminished ongoing public interest in the heroic age.

The name of Norwegian Roald Amundsen, the first to the pole, does not seem as honoured in this country. Initially, he was condemned for keeping secret his intention to race Scott to the South Pole. Amundsen was briefly forgiven by the New Zealand public when, on his way back from Antarctica in 1912, he made a lecture tour of our main centres. Crowds flocked to hear him speak and to see his ‘100 moving pictures and coloured slides’ of the southern continent. At this time the fate of Scott’s expedition crew was still unknown. In February 1913 the tragic news of their demise reached the outside world. As imperial propaganda, heroic British failure trumped the Norwegian polar triumph. New Zealanders largely adopted the British view of Amundsen as a dog-eating cad, unfairly winning by conducting an efficiently organised expedition.

In modern times New Zealanders have tended to ignore the other great heroic-age explorer, Douglas Mawson, no doubt due to his ultimate sin of being Australian. The Englishman Scott and the Anglo-Irish Shackleton, on the other hand, still retain their icy glamour.

During our northern winter visit to Britain last January, Janis and I visited the Scottish port town of Dundee. I was surprised to find Scott’s ship the Discovery, flanked by statues of emperor penguins, berthed by the quay near the Dundee railway station. Dundee was kown for ‘jute, jam and journalism’, and as the home of the comics Beano and Dandy, with statues of Minnie the Minx and Desperate Dan in its main square.

Cartoon characters Minnie the Minx and Desperate Dan

Dundee was also one of the last places to build reinforced wooden ships for polar whaling. The Terra Nova, Scott’s ship for his 1910–12 expedition, was a converted whaler built at Dundee. The Discovery was purpose-built in Dundee for the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901–4, a combined effort between the British government, the Royal Geographic Society and private subscribers. The Discovery expedition was significant as the first major scientific mission to Antarctica, involving experts in geology, botany, meteorology, physics and marine biology. This was also the first Antarctic journey for Captain Scott, Sub-lieutenant Ernest Shackleton, and the surgeon, zoologist and artist Edward Wilson

A pen of sheep beside the Discovery – a New Zealand connection

The Discovery is berthed beside the impressive Discovery Point museum. Here the story of the expedition is outlined, along with the ship’s subsequent history. The museum also celebrates the unsung heroes of polar exploration: the men who built the ships. After seeing how the reinforced hull was built – with four layers of different types of wood – the intrepid visitor gets to wander around the ship and inspect the marvels of its construction at close hand.

New Zealand connections also pop up. The museum houses a harmonium that was gifted to the expedition by the people of Christchurch and used to entertain the crew in the long antarctic night. A group of plastic replica sheep, penned by the ship, represent the 45 sheep donated by New Zealand farmers to feed the hungry explorers.

The harmonium donated to Scott's expedition by the people of Christchurch

The Discovery’s 1901 stop-off in New Zealand resulted in one of the crew deserting and another dying by falling from the crow’s nest. Two volunteers stepped in, both sailors from HMS Ringarooma, stationed off the New Zealand coast at the time. One of the volunteers was Tom Crean, the ‘Irish Giant’, who later served on both the Terra Nova and Endurance expeditions.

The Discovery went on to an extensive career of arctic and antarctic adventures. These included the two BANZARE (British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition) voyages of 1929–31. Douglas Mawson, the Australian veteran survivor of the Antarctic heroic age, commanded this expedition. Under pressure from the Australians and the British, our government coughed up £2,500 for BANZARE, although bureaucrats and politicians spent a lot of time arguing over which department would pay for the two Kiwi scientists who sailed on the Discovery. The two young researchers later became leaders in their fields. The ornithologist Robert Falla would eventually become director of the Dominion Museum, while meteorologist Richie Simmers became director of the Meteorological Service.

In conclusion, the Discovery at Dundee was a pleasure to visit, and it reinforced my belief that we southern-hemisphere folk always feel at home with penguins.

More connections between New Zealand and the North East of England, as discovered during the recent Christmas holiday I spent with my partner Janis, visiting her family in South Shields. Click for part 1.

The city of Sunderland is less than 10 kilometres south of South Shields. Situated at the mouth of the River Wear, Sunderland is another north-eastern city built on coal mining and ship building. The mines and shipyards are now closed, but the Nissan car factory, along with engineering, textiles, paper making and IT, continue to provide work in the area.

The Wearmouth rail and road bridges, River Wear, Sunderland. The first Wearmouth bridge was built in 1796. The rail bridge (foreground) was built in 1879 and the road bridge (behind it) in 1929.

Chartist George Binns (1815–1847) provides a historical link between Sunderland and my own home town of Nelson, New Zealand. Binns was born into a family of Sunderland Quakers. After his parents’ deaths in 1837, he took over his father’s drapers shop. Binns and his friend James Williams became heavily involved in the chartist movement. Chartism was a radical, largely working-class movement. The name came from the People’s Charter of 1838, which called for such utopian measures as voting rights for all men (women’s suffrage was too wild an idea even for the chartists), the secret ballot and the abolition of the rule that only property owners could stand for Parliament. Many chartist leaders were imprisoned, while chartist demonstrations were sometimes violently broken up.

In the 1830s and 1840s Sunderland became a major site of chartist agitation. Binns and Williams set up a mechanics’ institute where local workers could read newspapers, along with a bookshop and newsagent that doubled as a meeting place for local radicals. Binns developed a reputation as a forceful orator at public meetings and wrote poetry based around chartist ideals. Binns and Williams formed the Sunderland Democratic Association, which supported ‘moral-force chartism’, the idea of achieving reform without the use of violence.

The state regarded all radicals as dangerous, regardless of the methods they advocated. In 1840 Binns and Williams were tried for attending illegal meetings and publishing a seditious handbill. They were sentenced to six months in Durham gaol. On their release in 1841 Binns went back to the drapery business, but continued agitating for reform.

Bridge Street in Sunderland. Binns and Williams set up their booksellers, stationers and newsagents at 9 Bridge Street.

Binns’ business struggled in the early 1840s and he was sent to debtors’ prison. Upon his release, Binns embarked in August 1842 for the New Zealand Company settlement of Nelson. Arriving in December, he found work supervising a whaling establishment.

When Binns became involved in a controversy over short-weight bread (bread that may not have been the weight it was advertised), prominent businessman Alfred Saunders attacked him in the Nelson Examiner as a ‘Chartist ringleader.’ Binns replied that he had nothing to do with chartism in New Zealand where settlers were ‘united … by a community of interest’ and ‘where there is no grievance to redress and no enemy to our weal.’ While trying to live a life of ‘peace and good-will’ in Nelson, Binns declared he had not abandoned his principles: ‘When I came to New Zealand it was after I had suffered imprisonment, sacrificed my business, and lost the goodwill of relations in an effort to free my country.’

Around this time, in 1843, Nelson labourers were in dispute with the New Zealand Company for higher wages. Binns did not become involved with this issue, perhaps because he saw New Zealand as the land of opportunity, where class conflict was unnecessary.

Nelson in 1841, the year before Binns arrived, painted by Charles Heaphy

On 17 June 1843, 22 Nelson settlers were killed at Wairau, along with four Māori. The settlers, under Arthur Wakefield, had tried to arrest Ngāti Toa chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, after the Māori leaders evicted surveyors from disputed land. Governor Robert FitzRoy refused to take action against the Māori, maintaining that the settlers had illegally provoked the chiefs. Binns joined with other Nelson settlers in denouncing ‘the ferocious character of the savages’ and protesting at the government failure to act. Binns, like many British radicals, did not sympathise with Māori defending their land. Instead he appears to have seen Māori as standing in the way of progress, preventing the land from going to the encroaching settlers who would supposedly make the best use of it.

Binns took up employment as a baker after his whaling business failed in 1844. He was only to have a few more years in his land of promise. In 1847, at the age of 31, he died of consumption after three years of illness. The Northern Star, the foremost British chartist paper, described him in an obituary as ‘a handsome, high-spirited, talented, true-hearted man – every inch a Democrat.’

In Sunderland the drapery business established by George Binns’ father, George senior, became a household name as Binns Department Store, in business until 1993. In Nelson there is no memorial to show the connection between the fledgling settlement and the heady days of chartist protest in Britain.

While Wellingtonians were enjoying the delights of ‘summer’ weather over new year, my partner Janis and I winged our way to the UK for one of our regular visits to her family in the north-east of England. They live in South Shields, a town on the southern bank of the mouth of the River Tyne, just down river from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and just north of the city of Sunderland. South Shields used to be a major centre for ship building and coal mining, as well as a fishing port and a northern seaside resort. Now the ship yards and mines are all closed. Fishing continues but on a smaller scale and, while the town still gets summer visitors, the British holidaymaker is more inclined to head for Benidorm or Grand Canary. Much of the employment in Shields now comes from caring for the town’s high proportion of elderly, while many of the townsfolk commute to jobs in nearby Newcastle and Sunderland.

One of the highlights of South Sheilds – a traditional English pub

South Shields is a place that greatly appeals to me. The Geordies are rightly renowned for their down-to-earth friendliness and sense of humour. (The local people, the ‘folk o’ Shields’ are known as ‘sand dancers’). Shields has a vibrant open-air market, its Ocean Road is famed as one of best ‘curry miles’ in the north-east, there is a spectacular coastline with massed seabirds to attract the twitcher, while in summer brass bands can still be heard playing by the seaside. The archaeological remains of the Roman fort of Arbeia can be seen in the centre of town, Bede’s church of St Paul’s at Jarrow is just down the road, and the medieval priory at Tynemouth is a ferry ride away on the north bank of the Tyne.

There is one historical site in the South Shields suburb of Westoe that provides a direct link with my own home town of Nelson. The William Fox Hotel in Westoe is so named as it is the birth place of William Fox. The William Fox in question was from 1843 to 1847 the New Zealand Company agent in Nelson and went on to become premier of New Zealand on four different occasions!

The birthplace of William Fox in Westoe – now the William Fox Hotel

Fox was born at Westoe around 1812, at a time when it was still a leafy rural village. Born into a reasonably well-off middle-class family, Fox trained and qualified as a lawyer. In 1842 he and his wife Sarah set out for New Zealand, just six weeks after they had married. In New Zealand Fox did some legal work but spent more time as a journalist and editor, and as a New Zealand Company agent. He also went on exploring expeditions with Heaphy, Brunner and Kehu, and built up a reputation as a landscape artist.

Note the fox knocker on the door of the William Fox Hotel

Fox became involved in provincial and colonial politics – with a penchant for making enemies and keeping them. Governor George Grey, Attorney General Martin and the entire Richmond-Atkinson political clan were among those on Fox’s enemies list. Despite the fact that he was premier four times, Fox seemed happiest in opposition. He opposed the Waitara war of 1860, but this appears to have been due to his enmity towards the government of the time rather than due to support for Māori. He was later premier in the mid-1860s when large areas of Māori land were confiscated. Fox continued in politics until 1881; in his later years campaigning for prohibition, state education and votes for women.

In 1849 the Foxes purchased a property in Rangitikei, which they named Westoe after William’s South Shields birthplace. They lived there on and off from 1854 to 1887. His wife Sarah died in 1892, and William died exactly one year later. Fox is commemorated in New Zealand by Foxton and Fox Glacier. In South Shields he is mentioned on the historical information panel at Westoe and with the William Fox Hotel.