BIRTH AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT
that: “The building now known as a lock-up situated at Charleston, shall be deemed and taken to be, a public jail of the Colony of New Zealand.” At the same time Mr. Charles Broad was appointed visiting Justice for the gaols at Charleston and Brighton. In October of the same year Messrs. T. A. S. Kynnersley and J. R. Dutton also were appointed, and in December Dr. Joseph Giles.
To form the mass of fortune-seekers into an orderly community was no easy task, but it was accomplished, though those entrusted with the duty received at first little assistance. A proportion of the people resented restraint and looked upon the enforcement of the law as comparable with the despotism of a hard stepmother or an interfering maiden aunt. Some took it so hardly that a protest was made to Parliament, complaining of the severity with which the Police were administering the law, and declaring that it was causing “a state of terrorism.” Parliament upheld the Police in the strict execution of their duties.
During the ’seventies, thousands of persons left the Coast. The better element remained. The days of prodigality and excesses had passed.
The people still sang, but it was not the same tune for a softer melody had replaced it. Experience had been bought and the price paid, and there was soon built up a state of society that old Coasters and their descendants can look back upon with complacency. The Coast was in its heyday in the ’sixties. Gold flowed in, settlement increased, and its harbours were busy with shipping.
The first vessels to enter the southern ports were:—
Greymouth.—The schooner Gypsy, Captain Chas. McCann, early in 1860. The first steamer was P.S. Nelson, Captain Leech, with Reuben Waite and 70 diggers on board, 22nd July, 1864.
Brighton.—P.S. Woodpecker, which, in 1866, landed passengers at the place now called Woodpecker Bay. The agent for this vessel was Mr. Fisher, an auctioneer of33
