Note. The very early concern of Governor Grey was to vaccinate Maori against small pox.
see .https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/
1849
George Monteith was a coroner after his early years as doctor and assistant surgeon/surgeon, in New Zealand.
Here is a delicate speculation on unrequited love in 1849.
A coroner report. G.D. Monteith One media report came in in Nelson. NELSON EXAMINER & NZ CHRONICLE
21 November 1849/ CORONER'S INQUEST.An inquest was held on Saturday at the Victoria Hotel, near the Te Aro barracks, before Dr. Fitzgerald, coroner, on the body of Serjeant Mangin of the 65th regiment, who had shot himself on the previous day. George Dalrymple Monteith, being sworn, stated;
'I am a surgeon, practising in Wellington; on Friday morning last, the 16th of November, between the hours of 8 and 9 o'clock, a.m, I was sent to see Serjt. Mangin, of the 65th Regt. who was reported to have shot himself; I found him in one of the wards of the military hospital lying on a bed with a gunshot wound on the left breast, extending into the lungs, and a corresponding wound immediately above the left scapula; there was a large escape of blood and air with each expiration; he then told me that he had shot himself, and that he had done it through love; he was in a state of great collapse, from which he never rallied; I have no doubt that this wound was the cause of death.'
* RE: 1.1 Sixth adult female unknown at the Billy Tea
LOWER HUTT and WELLINGTON
Cameo of Time
A piece of Lower Hutt history as geology.1848 1848 Severe earthquake. The hospital where Monteith was working topples in the 1848 1854 Christ Church gets built, Taita1855 Earthquake raises and drains Hutt lands.The hospital was in a brick two story in Thorndon. Its second story brick roof toppled in the next big quake of 1855 - the Wairarapa Fault, m 8.2.
Dixon Street. By George D Monteith. 1858. (Private collection )
George D ( Dalrymple) Monteith was a baby christened in St Michael Anglican church, The Barbados.
( See his children on CHAPTER ONE )
His father Thomas had moved out of Scotland into the new trades of the English Eighteenth Century. Thomas was in coffee.
By then the last and seventh Monteith child christened there for the Monteith family from Port Glasgow, Scotland. The children lost their dad to yellow fever, when baby George was just one. George’s childhood and education was to live in the Stirling area in England once his widowed mother trooped the seven children back to England.
The Monteiths arrived at the Petone stream, Wellington, unloading off rowboat to tents in Britannica. George bought a section in Te Aro and built. Elizabeth Monteith lived fourteen years in New Zealand until 1854. There is nothing written about her; however, she completed a tapestry she embroidered while sailing out to NZ. The subject is of pregnant Mary on a donkey walking with a man, presumably Joseph. Elizabeth lived in Wellington on Dixon Street, raising six of the children before she died. She is buried with her husband and their second son Jack (Jacob) the pharmacist and the baby of Marie and George Neill (the Imperial soldier) in the Bolton Street cemetery. All the Monteith female children married, Lizzie, Maria, Lucy, Kathryn, and Mary Anne. The two sons, George and Jack were bachelors. The married women’s children lived and died in Hawkes Bay and Gisborne. Their children, whether farmers or not, spread over Hawkes Bay to Tauranga and Auckland. Major gravesite clusters for the family and descendants are Bolton St., Otane, Napier Hill and Purewa, St John’s Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. Ongoing generations have been buried in Titirangi and Albany.
He got to study medicine. He qualified to run an Apothecary with skills taught prior to the Cambridge University system, where learners were with equivalents in England or Glasgow, or in France or Germany. Medical books in England, and later, medical books via the Suez canal, did reach their readers.
His interest was research. He explored the possible values of ether as a brief resuscitator. He had landed and slept in the temporary ‘camp site’, Britannia, in Petone when he came in for the first two or three months. A high number of Victorian women, none who could swim, were drowned in their clothing. There was so much fabric drag even close to shore as rowboats encountered tidal rough waves and tipped passengers out. He had established an Apothecary just out of Birmingham in the 1830s with a partner, but the partnership dissolved. ( a bankruptcy)
He worked at the Wellington Colonial Hospital. George D’s first hospital work was in a brick two story in Thorndon. - it fell ( bricks in an earthquake ) in 1855 - the Wairarapa Fault, m 8.2 )
Typical for early English arrivees to the colony, George bought farmable land, as well as having a job, and flocked this with sheep. He bought land named Oero. Jack, second son, did some shepherding for him on his Oero Block as his first work* Oero was a piece of the large Edenham block, that first was bought by an Australian owner and later, the Chapmans.
( This was on land that was to become Hawkes Bay in 1855. This province was the last province to be established in the country. )
Within two decades from 1840, the couple’s son, George, and their daughter Maria ( by then a divorcee) , moved up to 'greener pastures' too. George, became a clerk in Napier. Maria , a music teacher. Lizzie and Lucy became sheep farmer's wives. By the late 1870’s his second son Jacob, better known as Jack, ran a Pharmacy on Manners Street, Wellington.
Within two decades from 1840, the couple’s son, George, and their daughter Maria ( by then a divorcee) , moved up to 'greener pastures' too. George, became a clerk in Napier. Maria , a music teacher. Lizzie and Lucy became sheep farmer's wives. By the late 1870’s his second son Jacob, better known as Jack, ran a Pharmacy on Manners Street, Wellington.
*Oero - Elsthorpe
George Monteith: his skills, his business and his health
Historically, George D was not a Victorian. Born in 1808, he boarded a barque in 1839. His adult time in England was the in-between time, between Georgian and Victorian. His Monarch had been William 1V. He had benefited from the period in England that had had turmoil of the long 18th Century wars and a period of blooming and busy peace in the early 19th. The population had already reached over a million in Britain. Medical expertise was growing in recognition. A “ hard working, conscientious man, “ was how the monarch he was under was described. George D died when he had been the Supervisor of the Colonial hospital in Thorndon.
George D made it to age 55 in 1862, his wife Elizabeth to 1856 at age 45. Their last child was just a toddler when Great Great grandma Elizabeth died.
About the use of ether, a first patient needing a tooth pulled, who had it used on him. It was then used on the first patient requiring surgery next. This was for tumour removal. That patient was a Maori chief who recovered well and was a signatory on the Treaty of Waitangi when forms arrived down from Auckland.
An article covers information about early steps in hospitals with Anesthesia *
*A FIFTY YEAR HISTORY OF THE NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY OF ANAESTHETISTS
'Dr Monteith was popular, gentle and understanding.'
2009
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0310057X090370S102
more on medicine
George made a stereograph of Te Aro Pa. His house on Dixon street was a short distance between there and Taranaki Street.
It is noted that George suffered from epilepsy towards the end. That meant he was entered into an asylum in 1862, for there was no known care of the neural condition then.
Manners Street. Wellington. Nat.Lib.
The New Zealand Hotel. c 1850
The second Monteith. Jacob Monteith. Pharmacist. 1837- 1884. Manners St. Wellington.
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1885 Death noticesJacob Monteith; https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP18840108.2.14https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP18840107.2.20
ReadingBy Dr. Phillip Speer.https://brewminate.com/edward-gibbon-wakefield-on-systematic-victorian-colonization-and-its-discontents/
Duke of Roxburgh. 1840
The Brougham 1842
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The Chapman brothers, Frederick and Alfred, sailed out in a barque in 1852. They were sons of Reverend William Emerson Chapman, vicar of Edenham, Lincolnshire. * Ref. National Library.NZ and sketches at MTG, Napier
Their father assisted in buying land the brothers called Edenham.
They venture into the Porto Preya on the island of St Jago
Pen drawings by Alfred Chapman. Diary. MTG.
The men moved up the North Island East coast from Wellington to the north of that province ( before Hawkes Bay was called Hawkes Bay) and established Edenham on Atua Rd.
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Cottage Interior. Who is the visitor?
In 1859 Alfred marries Lizzie Monteith. They settle at Edenham. Central Hawkes Bay.
Phormium tenax J.R.Forst & G.Forst was described in 1776 by Johann Reinhold Forster and Georg Forster, who were the father and son team of German botanists on the second voyage of James Cook.
Hythe. Kent. UK. c 2025. Online image
TIFFENS
TIFFEN ARRIVAL Henry Tiffen ( 1818 - 1896 ) migrated to Wellington in ( 1842) with his young wife Caroline and a child. ( Caroline White 1825- 182)They had the same objective. He had confidence as he arrived employed in a three year job as an assistant surveyor for the New Zealand Company. He was a younger man when he arrived at age twenty five. Tragically , the child and Caroline died no more than two weeks upon arrival.
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Amelia Tiffen. UK. (1818- 1880) Private Collection.
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Ida Tiffen (1866 - 1939). New Zealand. Private collection.