George Edward Read
Date of birth
Circa 1814
Date of death
23 Feb 1878
Place of birth
Gender
Male
Biography
George Edward Read was born in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England, probably in 1814 or 1815. His parents' names are unknown, as are details of his early life before he came to the Pacific in the mid 1830s aboard a whaling ship. Read served on various vessels trading around Australia and New Zealand from 1839 until 1852, having gained his first mate's certificate in 1838 or 1839. By 1843 he had advanced to captain, and by 1852 was the owner of a 20 ton schooner, the Mendlesham. He also set up stores at Mawhai, in Waiapu, and later at Waipiro Bay.
Read's opportunity came in 1852: prominent Poverty Bay Maori Hirini Te Kani, Rutene Te Eke and Pahora Pahoe offered to set him up as a trader on the Kaiti side of the Turanganui River. Soon after building a store he established another on the opposite bank of the river, near the confluence of the Waimata and Taruheru rivers. He immediately set about consolidating his position and bought out Yankee Smith, who had stores at Makaraka and Turanga (Gisborne).
Read quickly established himself as the district's principal trader. Over the next 25 years he was a key figure in the transformation of the small Maori and European villages at the Turanganui rivermouth into the colonial town of Gisborne. An astute, and at times unscrupulous businessman, Read was well aware that his prosperity and that of the township were intertwined. He boosted settlement by actions such as advancing money to build a public hall. He assisted settlers to obtain passages to and employment in Gisborne, and issued his own currency. In the uneasy days of the 1860s, when troops were quartered in the district, he was able to benefit by provisioning them.
Read also established himself as a pastoralist. By 1876 he had purchased, or leased interests in, 29 separate blocks of land, in an area extending upriver as far as Makauri and south to the Waipaoa rivermouth. His methods were questionable, but not different from land-grabbing practices elsewhere in New Zealand. Although he was respected by the Maori with whom he dealt, perhaps because of his tough, unrelenting approach, much of his wealth was gained at the expense of those, Maori and Pakeha, who were less commercially experienced. He was a master of the practice of extending liberal credit, then foreclosing and collecting his debts in land.
Besides his store and the aggregation of land, Read invested in land in the Mangatu area, convinced of the presence of oil there, and became a director of the Poverty Bay Petroleum and Kerosene Company. In 1866 he opened Poverty Bay's first hotel, the Albion Club, and the next year built offices which he leased to the government, a deal probably lubricated by his connection with the native minister, Donald McLean, of whom he was a regular correspondent and informant.
Although he declined nomination for the Auckland Provincial Council election in 1873, in 1876 he attempted to enter Parliament. His national political ambitions were fuelled partly by his interest in the Gisborne district's future in a huge electorate which included the Bay of Plenty, from which his opponent, George Morris, came. He was also inspired by party motives. He had long corresponded with McLean about conditions in the district, and in 1876 was concerned to keep a Greyite candidate from gaining the seat. The result was a bizarre and sensational contest. Read was initially elected in January 1876, but unseated in August by a parliamentary commission of inquiry. The inquiry found that his agents had overstepped the mark, although without his knowledge, by giving voters pieces of cardboard which were redeemable in public bars. The election was said to have cost Read about £2,000, compared with the £700 expended by his opponent. The seat went to Morris.
Read was a short, robust man, with plenty of energy and prone to be volatile. He was known as a colourful and powerful personality, and many tales of his dealings and actions are recorded. He was reputed to have a photographic memory of the stock he had in his store. When he thought he had been wronged he was quite willing to seek redress in court or by more direct means. One argument in December 1872 with another store owner, Samuel Horsfall, ended with Read's losing teeth and his competitor's being sued for assault. Read himself was no stranger to the dock of the local courtroom, appearing on charges of abusive language, and once for threatening to shoot a local resident. He made an enemy of the local magistrate, W. H. Tucker, and frequently abused him. Tucker responded by fining Read repeatedly. In May 1874 Read precipitated a strike with a wage offer to a group of immigrant carpenters.
On 2 December 1873, at Gisborne, Read married Noko Pahipa or Bathsheba of Rongowhakaata. Towards the end of his life he lived with Noko on a property he owned at Matawhero, called The Willows. He died at Gisborne on 23 February 1878, leaving no children. The manner of Read's death was in keeping with his character. He died of a heart attack after returning from a heated argument with a local resident. Although Read had sold his main commercial interests to William Adair three years previously, his extensive land dealings, both freehold and leasehold, were to provide his executors with a tangle which took years to sort out.
Philip Whyte. 'Read, George Edward', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1r2/read-george-edward (accessed 29 January 2019)
George Read: Read was a local a trader and storekeeper. His purchases extended throughout the area and occurred largely in the 1870s and related mostly to Poverty Bay Commission granted lands on the Poverty Bay flats. By 1876, he had bought interests in an estimated 29 blocks, though he rarely acquired sufficient shares to successfully partition.
It is clear from the trust commissioners’ records and anecdotal evidence that Read used the following techniques to acquire his land:
. Like Crown purchase officer Wheeler, Read purchased interests from individuals, rather than from groups of owners.
. He used debts owed to him in his business as a storekeeper to acquire some of the interests he purchased. For example, in 1869 he gave Rahuruhi Rukopo, and a number of others with interests in the Crown granted Whataupoko block, a mortgage of £1817 10s to cover a debt they owed him presumably as storekeeper. Two years later, having acquired other interests, he registered a deed stating that he had bought the block for £734 plus the mortgage. It appears, therefore, that Read bought the interests for the cash amount plus the amount of the mortgage. Whether this meant that he got a better deal is unclear. However, it is likely that the knowledge that Read held the mortgage would have discouraged other interested buyers from obtaining interests in that block.
. Like Crown purchase officer Wilson, Read leased lands as a preliminary step to purchase. In 1870, for example, he leased Kaiporo from Epirata and a number of other owners. By 1875, he had purchased several interests in the block.
. Read was willing to use unorthodox tactics to pressure Maori to sell. He built a mobile house on runners to allow him to squat on lands he wished to purchase. According to claimant historian Katherine Rose, he then resisted the owners’ attempts to move him off, until someone accepted an offer. Porter wrote to McLean, in reference to the Okirau block of ‘a house of Capt Read’s being two or three times dragged off a piece of land forcibly possessed by him’.
accessed 19/11/2019 from: https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68185126/Wai814.pdf
Read's opportunity came in 1852: prominent Poverty Bay Maori Hirini Te Kani, Rutene Te Eke and Pahora Pahoe offered to set him up as a trader on the Kaiti side of the Turanganui River. Soon after building a store he established another on the opposite bank of the river, near the confluence of the Waimata and Taruheru rivers. He immediately set about consolidating his position and bought out Yankee Smith, who had stores at Makaraka and Turanga (Gisborne).
Read quickly established himself as the district's principal trader. Over the next 25 years he was a key figure in the transformation of the small Maori and European villages at the Turanganui rivermouth into the colonial town of Gisborne. An astute, and at times unscrupulous businessman, Read was well aware that his prosperity and that of the township were intertwined. He boosted settlement by actions such as advancing money to build a public hall. He assisted settlers to obtain passages to and employment in Gisborne, and issued his own currency. In the uneasy days of the 1860s, when troops were quartered in the district, he was able to benefit by provisioning them.
Read also established himself as a pastoralist. By 1876 he had purchased, or leased interests in, 29 separate blocks of land, in an area extending upriver as far as Makauri and south to the Waipaoa rivermouth. His methods were questionable, but not different from land-grabbing practices elsewhere in New Zealand. Although he was respected by the Maori with whom he dealt, perhaps because of his tough, unrelenting approach, much of his wealth was gained at the expense of those, Maori and Pakeha, who were less commercially experienced. He was a master of the practice of extending liberal credit, then foreclosing and collecting his debts in land.
Besides his store and the aggregation of land, Read invested in land in the Mangatu area, convinced of the presence of oil there, and became a director of the Poverty Bay Petroleum and Kerosene Company. In 1866 he opened Poverty Bay's first hotel, the Albion Club, and the next year built offices which he leased to the government, a deal probably lubricated by his connection with the native minister, Donald McLean, of whom he was a regular correspondent and informant.
Although he declined nomination for the Auckland Provincial Council election in 1873, in 1876 he attempted to enter Parliament. His national political ambitions were fuelled partly by his interest in the Gisborne district's future in a huge electorate which included the Bay of Plenty, from which his opponent, George Morris, came. He was also inspired by party motives. He had long corresponded with McLean about conditions in the district, and in 1876 was concerned to keep a Greyite candidate from gaining the seat. The result was a bizarre and sensational contest. Read was initially elected in January 1876, but unseated in August by a parliamentary commission of inquiry. The inquiry found that his agents had overstepped the mark, although without his knowledge, by giving voters pieces of cardboard which were redeemable in public bars. The election was said to have cost Read about £2,000, compared with the £700 expended by his opponent. The seat went to Morris.
Read was a short, robust man, with plenty of energy and prone to be volatile. He was known as a colourful and powerful personality, and many tales of his dealings and actions are recorded. He was reputed to have a photographic memory of the stock he had in his store. When he thought he had been wronged he was quite willing to seek redress in court or by more direct means. One argument in December 1872 with another store owner, Samuel Horsfall, ended with Read's losing teeth and his competitor's being sued for assault. Read himself was no stranger to the dock of the local courtroom, appearing on charges of abusive language, and once for threatening to shoot a local resident. He made an enemy of the local magistrate, W. H. Tucker, and frequently abused him. Tucker responded by fining Read repeatedly. In May 1874 Read precipitated a strike with a wage offer to a group of immigrant carpenters.
On 2 December 1873, at Gisborne, Read married Noko Pahipa or Bathsheba of Rongowhakaata. Towards the end of his life he lived with Noko on a property he owned at Matawhero, called The Willows. He died at Gisborne on 23 February 1878, leaving no children. The manner of Read's death was in keeping with his character. He died of a heart attack after returning from a heated argument with a local resident. Although Read had sold his main commercial interests to William Adair three years previously, his extensive land dealings, both freehold and leasehold, were to provide his executors with a tangle which took years to sort out.
Philip Whyte. 'Read, George Edward', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1r2/read-george-edward (accessed 29 January 2019)
George Read: Read was a local a trader and storekeeper. His purchases extended throughout the area and occurred largely in the 1870s and related mostly to Poverty Bay Commission granted lands on the Poverty Bay flats. By 1876, he had bought interests in an estimated 29 blocks, though he rarely acquired sufficient shares to successfully partition.
It is clear from the trust commissioners’ records and anecdotal evidence that Read used the following techniques to acquire his land:
. Like Crown purchase officer Wheeler, Read purchased interests from individuals, rather than from groups of owners.
. He used debts owed to him in his business as a storekeeper to acquire some of the interests he purchased. For example, in 1869 he gave Rahuruhi Rukopo, and a number of others with interests in the Crown granted Whataupoko block, a mortgage of £1817 10s to cover a debt they owed him presumably as storekeeper. Two years later, having acquired other interests, he registered a deed stating that he had bought the block for £734 plus the mortgage. It appears, therefore, that Read bought the interests for the cash amount plus the amount of the mortgage. Whether this meant that he got a better deal is unclear. However, it is likely that the knowledge that Read held the mortgage would have discouraged other interested buyers from obtaining interests in that block.
. Like Crown purchase officer Wilson, Read leased lands as a preliminary step to purchase. In 1870, for example, he leased Kaiporo from Epirata and a number of other owners. By 1875, he had purchased several interests in the block.
. Read was willing to use unorthodox tactics to pressure Maori to sell. He built a mobile house on runners to allow him to squat on lands he wished to purchase. According to claimant historian Katherine Rose, he then resisted the owners’ attempts to move him off, until someone accepted an offer. Porter wrote to McLean, in reference to the Okirau block of ‘a house of Capt Read’s being two or three times dragged off a piece of land forcibly possessed by him’.
accessed 19/11/2019 from: https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68185126/Wai814.pdf