Colonel Joseph Cowie Nichols [born 1859] of Kuriheka Estate, near Oamaru, describes Dunedin and Otago since his arrival from Tasmania in 1869. He recalls personalities such as Mr Dalgety, founder of the merchandising firm Dalgety & Co, John Reid who was involved in the pioneering of frozen meat exports and Mr Larnach of Larnach's Castle on the Otago Peninsula.
His family came to New Zealand from Tasmania, arriving in Port Chalmers and travelling overland to Dunedin. The journey was beautiful but Dunedin was very small in those days and was a poor place. The bush covered the land around the harbour and all over the peninsula. They lived in Dunedin for a few years. Nichols went up to college in Christchurch, and then his mother took the family back home [to Britain] where he went to Cambridge. He then went back to Australia and didn’t get back to New Zealand for a few years.
[Nichols repeatedly asks the interviewer whether he is being recorded. The interviewer evades the question].
He recalls meeting Mr Dalgety [founder of Dalgety & Co] in London in 1879. He was always grateful to Dalgety for offering him assistance when he was going to college in England and considered him a fine chap.
[Nichols asks again whether this is being recorded and the interviewer reassures him that anything he is unhappy with can be edited out.]
He talks about Dalgety’s career, starting in Australia, and his father’s association with him in Melbourne. Nichols’ father stayed with the firm until his death in a coach accident in 1878.
The Nichols’ neighbours in Dunedin were the Reids of Elderslie Estate near Oamaru. Their son was ill and the Nichols provided the Reids with milk for him from their cow. In return the Reids invited Nichol and his sister up to Oamaru for the summer. They arrived at Oamaru by surf boat and then carried to the beach by men. He did not see much of Oamaru as they went straight to Elderslie. He was fascinated by some of the agricultural activities, including seeing a six-furrow plough, drawn by thirty bullocks, which was the only one in New Zealand. The Reids of Elderslie were some of the first to export frozen meat from New Zealand. This was not initially profitable due to the high price of sheep at the time.
Nichols talks about a meat-preserving venture his father was involved in early on, which failed. He goes on to talk about the price of sheep and the influence of refrigeration on the trade. He passed the Kuriheka sheep runs on to his son Arthur after the First World War, and although they do not have so many sheep, the returns on their stock are good. Rabbits and overstocking caused deterioration on their sheep runs. Rabbits are not too much of a problem as the skins fetch a good price and the men are able to take care of them themselves.
He bought Kuriheka in 1885, and at that time the original homestead and other buildings were in a poor condition. They had been built about thirty years previously and were made of slabs of local timber, but were not good accommodation. Nichols’ mother helped him build the current stone buildings.
The interviewer then asks about Larnach Castle. Nichols lived at Anderson’s Bay for three years, during which time William Larnach was building his castle. Nichols was friendly with Larnach’s sons at the time and went to stay for some time in the summer. He is complimentary about Mrs Larnach and of Mr Larnach’s carriage driving skills. Nichols then talks about the extravagant construction of the castle, and how Larnach always made purchases on a lavish scale.
Nichols then talks about the carpenter at Elderslie, Mr Barnham, and the tales he used to tell to amuse the young people. Although he was a ‘bit of a wag’, he was also a good carpenter and responsible for many of the beautiful fittings at Elderslie. Mr Reid of Elderslie was always impeccably dressed.
In 1872, Nichols went down to Clifton Station, managed by his mother’s cousin who was an expert in merino sheep. Nichols recalls the sheep being hot-water washed before being shorn. On one occasion, a 5-gallon tin of ammonia exploded all over one of the hands; thankfully he recovered. The washed wool was packed into bales to be sold in London. The shorn sheep were returned to the paddock. When Nichols was there, there were no rabbits. He saw their arrival there, and at Kuriheka.
When he first bought Kuriheka, very little of the land had been ploughed and he had to clear the land of scrub. He sold the existing sheep and bought merino sheep instead. The rabbits reduced the quality of the land so they had to drop the number of sheep. The rents were high so he had to stock the runs to the limit and consequently they failed. He had to resow the runs, which took three years.
The Fenwicks erected a hot-water sheep wash at Kuriheka in 1868, but they had it too hot and ‘cooked’ some of the sheep.
He relates tales about losing sheep, including losing about 800 sheep on one occasion; the group of 1,600 ewes had been shorn and kept at the station to acclimatise. On the night they took them back up to the pasture, there was significant hail and about half of them died. On another occasion, a snow-storm came in; the hoggets had gone to a sheltered area during the storm, but the snow was so deep that it settled upon them and the men could not find them. They lost 1,800 hoggets.
In another incident, about 800 young ewes were stolen. His head shepherd reported that he had not seen any sheep in the high ground one day; they went up to look for them and found the fences had been cut and they had been taken across the river. A storm came in and they were unable to track them, and they found no trace of them. After that they started fire-branding the sheep.
The interviewer asks about Nichols’ collection of armour and treasures. Nichols says he had always been interested in soldiering. He joined the Dunedin cadets in 1873 during high school, and later joined the B Battery when he left school. After purchasing Kuriheka in 1885, he volunteered with the Otago Hussars from 1886. The North Otago Hussars became the North Otago Mounted Rifles, of which he became the commanding officer. Eventually, under the Territorial system, he became Brigadier. When World War 1 broke out, he was the senior Brigadier in New Zealand and took charge of the Otago region, where he served as military defence for five years. Having held this interest for so long, he started collecting war medals as a hobby. He talks about some of the medals and other war memorabilia in his collection, and how he has built up the collection over the years. Notably, he has some obsolete 6” and 7” guns from the fortifications, which he rescued from destruction.