GUARDIANS LEARN THE INLET'S HISTORY
Guardians Chair John Wells gave a warm welcome on 28 June to forty members of the Guardians of the Inlet who had gathered for their AGM on a very chilly evening in the Bradey Room next to the Whitby Library. Attendance was considerably up on previous years, reflecting the momentum the society has built with a series of successful community endeavours during the year under review.
He extended a special welcome to guests Mayor Jenny Brash, local MP Hon Winnie Laban, Northern Ward Councillors Euon Murrell and Maureen Gillon, and to Peter Bailey, newly apppointed General Manager Asset Management and Operations at Porirua City Council.
Mayor Jenny Brash thanked the Guardians for their work in improving the quality of life for the citizens of Porirua and said GOPI's work was appreciated across the city. Peter Bailey later spoke to the meeting on his plans for maintaining community involvement in care for the valued assets of the city, especially the Pauatahanui Inlet.
The meeting paid tribute to Paremata residents Barry Turfrey and Miles Deck. Barry is retiring from the position of Treasurer after five years of valued service and Miles after three years on the committee, noteworthy for his preparedness to take responsibility for the practical tasks such as transport of the Photo Competition exhibits from site to site.
Volunteering to join the committee of nine were Camborne residents Ian Thompson and Julian Powell. They will both be building on their involvement in May in the planting project beside the Camborne Walkway.
At the conclusion of official business local identities Jenny and Spencer Harris gave a series of vivid pictures of 'Old Pauatahanui', as seen through the eyes of the Harris family, who can claim descent from immigrants arriving on the first four ships that landed at Petone Beach in 1841.
The original Harris family, immigrants from Surrey, took up farming in the Horokiri Valley a decade later, on land they had been assigned before leaving England's shores. It became apparent that in their subsequent history their fortunes, and bloodlines, have interwoven with a number of the other pioneer families of Pauatahanui.
Jenny Harris told her audience of finding shells in middens on each of her home sites around Pauatahanui, some carbon dated back 600 years, to times of Ngati Ira settlement. They and their successors the Ngati Toa had pas at Motukaraka Point and above the village on the present St Alban's church site. A student in one of her classes at the local school had arrived one day with two cannon balls from the Battle Hill site further up the valley.
She recounted Harris family memories of the 1855 earthquake. The violent after shocks continued for three days as they sheltered in their timber home on the Old Porirua Road at Glenside. The family were working as farm labourers at the time on someone else's land, on the way to taking up their land at Pauatahanui.
Spencer Harris described in detail the later yearly round of clearing the bush from the hillsides about the Inlet as farmers sought to take advantage of the invention of refrigerated shipping and the new opportunities for sheep farming from 1882. This gave Jenny the opportunity to tell of the legend of the supposed great moa that terrorised a bush fellers' camp one evening high above the Inlet.
The audience was able to study a land sale document signed in London in 1839, and countersigned by the immigrant family in 1847 when roading progress made possible their access to land at the head of the Inlet. An original map of the Greater Wellington area given much later to Jenny and Spencer Harris showed clearly the London plan, from 1839, for a 'Porirua Township' on Motukaraka Point.
Those present were able to handle cast iron nails created in the forge at Pauatahanui for the building of the settlers' homes of pit sawn timber. They heard of Cobb and Co coaches pausing in the village on their way from Wellington to Foxton, in order to change to the bigger horses required to get their loads over the Paekakariki Hill.
Jenny Harris has been one of the key group of community volunteers who wished to honour their ancestors and worked to restore the cemetery at St Alban's Pauatahanui. It was fitting that at the end of the evening local MP Hon Winnie Laban could tell the meeting that Parliament had that day passed unanimously the first reading of a bill giving responsibility for the cemetery to Porirua City Council, to ensure its appropriate ongoing care and maintenance.
In his report to the meeting Chair John Wells announced funding had been secured from NIWA and Greater Wellington for processing the results of the Society's next major community initiative, the triennial cockle count planned for November. The new committee meets next on July 26 to develop the full programme for the 2007/8 year.
