A very independent woman

Yatton Park from above, 2026.  Mansel Street is at extreme top-left corner.  The site of the original homestead, above the bend of the Waimapu Stream, is entirely covered by trees. Image: Google Maps

During the Victorian era, intrepid female explorers defied strict societal expectations of domesticity, travelling the globe for adventure, scientific discovery, and personal freedom. Mary Kingsley explored west African jungles and swamps, Isabella Bird the explorer and travel writer rode 800 miles over the Rocky Mountains, while the artist Marianne North ventured to all of the continents and her collection of botanical art is housed at Kew Gardens in London. Another woman, this one Irish-born, Lucy Mansel travelled to New Zealand prepared to break in the land and farm, accompanied by six of her nephews.

As well as her sense of adventure, the family background may also have led to a desire to leave England as her brother and later her sister did, for their father Robert Mansel, who was the Lieutenant Colonel of the 6^th Inneskilling Dragoons, was the first of several illegitimate children fathered by General Robert Manners and his common-law wife Mary Ann Goodchild. Mary was the daughter of a coachman so not of the same class as her partner. Manners never married and died aged 65 in 1823 in London but had lived at Bloxham Hall in Lincolnshire.

Lucy Mansel heard of George Vesey Stewart’s Katikati settlement in New Zealand from a friend and decided to take a big step and emigrate. She was unmarried and, on the Northumberland in 1884, brought with her six nephews: Charles, Herbert, William and Harold Mansel, sons of her brother Robert, and Clement and Robert Dowell, sons of her sister Mary Dowell [1].  She had been caring for Herbert since he was five years old. On arrival in New Zealand, she decided against settling in Katikati with the other Stewart people and instead bought an established farm on the outskirts of Tauranga. It was Yatton, the 320-acre property formerly owned by John Chadwick [2].

Miss Lucy Mansel (centre, holding a dog) and her young relatives, October 1899. Herbert sits in front.

Image: Te Ao Marama Tauranga City Libraries 09-003

Miss Mansel, as she was known in those more formal days, extended the existing house at Yatton to one with eight bedrooms and also built a large barn that was used for balls and other social occasions.  The domestic buildings were built on a high point overlooking the estuary. She was a very strong supporter of the Anglican Church, helping to fund-raise for the new church of St George’s at Gate Pa, and was the only woman on the building committee. She donated the font for the new church. Lucy made the Methodist Sunday School children welcome each year for their annual picnic at her farm after their short voyage up the estuary from Tauranga to the landing at Yatton.  The barn provided shelter if there was poor weather. 

 Miss Lucy Mantel and her boating party on the Waimapu, October 1889.

Image: Te Ao Marama Tauranga City Libraries Photo 09-004

Lucy Mansel was also a committee member of a group of Tauranga women who organised the gift of a photograph album for Mary, Duchess of Cornwall, later George V’s Queen, on the occasion of the Royal Visit in 1905.  It was an album of Tauranga and district photographs by Tauranga’s leading photographer Mary Humphries.

As well as having her nephews working on the farm, she also accommodated farm cadets from England as G.V. Stewart and some of his Katikati settlers did. She never married and left the farm to her nephew Herbert Benbow Mansel, the five-year-old whom she had brought up. It was this legacy to Herbert that prompted Lucy’s niece, Mary Constance Dowell, to contest the will that Lucy had signed in 1910.  Her claims of her aunt’s fading mental facilities and encroaching blindness were disputed by George Maltby, lawyer; Reverend Eric Rice, vicar; Dr Budenell her doctor; Walter Baigent, accountant; and nephew Herbert Mansel.  In light of the information from these men Mary Constance withdrew her objection to the granting of probate.

It is from Herbert’s submission that the family stories are revealed. Robert Mansel and his wife, parents of Herbert and his brothers, retired from the Royal Navy where his rank was Commander, to farm in Africa where he died in 1872. When he married in Tauranga, Herbert built another house on Yatton for his future family, adjacent to Lucy’s. His parents had taken four of his siblings to Africa. Herbert was 17 when he arrived in Tauranga and totally dependent on his aunt. During her lifetime Lucy gave Herbert part of Yatton in trust for his children and helped him financially, including help with the education of his children. Lucy also told him she would leave him the remainder of the Yatton estate. By 1914 she had sold any remaining property in England and brought the money to New Zealand. Lucy’s eyesight did get worse but she lived until 1916. She died in Auckland and is buried in Tauranga’s Anglican cemetery [3].

Subdivisional map of Yatton, May 1919.  Image: Te Ao Marama Tauranga City Libraries Map 20-230

Lucy’s sister Mary Mansel married George Dare Dowell of the Royal Marines.  He won the Victoria Cross during the Crimean War. It was his sons who had travelled to Tauranga in 1884 with their Aunt Lucy. Following Dowell’s retirement, the couple moved to New Zealand until his death in August 1910. His wife died 6 weeks later.

Family military tradition emerged again when the First World War broke out and three sons of Robert Charles Mansel and his wife Beatrix enlisted.  George Victor and Robert Charles Mansel returned home after the war but Herbert Pengelly Mansel died in Palestine from malaria.  Although he is buried in the Jerusalem War Cemetery [4], his memorial can be found in St George’s Church, Gate Pa.

Both images: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.  
At right: AWNS-19160727-45-25; at left, photo by Janes Bruce Ringer, 3003-2914

References

[1] Rorke, Jinty, entry in Dictionary of NZ Biography 1993: Lucy Mansel

[2] Bay of Plenty Times, 4 April 1941: see Papers Past, National Library. Viewed 16/05/2026.

[3] Will of Lucy Mansel, Archives NZ. Auckland Probates IE48341583. Viewed 17/05/2026.

[4] Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database.

 

A Journey Across the Pacific: Samoan Migration to New Zealand

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

Image of Virginia Marshall (nee Williams). Taken when immigrating from Apia Samoa to New Zealand on the Matua in 1946 or 1947.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 13-1177

 

Among the treasured collections of Tauranga’s Pae Korokī archive is a photograph of Virginia Marshall (née Williams). Taken during her journey from Apia, Samoa, to New Zealand aboard the Matua in the late 1940s. While simple in appearance. This image captures a powerful story of migration, resilience and change. [Virginia M...Pae Korokī]

For many Pacific Islanders in the post-war years, travel to New Zealand represented both opportunity and uncertainty. The voyage itself was not an easy one. Ships like the Matua carried passengers across long distances, often in crowded and basic conditions. Space was limited, privacy scarce, and comfort minimal. Seasickness, unfamiliar routines and the challenges of life at sea made the journey physically demanding.

Beyond the practical difficulties lay deeper emotional challenges. Migrants left behind their homes, families, and cultural foundations. Carrying with them hopes for a better future. For some, English was not their first language, which created barriers in communication both during the journey and upon arrival. The uncertainty of what awaited them in New Zealand employment, housing and social acceptance added another layer of tension.

These journeys were also shaped by the political context of the time. Samoa was under New Zealand administration and movement between the islands and the mainland was influenced by official processes and restrictions. Migration was not always straightforward and many travellers navigated complex systems as they relocated.

Yet, despite these challenges. Such journeys were acts of courage. The photograph of Virginia Marshall represents more than a moment on a ship it reflects a pivotal transition in a person’s life and echoes the broader story of Pacific migration.

Today, images like this remind us of the strength and determination of those who crossed oceans to build new lives, enriching communities like Tauranga in the process.

Sources:

Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online, Photograph of Virginia Marshall née Williams

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Written by John Atafu, Heritage and Research Team Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries

 

Another new book from Trevor Bentley

 

Between 1864 and the early 1900s, Tauranga Harbour was not merely a backdrop to the district’s maritime history; it was the engine of it. Every local and visiting waka, schooner, cutter, barque, scow and steamer entering the harbour brought with them people, cargo, news and hope. During Tauranga’s Anglo-Māori War years (1864-1872), British battleship-troop carriers brought military occupation, violence, colonial officials, dispossession and despair.

While Tauranga’s early history is one of ships, it is also a history of the people who built them, sailed them, loaded them, anxiously watched them disappear over the horizon and joyously welcomed their return. This eight-part study casts light on Pākehā and Māori ship builders, their owners and their captains, on British and Māori fighting men, immigrant-settlers, merchants, labourers and visiting travellers, missionaries and officials.

The book restores their stories to the harbour and invites readers to see Tauranga not simply as a place on land but as a place defined by water - by tides, sandbanks, reefs, channels, and the vessels that once threaded among them. It is a reminder that our harbour has always been a gateway, a theatre of cross-cultural encounters, a workplace, a saltwater highway, a hazardous seaway and a home.

Racing from Tauranga to Auckland with cargoes of perishable goods, the Tauranga owned schooners Hope and Fortune arrived within a few hours of each other on 2 February 1866.

As many readers know, Trevor is a member of the society and an active contributor to this blog. His books and blogs explore Tauranga’s as well as New Zealand’s social, maritime and military history with a special focus on the Pākehā and Māori men and women who crossed cultures voluntarily and as captives. Dr. Bentley is the author of ten previous history books.

Book details

Early Maritime Tauranga: A History of Vessels, Visitors, Residents and Events, Volume II, 1864-1900s.

Author: Trevor Bentley

ISBN: 978-0-473-77735-7

Soft cover, 486 pages

RRP $39.99

Publisher: Kererū History Books.
https://www.kereruhistorynz.co.nz/

Image credit

Dawson, Montague. ‘The Orange Schooners,' from Ramsey, L.G.G. Montague Dawson, R.S.M.A., F.R.S.A., The Greatest Sea Painter in the World, F. Lewis, Leigh-on-Sea, England, 1970: 43, no. 179, plate 39.

Into the depths we go - delvings into collections management

 

Pharmaceutical bottles from the 107 Wharf Street archaeological dig, Tauranga Museum Collection. 
Photo: Jen Copedo

When someone asks me, “What do you do for work?” I honestly struggle to answer the question in a few words. The role of the Collections team at Tauranga Museum is so varied that it’s near impossible to put into a small cluster of words. 

Last week I was studying up on what a ferroequinologist is (someone who studies/loves trains if you too are interested), and this week I am sorting through archaeological material from the 107 Wharf Street dig from 2018. 

And by sorting, I mean selecting, cleaning, and researching the material for our collection. This work is a crucial aspect of collection management because in understanding the provenance of the object, we can better tell the story it represents. 

There is something thrilling about delving into archaeological material, I find it magical to be able to handle something that was used or touched by someone hundreds of years earlier. I often feel as if I am standing next to those people, with a temporal wall separating us. I have also learnt more about bottle shape and colour than I thought I ever would. For example, did you know that blue bottles often held poisons or medicines? I would hate to think of those two being mixed up. Often the poisons had the embossing “Not to be taken”…but what if you couldn’t read? 

Working behind the scenes at Tauranga Museum is an absolute privilege. I am constantly reminded that the world is so much bigger than my own, and my job gives me the extraordinary opportunity to connect with the past and better understand how our ancestors lived.

Written by Jen Copedo, Collections Lead at Tauranga Heritage Collection

Vivien Edwards – a life to celebrate

 I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived [1].

Photo: Beth Bowden

Those who come to this website for quality writing and research are always in good hands if the article that piques their interest is the creation of Viv Edwards, an occasional contributor since 2011.  Viv died on 9 June 2026.

Elsewhere on this site you can find her characteristically modest explanation for her self-taught skills in reporting the past: “History sparked my interest, after finding an old Hospital Board report on the 1918 influenza epidemic, while nursing at Auckland Hospital. This led to several articles, talks and researching other topics.” 

Vivien was always one for understatement.  Her output over her lifetime was prodigious.  She never seemed to stop working.  As a mature student, she graduated B. Sc in biological sciences, a disciplined achievement for the working mother, by that stage, of two sons.

Nurses graduation. Staff nurse V.S. Edwards, Tutor nurse E. Hereford (2/2). Published 29 September 1964. 

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo gca-7396

Her first and early career as a nurse culminated when she became a nursing tutor.  Some of her alumni were at her memorial service, and spoke warmly of her abilities to communicate technical information in a way that never lost sight of the human dimension.  She adapted that to many different subject areas in her lifetime.

For instance: she was the author of "Winkelmann: Images of Early New Zealand" (Benton Ross, 1987) and "Battling the Big B: Hepatitis B in New Zealand" (Dunmore Publishing, 2007). The two books could not be more different.  The first is a beautiful art hardback in large format, dealing with nineteenth-century challenges of photography.  It met the technical challenges of twentieth-century book production so well, it won the 1988 Book of the Year prize in that category.  The second is a contemporary account of health reform efforts led by Dr Alexander Milne.  His work is much cited in on-line journals but it takes 27 Google search listings before Viv’s work shows up.  Hers is not a scientific report; it is an eye-witness story – a ‘first draft of history’ - of just how hard it was to deal with an unacknowledged epidemic [2].  

Book of the Year award, 1988. Photo courtesy of Trevor Hoff

After leaving nursing in 1984 Viv made her living as a freelance writer for over 20 years, working for trade and professional magazines such as NZ Forest Industries Magazine, NZGP (the periodical for general practitioners), Management, NZ Business, The Transportant, Pharmacy Today, Safeguard, Her Business, NZ Pine International, Sea Spray, Bits and Bytes, Uno (Waikato and Bay of Plenty), and the Shed.  Every article was clipped and meticulously filed - in scrapbooks; her early journalism pre-dated the World Wide Web although she was quick to see its benefits and adapted fast.

Blogs for Tauranga Historical covered things that caught her fancy.  You can search for her articles on -

• Oliver Macy Quintal (July 2011).  Pursuing this early lawyer’s past took her and her partner Trevor to find his grave on Norfolk Island.
• Hannibal Marks, Harbourmaster (July 2014).  One of the many maritime tragedies of Tauranga’s past: he drowned here.
• Tauranga Hospital’s Roof Garden (Feb 2019).  Viv took the photos to illustrate this article.  Her eye for colour and form is evident.

She also wrote a personal memoir of her nursing days for the Historical Review [3].  A 50-year history booklet written for New Zealand Lumber, 'History in Motion: Evolution of the NZL Group 1949-1999”, was aptly named; history never stood still for her.

Perhaps her most telling achievement was the long effort to publish the story of Mary Sutherland, the first woman forestry graduate in the world. At some point in her magazine-article work she opened a long-ignored filing cabinet at the Forest Institute and discovered a trove of papers relating to Mary.  Although her memorial plaque is in Whakarewarewa Redwood Forest, Viv knew there was more to explore.

Viv and an as-yet unidentified companion at Mary Sutherland’s memorial, c. 2011. Photo courtesy of Trevor Hoff

For several years she researched and wrote Mary’s story.  A Path Through the Trees was published in 2020 and in 2021 won the Ian Wards Prize “for making substantial imaginative and exemplary use of New Zealand archives and records.”

This is a fitting accolade for Vivien’s professional competence.  She had advanced bibliographical skills; she was a capable indexer; she was also a warm and insightful interviewer whose personal communications gleaned information that otherwise would never have come to light.  Before the internet, before and during the advent of the personal computer, she had a knack for the research process and collecting and managing large amounts of information.

She was also a tiger for the truth, who doggedly pursued her hunches.  Mary Sutherland first saw the light of print in 2011, as an entry in the Tauranga Library’s 2011 Memoir and Local History Competition.   If Trees could Talk: the Whakarewarewa Redwoods was the title of the essay [4].  It was to be a long time before the book itself showed up. For this and all these other reasons, Tauranga Historical can be very proud of her.

References

[1] David Thoreau, Walden; or Life in the Woods, Ticknor and Fields,1854. At the memorial service my eulogy concluded with a fuller passage from this work, which can be found at https://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/walden-or-life-woods

[2] The book is now out of print but can still be borrowed from Te Whatu Ora’s library in Tauranga.

[3] Historical Review, Vol 70, No. 1, May 2022: Vivien Edwards, Nursing at Tauranga in the 1960s

[4] https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/20049