He Koha - A Gift

Born 1884 at Hattonburn House, Kinross-shire in Scotland, Sir Basil attended Uppingham School in Leicester and later Trinity Hall, Cambridge University. He was, I would say, of an adventurous disposition, inherited perhaps from his maternal Grandfather, Thomas Purvis-Russell, a man who played no small part in the pioneering enterprise of the young emerging colony of New Zealand. Thomas, known by all it seems as Purvis Russell, at least on these shores, arrived here in 1843 and not long after was running sheep on leased Maori land at Whangaimoana on the Wairarapa coast. His brothers Henry, John and Robert would follow in 1852 and sought out similar opportunity. Farming had served the family well in Scotland.

By 1853 Purvis Russell and his brother Henry were acquiring lands in Central Hawkes Bay, Purvis establishing a run on the Porangahau block near lake Whatuma (Hatuma today), while Henry secured a holding on the neighbouring Waipukurau block, which he called Mt Herbert. Purvis built a homestead at Whatuma, which he named Woburn. In fairly short order he would grow the Woburn estate to over 22,000 acres (about 9000 hectares). Brother Henry was no less industrious, grazing some 25,000 sheep at Mount Herbert by the mid 1870s. Of course, the dominant engagement between Māori and settlers in those years centred on land.

By 1870 the Russell brothers had allied themselves with the Repudiation movement led in the main by Henare Matua, a Ngāti Kahungunu tribal leader. Matua and Repudiation sought redress of Maori land grievances in Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa through legal actions intended to overturn previous land deals. Henry Russell in particular involved himself in the business of the movement financing many of their legal proceedings, funding Te Wananga, the movement’s Māori language newspaper and challenging land deeds in the Supreme court. It has to be said there are questions as to his motivations in this regard as monies advanced for such proceedings most often led to Māori indebtedness, collateralised by the only major asset left within the Kahungunu domain - land not yet sold to Pākeha. Then as now, lawyers did not come cheap and land lay at the heart of the matter. In the event, none of the repudiation movement’s legal challenges were successful. Matua was also a staunch advocate of local runanga administration of Māori land ownership to the extent that by the mid 1870s, local runanga were settling disputes over land, sometimes issuing certificates of title, collecting fees and administering leases. Runanga also tried and punished

offences, and claimed and settled debts, generally ignoring the operations of the Native Land court. Many Māori within runanga ‘jurisdictions’ simply disregarded the Crown institution altogether, an example I would suppose, of a preference for Māori solutions to Māori problems.

By 1882 Thomas Purvis-Russell was back in Kinross-shire, Scotland to give away his only child, Mary Maud, in marriage to Sir Henry J Montgomery (7th Bt.) at Hattonburn, where the future Sir Basil would be born two years thereafter. Grandfather Thomas was then a man of great industry, means and influence. In his later years he would spend less time in New Zealand. There’s many a homesick pioneer settler whatever their station and Thomas Purvis Russell became an absentee owner of Woburn, now named ‘Hatuma Estate’, in favour of northern hemisphere climes. No matter, the great station at Waipukurau, Central Hawkes Bay wouldn’t be his for much longer.