Manawatu rail: Feilding Traditional Cache
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Size: 
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One of a series of simple, easy to find, caches at railway stations in and around the Manawatu.
Welcome aboard the Government Railways' service to Wanganui! Last stop Aorangi, next stop Makino.
Feilding township is named after General William Henry Adelbert Feilding (1836-1895). Feilding was a son of William Feilding, 7th Earl of Denbigh and his wife Lady Mary Elizabeth Kitty Moreton. He served in the Crimean War and was British commissioner to the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War. He was decorated in the field by General Chanzy with the Legion d'honneur for saving the wounded under fire in a burning hospital. He became a Colonel in the Coldstream Guards and was Inspector-General of the Recruiting HQ from 1891 to 1894.
In 1871, as a director of the Duke of Manchester's Emigrants and Colonists Aid Corporation, Feilding was sent to Australia and New Zealand to investigate the purchase of land for emigration possibilities. Australia was rejected as the conditions of sale of available land did not suit, but in New Zealand the passing of Vogel's 1870 Immigration and Public Works scheme, combined with Feilding's social standing meant that he received a number of land possibilities within a day of talking to government ministers. |
W.H.A. Feilding
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In December of 1871 he arrived at Foxton and met with A.W.F. Halcombe (See Manawatu rail: Halcombe), then working as an agent for the Corporation. They rode to Palmerston on horseback (the tramway to Foxton had only just started construction), then on to Ashhurst and the Feilding area. Back in Wellington, Feilding then arranged for the purchase of 43,000 hectares (106,000 acres) of land between the Rangitikei and Oroua Rivers, now called the Manchester Block, for £75,000. In exchange the government guaranteed to pay for the immigration of 2000 colonists, provide accommodation for them on arrival and guarantee employment for 200 men for 3 years.
In 1877 Halcombe reported to the government on the state of the settlement of Feilding. He states that the population prior to the first 570 Corporation settlers arriving in January 1874 was just 600 (Māori were not included in censuses then). An initial 20 small 2-room houses were built with timber freighted in from Palmerston. Local Māori blockaded further supply and for the next two months materials had to come in from the north, at a much greater expense - no roads, remember. Housing was completed in May - some immigrants spent 4 months in tents! The houses were rented to the immigrants at 7s per week, and given freehold after 3 years work. The immigrants initially were dissatisfied with their wages, 5s/day for 4 days/week, especially those working on bush clearing, until other settlers arrived at which point the immigrants realised they were being paid well above average. As the rail to Feilding was not going to be completed by winter, Halcombe organised for the rough track to Palmerston to be upgraded to a road, however only parts of it were metalled. Without the road, carriage charges to Feilding were 30s per ton in summer and £2 10s in winter if you could find a carter willing to do the trip. One third of the route from Palmerston ran through Māori reserve which Māori often blockaded and charged an additional toll. Māori were also blockading the route to Halcombe, through to which roads were being built.
Feilding returned to New Zealand in 1875 to check on progress of the settlements of the Manchester Block, and then again in 1895. He must have been pleased as the population of Feilding had grown to 2000 in that time. In 2013 Feilding's population had risen to 15,000.
Feilding Railway Station started life as simple shelter and goods sheds. From opening day on 7 October 1876, the Government Railways ran two trains each way each day between Foxton and Feilding (the Plamerston to Foxton line had just been upgraded to steel rails), a trip of two hours and twenty-eight minutes. In 1888 a larger station was transferred in from Manutahi, near Patea. That station burnt down in the 1960s, and its replacement still stands today.
The cache is a mint tin. Bring your own pen. Good luck!
Feilding Station, 1876. A simple shelter shed, behind the train.
Station house, about 1904.
References:
Cassells, K.R.: "The Foxton and Wanganui Railway", published by the New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society, 1984.
Wikiopaedia: "William Feilding (British Army officer)"
Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: "Feilding"
National Library AtoJsOnline: "The Feilding Settlement (Report on the progress and present condition of)"
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Nobir gur tebhaq.