"ELIZA TO LORNA" - THE HIGGIE CLAN - PART 3 - Robert & Gordon

PART 3

My grandfather, Robert Clark Higgie, was the 8th child of Thomas and Mary Higgie and when he was born, in 1855, it was 14 years after his parents had first stepped ashore in Port Nicholson, Wellington.

Those early years in Wellington would have been a real struggle for survival yet they had endured those difficult times and settled into the New Zealand way of life.

 Now, in 1857, Robert is 2 years old and his father has finished building their substantial homestead, named “Blincbonnie”, on his newly purchased land, just south of Wanganui, on No.2 Line – very pleasant countryside to raise their large family. 

The younger members of the Higgie Clan will be leading a far more stable life than their older siblings, who spent their early childhood years frequently on the move. 

So it was in the Okoia - Fordell area, on the outskirts of Wanganui, that my grandfather grew up.

I visited this area in 1987, 130 years later, after meeting a distant cousin at a Woolcraft gathering.   I had a wonderful afternoon being shown around the district by Robert’s younger brother, James, grandson’s wife! – the very charming Barbara Higgie.  With her husband Gavin, they are still on part of the original land that was passed on to his family back in 1884.

On this informative tour with Barbara I learnt that when Thomas Higgie died his second son, Alexander (known as Alec), had taken over the portion of  land  with  the “Blincbonnie” Homestead on it.  Sadly that lovely home was burnt down many years ago but another house built nearby.  As Alec’s only son, Adrian, died it is his daughter Maud’s granddaughter, therefore Alec’s great-granddaughter, and her husband who are living there now  - Bill Harding and family.

When in Wanganui, I of course, had no idea that 15 years later I would be attempting to write a family journal for my children and could have been asking many more questions!

So, back to my great-grandfather and my lack of information as to how he spent his youth.  I can well imagine though that those six Higgie lads would have been a force to reckon with in the local community.  Having a father as energetic and innovative as Thomas could very well have been a blessing, or sometimes, quite likely to have been a considerable cause of anguish to those boys during their teenage years !

I will now have to jump ahead to March 1883.

Robert Clark Higgie(aged 28 yrs) married Janet Hearn Rapley(21 yrs) 

( Janet the daughter of James and Jane Rapley - nee Nathan) 

Where did they live to start their married life?  Robert would not yet have his portion of land from the “Blincbonnie” inheritance but he would have, within a few years after marriage, built a home on this land.  My older brother Keith recalls our Dad telling him of his happy days growing up in the Fordell - Okoia area.       

I have had, over the years, a few ‘glimpses’ in to my grandfather’s lifestyle as told to me by my father Gordon Higgie.  His father, Gordon always spoke of as Pater – the Scottish equivalent of father.  Well, Pater was a keen horseman and became very interested in breeding Race Horses.  When young, Gordon always wanted to be a jockey, only he grew too heavy!

The following will confirm Robert’s interest in Racing: My Auntie Myrtle, my dad’s sister, gave me a gold bracelet that had belonged to her mother. This bracelet was engraved with the words 

~ M R J C ~ won by Mrs Higgiee's "Myrtle" ~ 1884 ~

(the above probably The Marton Royal Jockey Club ) 

The horse was named after their first child, Myrtle, born 6th July 1884. Myrtle is my second name - she was my Godmother too, so hence the bracelet.  Also in the family is an inlaid Chess Table with a set of Ivory Draughts, a presentation to Robert Higgie from the Wanganui Jockey Club.

My grandfather Robert was a Horse Trader too, travelling into the back country around Wanganui, and up in the Taranaki area, buying up horses to ‘break-them-in’ – that is to get them familiar to being handled, and the feel of bridle and saddle -  before someone was actually up in the saddle riding.     

Many of these horses he sold to the army.  This would have been particularly profitable in the time of the Boer War in South Africa in the late 1890’s - 1900’s, as the army needed many horses for the N.Z. troops fighting over there with a Mounted Rifles Regiment.

Robert would take Gordon with him on some of these horse buying trips when he was a young boy. I presume these adventures would have been during School Holidays as they spent several weeks away from home. When they reached Pipiriki, after following the Wanganui River as they wound their way northwards, a journey of some 45 miles, Robert would then leave Gordon with a Maori family while he went further afield. 

Both Gordon and his father spoke fluent Maori. This could have come about by Robert’s mother-in-law, my paternal great-grandmother Jane Nathan, on arrival as a young girl with her parents in Wanganui in the 1840’s, was taken by the Maoris (as were several other children during those early years) and kept for some considerable time before being released. By then she was a fluent speaker of the Maori language and, evidently, later in life encouraged her family to become bilingual too. 

I often wonder did Thomas Higgie and some of the other Higgie boys speak Maori too? Did attending the Putaki Missionary School get them so involved with the Maori people to the extent that they conversed freely with their neighbours? The children would easily pick up the language in the playground. When Myrtle Higgie chose a career it was with the, then named, ‘Native Department’ – because she was bilingual...just so very sad such queries never entered my head when I was young!

Those journeys to Pipiriki perhaps would have been the beginning of Gordon’s love of life in the wilderness. My dad told me how he enjoyed the horse treks and the happy times with the Maori family. This family even wanted to adopt him! I have a serviette ring, carved from a bone, and engraved with the name Tiki. This was the name his Pipiriki whanau called him so he must have spent quite a lot of time with them. 

I can remember Auntie Myrtle, Gordon’s only sister, calling him Tiki too. There is a photo of him walking along Lambton Quay, Wellington, and the caption being - “Tiki comes to town” – it was taken the time he traveled to Wellington for his mother’s funeral.

As I have been writing about my grandfather I have been trying to build up a ‘picture’ of him as a family man.  I found this difficult with so little information on him but, after reading through the last few paragraphs, I’m sure he would have had quite an influence on shaping Gordon’s character.  As the story proceeds you will find Gordon grew to be a gentle, caring man who cared very much about the environment around him, so I like to think he acquired these qualities from his father.  ( I did get to know my grandfather Robert Higgie in my first 3 years of  life, and have very fond memories of him from then, as you will get to read later.)