The land where Pratt once squatted (and poor George Edwards met his death) has a curious additional history which I stumbled upon when researching the 1843 survey map of Riwaka. To my amazement 1 found the name of the famous English economist John Stuart Mill emblazoned across that particular large section labelled number 51. Clearly he was an absentee speculator who had no intention of ever settling in Riwaka. His substantial block of land simply lay idle, roads dug around it by resident landowners developing their own lots without any contribution from its owner. A demonstration, if one were needed, of just how bizarre the company scheme was.
Undeveloped it remained for well over a decade, until Mill finally had to face the consequences of gambling with land. When John Fowler (the father of Henry the seafarer) bought it in 1855, via Mills' attorney, Alfred Fell of Nelson, he paid 175 pounds for the 68 acres "being accommodation section No 51 bounded on the North, South and East by a Public Road and on the West by Sections Nos 50 and 56", with William Pratt witnessing John Fowler's signature. (These accommodation sections, nominally 50 acres, were generally increased in size in the wheeling and dealing when the company was winding up.) Attributing only its nominal 50 acre cost to it, 75 pounds, and compounding the interest on it, and a bit for expenses, it did not return J S Mill much more than 5% over the 14 years he held it. So much for the expected rewards of speculation!
And as an interpolation to the story, but pertinent at this point, the last of the 150 acre lots in Marlborough sold in the 1880s, and brought their owners only ten shillings per acre. This also serves as a reminder of the small pool of capitalist investors who ventured cash for the Nelson settlement. Bearing in mind that less than half of the scrip had sold, and some of that to holders of more than one allotment, the coincidence is not quite so remarkable. But it was remarkable to the author, to find these characters already in the story, connected in this way.
To complete the story, in 1857 John Fowler's son James opened the forerunner to the present Riwaka Hotel on the land. It was called The Travellers Rest, and his bush licence required him to offer two bedrooms and one sitting room, as well as operate a ferry boat over the Riwaka River.
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| Plan of Riwaka sections from Westrupp (2022) with Mill's section 51 bottom right |
- Fred Westrupp, Blind Bay Hookers: The little ships of early Nelson, and colonial times, Nelson, 2022, p. 95-97.
See also:
History: A destroyer captain remembers Arctic convoy PQ17, 18 August 2023
History: Probably still not past its best before date, 24 September 2022
History: The lifeblood of a young colony, 12 June 2009
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