Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Taranaki, Hawke's Bay & Wellington Provincial Districts]

Mr. Eric Charles Gold-Smith

Mr. Eric Charles Gold-Smith, Commissioner of Crown Lands and Chief Surveyor for Canterbury, formerly held a similar position in Hawke's Bay. He was born in Camberwell, Surrey, England, in the year 1848, and is a son of the late Captain Henry Gold-Smith, who came to New Zealand by the ship “Star of India” in 1862, in command of No. 5 Company of the 1st Waikato Regiment. Mr. Gold-Smith was educated at Matthew's Denmark Hill Grammar School, Camberwell, and came to New Zealand in 1864, in the barque “Bosphoros.” Soon after his arrival he joined the first Waikato survey party under Mr. Lowe, and after assisting in the survey of the lands set apart for the military settlers at Pukerimu, went with Captain Turner's party to survey the confiscated boundary, and the military settlements near Tauranga. In 1867 he volunteered for active service at Tauranga, joined the engineers under Captain Skeet and Lieutenant Gundley, and was soon under fire. Old residents of Mahurangi, North Auckland, still remember Volunteer Tom Jordan, and they will be glad to know that the comrade still lives in whose arms the brave young soldier died. Two stalwart lads, each standing over six feet, and who had been acquainted but a few days, were taking cover behind the trunk of a large tree, from the deadly fire of rebels who surrounded them. One was fatally hit, and the other, disregarding all further cover, supported the dying man till his page 404 life's blood ebbed away, and then carried the body out of the bush. The brave survivor is the present Commissioner of Crown Lands for Canterbury, who, when interviewed, appeared to have forgotten for the moment that he had ever taken part in the war. This was early in 1867, and before the end of that year Mr. Gold-Smith had passed unhurt through the Tauranga and Opitiki engagements, and, as sergeant in Gundry's engineers, accompanied Major Fraser's expedition to Waimana. Soon after the outbreak of the Thames gold-fields, Mr. Gold-Smith went there surveying and engineering with his father, who was a civil engineer. He joined Mr. Perey Smith's survey party for the Kaipara triangulations, and was, in 1870, appointed to the survey staff of the General Government as assistant surveyor under Captain Heale. Mr. Gold-Smith holds the New Zealand war medal. In 1873 he married a daughter of the late Mr. C. J. Kensington, of Auckland, and has one daughter and three sons.