Shipwrecks and Bush Felling

Few people have lived a more adventurous life than Timaru’s early pioneer George Richard Meredith. He goes to sea at eleven, falls from the rigging, and rescues a princess. Then he is shipwrecked and lost at sea for a week. During this time, he and fourteen other men in the longboat, narrowly escape death by eating his beloved dog. He is rescued and shipwrecked once more. He signs on with a ship to America but is bullied and runs away when it reaches the port. After more sea adventures he arrives in Australia. Gold fever is running high, so George and a mate run off to the gold fields. Things are going well until George has trouble with his eyes and a doctor advises him to go to New Zealand for his health’s sake. When he arrives in Lyttleton he finds work chopping wood in Kaiapoi, and helps build the Sumner Road. After a series of jobs pit-sawing, he meets a girl on the Lyttleton docks and marries her the next day. He shifts his elderly parents to Timaru, and continues carving a living out of the bush near Geraldine. Later in life he builds the first lime kiln in Kakahu, and attempts to float a coal mining venture. In 1913 at seventy-nine he leaves us a written record of his life. This first-hand account of the nineteenth century as seen by George Richard Meredith, is a slice of maritime history, and a fascinating glimpse into early New Zealand.