John Snodgrass

John Snodgrass
Image courtesy of Arnold Snodgrass

I first heard the name John Snodgrass when researching the Arabin family in 1985 in Ireland. We reached the townland of Moyvoughley in County Westmeath and talked to the current owners of the estate that belonged to the Arabins from 1703 to the 1850s. Charles Arabin R.M. was the last member of the family to live at Moyvoughley. He farmed cattle and was a Resident Magistrate, the career he continued in County Roscommon. While in Moyvoughley, Arabin was a member of the Moate Agricultural Committee and the Newtown Barn Agricultural School which promoted the improvement of agricultural methods in the County.

The estate was sold, then leased by William Dargan a famous railway engineer who was building the line from Mullingar to Athlone, and he grazed 300 horses on the land. At this time he employed Snodgrass, called locally the “Scottish agriculturalist” as his factor or farm manager. Snodgrass’s local fame lay in draining the Bugaun bog with a method known as jam shores. Some of his drains are still visible today.

Snodgrass house, Ōtūmoetai, 1917-1920
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library / Pae Korokī, Ref. 03-218

John Snodgrass was born in Renfrewshire in Scotland in 1814 and he married Barbara Graham.  Scottish agricultural methods were more advanced than in Ireland so he was welcome when he moved to Moate, a market town near Moyvoughley in light of the Newton Barn School and the Agricultural Committee. He left there after some years for the Greggs and Glinsk estate in Galway. Barbara Snodgrass’s brothers David and Robert Graham had emigrated to New Zealand earlier and were well established in Auckland. In 1861 the Snodgrass family decided to follow them and sailed on the Mermaid, arriving in Auckland in December.

Snodgrass set up as a carter and then, with his Graham connections, was appointed as a supervisor on the building of the Great South Road and a stockade at Clevedon. After an unsuccessful farming venture in Auckland, he was made bankrupt and spent some time in the Mount Eden debtors’ prison. In 1873 he sailed with his family for Tauranga to take up land at Ōtūmoetai. He and Barbara had ten children.

Playing tennis at Ōtūmoetai, 1917-1920, Foreground: Geoff Sharp, Lynn Snodgrass
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library / Pae Korokī, Ref. 03-218

With other farmers Snodgrass initiated the building of a cheese factory on Waihī Road, Tauranga but due to problems with keeping export cheese fresh the venture went into liquidation. His name remains in the district in Snodgrass Road, Te Puna.

Sources
Arabin, Shirley – No Petty People, the Arabin Family  - Moyglare Publishing, 2012
Snodgrass, Arnold – The History of the Snodgrass Family in New Zealand - 2011