Grace Hirst: A Settler's Life in New Plymouth

Grace Hirst – A Settler’s Life in New Plymouth is an important family and social history based on a treasure-trove of letters sent to her family in England over nearly 50 years.

Primary sources of history such as this provide rich insight into the experiences of our first settlers, from their harrowing voyages to an unknown country, to their struggles to build homes and livelihoods against the odds.

The Hirst family had to contend with the Land Wars, even burying many of their valued possessions in the garden and taking refuge in overcrowded, illness ridden New Plymouth for safety. But Grace Hirst was built of strong Yorkshire stuff, becoming the mainstay for her growing family of traders and farmers during the Taranaki Land Wars and the Long Depression of the 1880s.

Grace personifies the pioneer optimism and drive of early settlers in Taranaki. Described as ‘pious and practical’ by a fellow settler, Grace was stoic, at times stubborn, generous, loving and well able to make wry, pithy observations on life bound by her strong Christian faith. She died in 1901 at the age of 96, having witnessed, and recorded, one of the most extraordinary periods of New Zealand colonial history.