From Edinburgh to the Kaipara Harbour - Andrew James and Elizabeth Frances BONAR

On the day in early summer, 1863, when Daniel Manders Beere called to take their photos, Andrew and Elizabeth Bonar had been in New Zealand for just on 4 years. For the photo Andrew wore a light coloured suit – trousers, buttoned waistcoat and open jacket  – with a black shirt and black bow tie. Really quite dashing. Elizabeth chose a full-length dress in a light-weight fabric – it looks like seersucker. The dress has quite wide sleeves that reach to just below the elbow and Elizabeth’s arms are covered by the cuffs of a white lace garment that she is wearing under the dress. A white lace collar and a white bonnet complete the outfit. Although there is a bench seat on the verandah, Andrew and Elizabeth are seated on dining chairs, positioned at the top of the steps up to the front door of their home in Kaukapakapa, a short distance from the southern shores of the Kaipara Harbour, where they settled following their arrival in Auckland in December 1859. Andrew is seated casually, with one arm over the back of his chair and a small black dog on his lap. His head is held high as he looks solemnly directly at the photographer. This appears to be a photo of a confident and relaxed man, lithe and aging well. He’s 53 years old. Elizabeth’s expression is equally serious but her pose is rather more demure. Her hands are clasped in her lap and, unusually, she is facing side on to the camera so that her face is in profile, looking steadily at her husband. Although Elizabeth is the same age as Andrew, or at the most a year older, she looks weary, as if these 4 years far from their native Scotland have not been easy. I sense in Elizabeth Bonar the portrait of a woman who has endured rather than thrived on being a settler. This feeling is endorsed by the fact that one of the photographer’s brothers had sailed to New Zealand on the Shalimar in 1862 so surely that connection between the Beeres and the Bonars would have put Elizabeth at ease: if any anyone could have coaxed a smile and a full-face pose from her, it would have been Daniel Beere.

Zoom out, to another of Beere’s photos taken at the same time and we can see the Bonar house, sturdy in rough sawn weather boards and a corrugated iron roof but very alone in a fenced clearing on a fern-covered sloping hillside. Andrew and Elizabeth came to New Zealand on the Shalimar as first class, cabin passengers. With them were their 23-year-old son William, and Andrew’s bachelor brother John. When the Bonars arrived in New Zealand in December 1859, at 49 years old (Andrew), 50 (Elizabeth) and 47 (John) they were slightly over the average age of British immigrants to the colony at that time.

Whilst many of the Shalimar’s other passengers were soon busy home-making, rearing young families and either taking up their original trades or plunging into the intricacies and technicalities of something completely new (woollen mill carder turned inspector of weights and measures; servant turned director of a parcel delivery firm; magistrate turned farmer; farmhand turned gold miner are just some examples) Andrew Bonar continued in his work as JP and coroner, duties which saw him travelling a great deal around the vast Auckland area. At the same time, his cutter Progress ferried settlers who had travelled overland from Auckland (via Riverhead) to Helensville to their final destinations around the eastern shores of the Kaipara Harbour and its many inlets. As well, he took a lively interest in local events. A passionate letter that he wrote in the wake of the Orpheus’s sinking as it entered the Manukau Harbour in February 1863 laments what he saw as deficiencies in the attempts to recover the bodies that were washed ashore, from the Manukau Harbour’s north head to the south head of the Kaipara. He was also a strong advocate for more adequate markings on the bar at the entrance to Kaipara Harbour. On a less serious note, he was also a judge at agricultural shows and either he or his brother John must be the “Mr Bonar of Kaukapakapa” whose magnificent pumpkin was exhibited in a fruiterer and greengrocer’s shop in Queen Street, Auckland in May, 1867. It weighed “no less than 185¼ lbs., with a circumference of over six feet.” (84kg, 1.8m) (NZ Herald). (As an aside, “Extraordinary Pumpkin – as an instance of what the land at Kaukapakapa will produce …” is featured between paragraphs relating proceedings at the police court – always fascinating; a narrow escape from fire in a shop where matches caught fire; the Tongariro eruption; the need to repair the bridges in the Waikato and the announcement from Taranaki that hapu of Ngatiruanui had vote unanimously to make peace with the Europeans.)

John Bonar, a school master, didn’t marry in New Zealand and I have not found any evidence that he had married in Scotland prior to coming here. The early 1860s were boom years for settlement around the Kaipara Harbour. The timber industry, gum digging, farming and boat building saw the settler-population grow from a handful of Europeans in the late 1850s to 150 in the 1866 census along with between 600 and 700 Maori. By the 1874 census, a much more complete head count than previous ones, there were around 900 Maori in the Kaipara area while the European population had reached over 1,600. The setting up of schools was an integral part of this population growth and John Bonar was almost certainly involved with this expansion until his death in 1879.

Young William Bonar was named after his paternal grandfather, a banker in Edinburgh. He was born in 1836, the year following his parents’ marriage, and I have found no evidence that he had any younger siblings who might have remained in Scotland or predeceased him. His life as a colonial can best be described as adventurous and checkered. He certainly wasn’t a typical ‘settler’. A photo of him isn’t included in Daniel Beere’s portfolio. By 1863 William Bonar was established in Aratapu, on the Northern Wairoa River, not far from Dargaville. Here he had a thriving timber mill and would remain a bachelor until his marriage to Caroline Russell in March 1866.

Returning for now to the original photo of Andrew and Elizabeth Bonar: on that day in late 1863, it is hard to look past Elizabeth’s aloneness, especially as, like Andrew, in Scotland she had come from a large, well-to-do family – the Dixons of Levengrove House, Dumbarton. I have been unable to find any direct connection between Elizabeth Bonar and the Dixon family who travelled in steerage on the Shalimar. They can’t have been her brother with his wife and family, but they may have been a nephew and his family. Likewise, I have found no provable connection between the Bonars and the lady with the elusive name of Miss Paton who was a cabin passenger on the same voyage. Without a first name she is certainly very difficult to trace. I would love to think that she was Elizabeth Bonar’s companion – someone to alleviate the isolation of rural Kaipara in the 1860s.  

Sadly, whether or not the Dixons were her relatives, and whether or not Miss Paton was her companion, Elizabeth Bonar developed Lupus and died in June 1867.

William Bonar went on to lead an interesting life which deserves a chapter of its own, whilst his father Andrew remained active until shortly before his death, aged 78, in 1888.

In researching Andrew and Elizabeth (Dixon) Bonar, I have referred to www.paperspast.natlib.govt.org.nz, NZ historic births, deaths and marriages, www.familysearch.org, Tall spars, Steamers and Gum by Wayne Ryburn and The Unknown Kaipara by T Brian Byrne. I am very grateful for help received from Louise Michaux of Kaukapakapa.

Daniel Manders Beere’s photos of Andrew and Elizabeth Bonar and their home are on the photo archive of  www.natlib.govt.nz