# Gillespies Beach Beginnings/Part 5

​PART 5 - THE MOVE ELSEWHERE
The previous account concentrates mainly on those who stayed in the Fox Glacier area and were responsible for its development. The following information may be of assistance to future genealogists who wish to follow up their lineage, particularly among those descended from the female line. As already stated, it is the men in these marriages about whom most is known. The female offspring of Laurence and Margaret Sullivan were housewives and not notable, with perhaps one or two exceptions, for achievements outside the all-important family. They were, however, the greatest contributors, working behind the scenes, to the social development of all the small communities where they lived, exerting a civilising influence and stability for which they seldom achieved recognition.
Mary (Sullivan) & Henry Williams
When Henry Williams left Gillespie’s in 1894, he taught at the school in Stafford for four years before going on to become Assistant Master at the Hokitika District High School. Following retirement in 1918, the family moved to Wellington, where he was approached by the Rector of St Patrick’s College, Silverstream, to teach there which he did for a number of years. He was still buying land at Fox Glacier as late as 1912, worked by his brother, Fred. At what stage his brother, Fred, acquired his land holdings isn’t clear, but Henry did not return to South Westland to live or work.
Following the outbreak of WWI, the three oldest boys of Henry and Mary (see group family photograph), Henry, Charles and Lawrence, joined the army and after posting overseas saw continuous service in Egypt and France. All three returned safely.
Henry Jnr graduated with a Masters degree in law and worked in the Public Trust Office in Wellington. Charles was both tennis and table tennis champion in Wellington for many years where he worked for the Government Life Insurance Company. He was promoted to District Manager, Invercargill, and later held the same position in Hamilton. Lawrence joined the Public Service but later ran a corner grocery near the Wellington Zoo. His son was a popular priest in the Wellington Archdiocese.
Margaret Williams became a school teacher and did not marry. Elizabeth (Marie) was a keen sportswomen and hockey representative for several years. She was Wellington Ladies hard court tennis champion in 1924 and also a keen golf player. Thomas (Tommy) was New Zealand’s first professional tennis coach and co-founder of the New Zealand Professional Tennis Coach’s Association. He was chairman of the New Zealand Table Tennis Association for 20 years and played a large role in the development of the sport. The family lived firstly in Wellington but later moved to Lower Hutt to run a dairy and later again, a bookshop in Alicetown. Patrick gained his accountancy qualification before he reached twenty years of age.
​It is timely to record that a grandson of Mary and Henry Williams and therefore a great-grandson of Laurence Sullivan and Margaret Vaughan, Thomas Stafford Williams, was ordained (Catholic) Bishop of Wellington in 1979, followed by the appointment to Cardinal in 1983.
Julia (Sullivan) & Fredrick Williams
Account has already been given of this couple’s pioneering at Weheka, Fox Glacier. Their sons, Thomas (Harry), Lawrence (Lawn), Patrick and Fred farmed their father’s land at Fox Glacier throughout their adult life and raised their families there. In retirement, Harry moved to Greymouth. His son, Laurie, worked the farm at Weheka, selling to also live in Greymouth in retirement. Pat moved to Christchurch in retirement. Lawn, on handing over his acreage to his son, Reeve, established a stud farm at Fernside, Rangiora, where he lived until his death. Lawn took some of his cattle with him from Fox Glacier and established a Greendale Hereford Stud there. Lawn’s son, Reeve, also moved to Canterbury in retirement but he and his wife were killed in a motorcar accident.
Fred Williams, Jnr also moved to Christchurch in retirement. As at time of writing, the Williams descendants still farming at Fox Glacier are Kevin Williams, grandson of Fred Williams Snr and his son, Paul. Also Wayne Williams, grandson of Lawn Williams and his sons. Kevin, Fred’s son, and his wife, Noeleen have operated a bed and breakfast establishment in the old Williams homestead for many years, carrying on the hospitality extended by Julia Williams in earlier times.
Michael Williams, another grandson of Fred and Julia caught the flying bug no doubt while, as a boy, he watched the planes landing at the airfield adjacent to his family’s farm. He qualified as a commercial pilot beginning with Mt Cook Airlines, later working for major airlines in New Zealand and in Australia. His sister, Monica currently lives in Christchurch.
​May, Anne and Sheila Williams, daughters of Julia and Fred, all became teaching nuns in the Sisters of Mercy order, and eventually contributed over 180 years of teaching service before they retired. They enjoyed a long religious life. May, Sister Mary Aloysia, remained on the Coast, teaching at both Hokitika and Ross. Anne, Sister Mary Lawrence, taught on the Coast, but also in Timaru and Christchurch. Sheila, Sister Mary St John, taught for many years at Loreto College in Christchurch, where she acquired a formidable reputation as the College’s football coach. When they took their vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, convent life was strict and conventional. Adjustment to the changes brought about by the Vatican Council in the 1960s demanded considerable adjustment. While they were alive, through their letters and visits, they kept South Island descendants together. The lovely old buildings in which they served, the Sacred Heart College in Craigie Avenue, Timaru, St Mary’s Convents in both Christchurch and Greymouth, and St Columbkilles in Hokitika no longer exist, all having been demolished.
Margaret (Mag Williams) and her husband, Robert Emmett Clarke (Bob) started their married life in Greymouth in 1922. Because of a downturn in the building industry during the depression years, they eventually borrowed money to buy a dairy farm at Whataroa in the early 1930s. Bob constructed many buildings on the Coast including the Catholic church, Our Lady of the Snows at Fox Glacier and the church, Our Lady of the Woods and presbytery at Whataroa. With Jack Sweeney he erected the Abel Tasman obelisk at Okarito in the early 1940s with money donated by the Dutch government. He worked on the extensions to the Williams homestead at Fox Glacier and also built houses for his three Williams brothers-in-law, Harry, Pat, and Lawn when they married. Earlier he also worked on the Sullivan homestead for Mick Sullivan when he married. It is a tribute to his workmanship that at time of writing these many decades later they are still in sound condition.
Bob and Margaret Clarke moved to Christchurch in 1943/4 where they acquired a dairy farm in Grimsey’s Road at the back of St Bede’s College. A huge snow storm shortly afterwards influenced Bob to return to building for a living. In his latter years he was employed by the Addington Racecourse as a general fix-it man, but he returned to the Coast to live when his wife died.
Following service as a fitter and turner with the occupational air force in Japan at the end of World War II, and later marriage, Bob’s son, Emmett, borrowed money from his uncle, Lawn Williams, to finance the purchase of a bulldozer for contract work on the Haast Pass road project. This work enabled him to build a house and garage at Franz Josef Glacier and eventually buy a farm there in what had originally been land owned by the Paganini family adjacent to the school. The original Paganini stately 2-storey house a few kilometres north of the township is now a bed and breakfast establishment. Like one or two other South Westlanders, Emmett piloted his own small Cessna aircraft for several decades, finding it quicker and cheaper than running a car. Training with the RNZAF as a fitter and turner and later service overseas with the occupation forces in Japan enabled him to do his own aircraft maintenance. In retirement Emmett lived mainly on a small acreage near Greymouth. His brother, Jim, qualified as a motor mechanic, and lives in Christchurch. Mary and her husband were share-milkers in ​various parts of Taranaki, finally settling in Nelson. Mary died of an aneurism in the brain when only 47 years of age. Her daughters all live in Nelson.
Elizabeth (Liz Williams) and Bert Weenink farmed at Tetaho between Hari Hari and Whataroa for most of their married life. Their sons, Harry and Albert carried on with the family farming interests. Harry died prematurely but Albert remained farming there, including deer farming, before retiring to Hokitika to live. Fred Weenink married and lived in Masterton throughout his married life. The house in which this family grew up at Tetaho is still standing. Until a school was established at Tetaho, young May and Harry stayed with their grandmother at Fox Glacier to attend school there. May and her husband lived their entire married lives in Christchurch. Julie remained single and also settled there eventually.
The Heads
George Head who married Margaret Sullivan was a miner at Gillespie’s Beach. George had originally mined at Kaniere and also at Woodstock. The family eventually moved back to Kaniere where he had relatives and where he established the Addison’s Flat gold mine. He later became involved in sawmilling and because of his knowledge of timber and mining took charge of the Westland Court at the Christchurch Inter-Colonial Exhibition in 1906/1907. Following this he was mine host at the Kaniere Hotel for a period. As stated at the bottom of the genealogy chart at the beginning of this book, Margaret died at age 39 and George remarried an Edith Allardice but there were no offspring of this alliance. He later moved to Westport in charge of the Old People’s Home there, a position held from 1924 until 1943. He donated the Head Shield to the Westport Bowling Club. Brief notes on his sons follow.
George Head was rector of St Patrick’s College, Silverstream, which is probably why Henry Williams ended up teaching there in the latter part of his working life.
Arthur (Derby) Head spent most of his working life in Ross where he was a member of the Ross Borough Council and Mayor for a period. He was also a member of the Westland Centennial Council (Inc).
Patrick Head worked on the Okarito gold dredge until it sank. Later he worked for the Ross Borough Council until he moved to Westport where he worked for N.Z. Railways.
Annie (Sullivan) & Mick McGavin
Mick McGavin was a tailor. The couple lived in Hokitika for some years before relocating to the suburb of Karori in Wellington. Their children, Mary and Pat were page boy and page girl at the wedding of Margaret Williams and Bob Clarke as per the photograph. Mary was active in the Wellington Repertory Theatre in her younger years. She later lived and worked in London. When the widowed Lawn Williams visited London, following the death of his wife, Irene, he remet this cousin Mary whom he later married, firstly ​living at Fox Glacier and, on retirement in 1964 at Fernside near Rangiora as already mentioned.
Patrick McGavin qualified as a barrister and solicitor with an office on Lambton Quay in Wellington for many years. Following the end of his first marriage in the mid-1950s he departed for Australia, where he eventually became Head of the legal department of a tertiary establishment in Adelaide and where he had four children by his second marriage as per the genealogy chart. A son by his first marriage was a lecturer in anthropology at Sydney University until his premature death.
Michael (Mick) & Agnes Sullivan
The activities of Mick Sullivan and his sister Mary (Kerr) have been reported above.
Mick’s son, Maurice, and his son, Tim still farm at Fox Glacier. When the hotel was sold in 1995, ownership at that time being vested in Mary Kerr’s two children, Anne and Simon, they both moved to Christchurch to live.
James Sullivan, brother of Mick and Mary also farmed at Fox Glacier throughout his life and also farmed land at Jacobs. His descendants continue the farming tradition. Michael farms the land at Fox and Jacobs and John is in partnership running a dairy farm.
John (Jack) & Anastasia Sullivan
I acknowledge that there may be some gaps in the above summary made understandable as time passes and the generations move apart. Most of us live our lives in relative anonymity largely unknown beyond the circles in which we move.
Apart from the few descendants still farming at Fox Glacier, others are scattered far and wide, both within New Zealand and overseas. As already stated, among the earlier generations it is the activities of the men which loom large in family accounts. However, as elsewhere in the world, WWII brought women into the work force. Like other families into their fifth and sixth generations, representatives can now be found in the legal profession, accountancy, architecture, teaching, farming, nursing, aviation, writing, engineering and religious orders among others. At the other end of the socio-economic scale will be found drivers, labourers, carers, and miscellaneous other occupations. All of these, it seems to me, reflect the egalitarianism of New Zealand with opportunities to achieve whatever goals each person may choose to set. Those who inherited land may be thought nowadays, when land prices are high, to have had some advantages, but against that greater opportunities and freedom existed for other descendants to develop their talents. Not everybody is suited to farming.
Over time all families have their share of saints and sinners but who is to say which is which. The Irish heritage ensured that some would be, as my mother described it, “too fond of the bottle.” Young children, fulfilling the old adage that “little pigs should be seen and not heard”, did indeed overhear many interesting adult conversations amid tut-tutting, but yesterday’s secrets are today’s ho-hum.
Family violence when tempers flared and the beatings to which children were subjected, both at home and in school would, today, ​make criminals of past adults intent on ensuring that their charges learned the hard way what was acceptable behaviour and what wasn’t. The good name of a family was important and the concept of shame caused extreme discomfort. The Ten Commandments loomed large in the minds of these forebears and there were no soft options. Conversations were peppered with the hundreds of sayings passed down over the centuries, most of which contained solid grains of wisdom and common sense.
Whenever anyone in our family became bolshie, my mother referred to it as “the Sullivan streak”. The Sullivans probably referred to it as “the Williams streak.” With growing understanding of the effects on our lives of our genetic heritage it is a sobering thought to realise how much those who are long gone continue to have an impact on both our physical and emotional lives. In this respect science confirms that we are truly at the mercy of our genes.
The Fox Glacier township is now a busy tourist centre attracting visitors from all over the world. All the usual amenities are there - cafes, motels and hotels, a camping ground, backpacker and B&B facilities, a garage, several helicopter companies offering scenic flights, alpine guide services and the very popular sky diving sport. The Department of Conservation also maintains a visitor centre. All of these are a far cry from the heavily bush-clad valley which the early settlers set out to make their own.
(a)=adopted (d)=deceased (div)=divorced
The numbers above correspond to the chart at the beginning of the book. Details have been researched as far as possible. Most families are now into the 5th and 6th generations but there is enough detail above for those who choose to follow up any particular lineage.