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The AvondaleHistorical Journal
 
September—October 2007Volume
7
Issue
37
Official Publication of the Avondale-Waterview Historical  Society Incorporated 
 
Herbert Viggers (the dapper man with the hat in thephoto at left) and his family lived in Henry Street formuch of the last century. In 2001, when I metSociety member Jean Jones for the first time, shegave me copies of these and other wonderful photosfrom the Viggers family album.The photograph at top is, in my opinion, one of thefinest distance shots of part of Avondale for its time— around 1910. One of the foreground houses isthat of an early land agent, S. Thomas — and theracecourse grandstand can be seen in the distance,backing onto Ash Street.The later photograph is of “Bert, Hilda and GladysViggers in Queen Street”
Next meeting of the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society:Saturday, 6 October 2007, 2.30 pm
 
Lion’s Hall, corner Blockhouse Bay Road and Great North Road
 
Please contact the Society for details.
 
 Page 2
Volume 7 Issue 37
 I found the details of the dreadful mishap that happened toWilliam John Inskip one January day in 1886 quite bychance. Normally, something like this I’m able to turn intoa short, 400-word or so piece for the
Spider’s Web
. But not this one, there was too much detail I’d have to carveaway for the limited space. And I felt poor Mr. Inskip de-served better than that. The following is a summarygleaned from the
NZ Herald
and 
Auckland Star
at thetime, a booklet called 
Discharged in New
 Zealand by Hugh and Lyn Hughes (1988), published by the NZ Soci-ety of Genealogists, as well as a website on the 65
th
regi-ment’s history,
http://hicketypip.tripod.com
.
It was a dry summer, back in January 1886. Drought hadhit Auckland hard, and Avondale back then could onlyrely on what water was left in the rain tanks and whatcould be found in deep wells bored into the clay and linedwith brick. One Avondale resident, local butcher JohnWickham, had a dry well on the property he and his fam-ily rented from merchant John Buchanan near the WhauBridge – so, he asked William Inskip, a 58 year old well-digger, to clean out and deepen the 40 foot well.William John Inskip, born in Guildford, had formerly beenone of the 65
th
(2
nd
North Yorkshire Riding) Regiment of Foot. He enlisted with them in October 1845 at the age of 18 in Tunbridge, and served as a private until September1865. The 65
th
is known as the regiment with the longestrecord of service in New Zealand, from 1846 to 1865,known by their official nickname as the “Royal Tigers”,but also by the name given to them by Maori, the “hicketypips”, after the Maori pronunciation of “65
th
” – “hiketepiwhete.” Initially, the regiment served as guards on con-vict ships bound for Australia in 1845-1846 (other shipscarrying the regiment to Sydney at the same time, such asthe
 Java
which William Inskip was on, were not convictships however). The ships carrying the regiment were di-verted, travelling further from Sydney to both the Bay of Islands (location of the first Maori Wars at the time, andwhere Inskip landed in November 1846) and Auckland.Much of the time the regiment served in New Zealand, thetroops were split up and stationed around the North Island.From 1858, part of the regiment was in Napier, whereWilliam Inskip is said to have learned the well-diggingtrade
(see endnote on next page).
The whole regiment wasstationed at Albert Barracks in Auckland by 1861, andtook part in the invasion of the Waikato in 1863.The 65
th
were well-known for having an unusually goodrapport with their Maori opponents, well-commented uponat the time. From the online history of the regiment:“There was reportedly a strong respect and chivalrous,almost friendly behaviour between the 65th Regiment andthe Maori. No such respect existed for some other units,e.g. the 70th being taunted to "Go back to India". The For-est Rangers were particularly disliked, probably due totheir use of guerrilla tactics, which offended the Maoriwarrior code.
 
“For example, as described in
The York and Lancaster  Regiment, Vol 1
, p 112, when pickets from the 65th wentinto the bush at night, they would identify themselves tothe Maori and ask them if there would be fighting thatnight. If the reply was something like "Not tonight - toowet and cold; we’d better get some sleep. Good night,Hickety Pip," both sides would honour the agreement. If there was going to be an attack, they would be givenwarning, then be expected to fight like any other regiment.“On other occasions, during a lull in fighting, there wouldbe a temporary truce and the Maori and men would ex-change food and tobacco and the Maori would point outwhere they had carefully buried and neatly fenced off, thebodies of 65th men. On another occasion, when the 65thled an assault on a pa, a Maori shouted out for the Regi-ment to lie down, because they wanted to fire at the fol-lowing regiments. The request was ignored.“The respect of the regiment for their enemies was suchthat a memorial plaque was placed in St John's Church, TeAwamutu.”When the regiment embarked for England in 1865, lessthan half the regiment were on board the two ships. Wil-liam Inskip was one of those who chose to stay behind inthe colony, discharged “with gratuity” in September 1865at Otahuhu. By 1886 he was married with a large family,the youngest being nine years old, and living on the Avon-dale-Manukau Road (likely present-day Blockhouse BayRoad).Starting work at Wickham’s on Monday 25 January at7.45 am, Inskip brought along William H. Scarlett to as-sist, and both Wickham and Scarlett lowered Inskip care-fully to the well’s muddy bottom using a sling. ThenWickham went off to his shop up in the township, whileInskip and Scarlett set to work scooping the three feet of mud from the bottom of the well. Suddenly, Inskip re-marked that “the earth was slipping and running like sandunder the lower course of bricks”. Scarlett, alarmed, calleddown, “Take care of yourself, Bill, whatever you do!”There was a cry of alarm then from Inskip, and he calledfor the rope. Scarlett hurriedly threw the rope down thewell after detaching a bucket – but too late. Just then, thewell collapsed, the walls falling inward in tiers, an esti-mated 1300 bricks toppling down upon the hapless Inskipbelow, along with earth and clay. The topmost levels re-
“Get me out if you can”
:William John Inskip, c.1827-1886
by Lisa J Truttman
The Avondale Historical Journal 
 
The Avondale Historical Journal 
Volume 7 Issue 37
 Page 3
mained, but the debris was some 15 feet deep.Scarlett said later he heard groans from the entombedman, as he quickly sought help. A carter passing alongthe road was hailed, and asked to get assistance. Thecarter went to fetch a Mr. Goldie nearby in New Lynn,but a carpenter named James Forsyth arrived, joinedsoon after by Wickham (who had been alerted by hisson) and a Mr. Benton. Scarlett and Forsyth removed thelast of the bricking still in place in order to make anyrescue safer, and then men volunteered to go down in thesling to start removing the bricks entombing Inskip. Onereport recorded that the last words Inskip was heard toutter at that point were “Get me out if you can.”Wickham headed for the Avondale telephone bureau(most likely, given those early days, the Avondale Rail-way Station) to send a telegraph to the police all the wayout in the city. Superintendent Thomson promptly sentConstable Kelly on horseback out to Avondale. Mean-time, the rescue party found the shaft was becomingincreasingly unstable, more earth falling in. Local grocerHenry Peck arrived and volunteered to go down and passup the bricks – but five minutes after he was lowereddown in the sling another fall of earth took place, and hewas hoisted up. He was said to have been the last one tohear Inskip moaning, at 10 o’clock that morning. Fromthat time on, the unfortunate man made no further sound.Avondale residents gathered at the scene, includingInskip’s eldest son. The rescuers chose not to tell Mrs.Inskip of the tragedy until midday, in the hope thatInskip may have been rescued alive by that time. Mrs.Goldie from New Lynn went up to the Inskip house tobreak the news to his wife. Devastated, Mrs. Inskipheaded straight down to the Wickhams’ to see for her-self, but was persuaded to go back home by her friendson finding that nothing could be done. She did so, butreturned later in the day to see what progress, if any, hadbeen made.A party of men returned to Avondale to get timber forshoring up the sides of the shaft, and Benton and Forsythprepared the timber and made sets for slabbing. HenryPeck once again volunteered to go down to fix the timberin unsafe places, relieved by a Mr. Smith. Once the tim-ber was in place, preventing more slippages, gangs of men worked to start bringing the fallen bricks up and off Inskip, with one man down the well in the sling passingthe bricks and earth up to the other rescuers. The
 NZ  Herald 
recorded the names of those involved with thework that day: James Forsyth, Benton, Simpson, Smith,Peck, Scarlett, James Heaphy, Goldie, Taylor, Webb,Ringrose, Bollard “and others whose names we could notascertain.” Wickham and Peck kept tea and other refresh-ments going for the workers, and a boy was sent out tothe Avondale Hotel for beer for the men in the mid-afternoon.
 
The work continued laboriously on towards dusk, theground around the shaft still uncertain and described as“being in the nature of quicksand, and treacherous.”Lights were obtained, and by gaslight more helpers ar-rived as the news rippled out across the communities of both Avondale and New Lynn, including Robert Garrettfrom the Garrett Tannery in Waterview, and Francis Git-tos.Around 10 pm, one of William Inskip’s arms was dis-covered protruding through the rubbish of bricks andearth. The rescuers redoubled their efforts, desperatelytrying to reach him. A quarter hour later, they had suc-ceeded in getting his head clear, but by then it was cer-tain he was dead. It was another two hours of painstakingremoval of the debris that had entombed him alive beforethey were able to hoist his body up out of the well shaft.“The task was a dangerous one,” the
 Herald 
reported, “asthe body was so jammed in the bricks that it was neces-sary to get a purchase on the windlass to draw it out of the debris. When this was done a rope was fastenedround the body and it was hoisted up to the bank amidthe hurried whispers of the group standing around thewell, Mr. Smith being brought up afterwards.”From what was seen of the position of his body when itwas found, Inskip at the time of the brick lining’s col-lapse on top of him tried to protect his head by raisinghis arms – hence why an arm was the first part of himfound. There were some cuts to his head, a dent in thechest along with some blood, but it appeared that he hadsuffocated.I don’t know what happened to his family, whether theystayed in Avondale or just simply moved on. But it isworth even just a passing thought as you travel alongGreat North Road, heading along the sweeping curvethat takes you towards the Whau Bridge and on towardsNew Lynn – that somewhere close to that bridge, eitherin the vicinity of the pensioner flats up on the rise to theleft, or in amongst the houses and their driveways to theright, somewhere there a man died so dreadfully thatsummer’s morning in 1883. Somewhere there, as well,people in a small rural community rallied around andrefused, right to the bitter end and at great personal risk to their own lives, to give up on their friend and theirneighbour. That is also part of this sad story that shouldnot be forgotten today.Endnote: The Napier Wells of the 65th regimentAccording to the Napier City Council (www.napier.govt.nz), the regiment arrived there in 1858 at OnepotoGully, with the nearest source of fresh water to be foundat the foot of the Botanical Gardens area. Two wellswere sunk there by the troops. Regimental laundry andother washing took place in the vicinity of the wells,earning the area the name “Soapsuds Gully”. The wellswere closed later that century, after a typhoid epidemic,but relocated in 1964.
 
One of the wells, with a limestone surround, is now arecognised historic place.
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