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Thomas Larchin's story is told through his obituary in the Evening Post newspaper and also by an extract from an extensive Larchin family narrative by Merv Shearman, Sydney, January 2012:
OBITUARY THOMAS LARCHIN 11/2/1922 Evening Post
Mr Thomas Larchin
Mr Thomas Larchin, a colonist of nearly sixty years standing, died at the Wellington Hospital last night. Mr Larchin was born at Richmond, England, and came to NZ as a young man. After being in various parts of the colony, he was appointed master of the Waimea West School, and afterwards, with Mrs Larchin as headmistress to the Westport School. From there he entered the Government service (Customs Department), retiring fourteen years later, after being chief clerk for some years. He was a Mason of long standing, under the English constitution (Aorangi Lodge) and was also a member of the Grand Lodge of NZ. His wife predeceased him in January last, and his only son some years ago. He leaves one daughter, Miss L. Larchin, of the Agricultural Department. The funeral will take place on Sunday at Paraparaumu
Thomas Larchin - from an extensive Larchin family narrative by Merv Shearman, Sydney, January 2012 :
William had another brother, Thomas, the youngest, who was born in 1838. In 1861, he and his sisters Sarah and Clara, were the only three children still living at home with their widowed father in West Ham in Essex. But this was not to last for long. Clara became a governess, Sarah left for Tasmania to marry her cousin Francis, and Thomas, still a brewer, decided to make a new life for himself in New Zealand.
He may have first traveled to Australia with his sister Sarah who was to marry her cousin, Francis Butler in Launceston in February 1868, before continuing on to New Zealand. In 1869, there is a record of a Thomas Larchin, a registered brewer at Devon Street, New Plymouth in the Taranaki District of the North Island.
On 28 March 1868 , the following notice appeared in the Taranaki Herald:
'Re-opening of Coad’s Brewery
Thomas Larchin and Albert Crapp desire to call attention to the fact that they have this day commenced business at the above Brewery as Ale and Porter Brewers, and whilst soliciting a share of public patronage beg to assure those favouring them with orders that they may rely upon the Beers brewed being of the first quality.'
The story of Coad’s Brewery is an interesting one. The former brewer, Ephraim Coad, had been ambushed and killed by Maori warriors near the Te Henui stream at what is now East End Beach in New Plymouth in August 1860 during the Taranaki Wars.
In 1870, Thomas married a French widow, Marie Louise Pheney, nee Donnini, and shortly afterwards they must have left New Plymouth and moved to Nelson on the northern tip of the South Island.
Marie Louise had two children by her first husband, Frank Pople Pheney, born in 1860 and Louise Caroline Emma Pheney in 1863. Her husband and son both died and she left for New Zealand with other Pheny family members, arriving in New Plymouth in 1867 or 1868. Shipping records compiled from the same newspaper, the Taranaki Herald, indicate that Mr. Larchin sailed to Nelson from New Plymouth on the Phoebe on 16 July 1870. Mrs. Larchin sailed to Nelson on the Phoebe on 22 December 1870 and arrived back in New Plymouth from Nelson on the same ship on 5 January 1871. Whilst this is not conclusive evidence that they did move from New Plymouth, later records show that they had, a son, named Henry Louis Larchin who was born there. He eventually became a ship’s captain and was included in the 1900 Captain’s Register of Lloyds of London as Henry Louis Larchin, born in Nelson in 1872. A daughter, Lillie Eleanor was born in 1876.
There is also a reference in 1908 to Henry Louis Larchin in the Wellington High Court - Probate Case files in the New Zealand Archives, a reference to either the Will of Thomas Larchin or that of Henry Louis himself.
The (Wellington) Evening Post of 2 August 1900 reported as follows:
By recent advices we notice that Mr H L Larchin has passed the Board of Trade examination in London for master of a foreign-going ship. He is a New Zealander, and served his apprenticeship to the sea with the New Zealand Shipping Company, joining the Wairoa in 1887. He remained in the company’s employ for some time after passing as mate and later joined the ship Wellington. At the time of his going up for his examination as master Mr Larchin was chief officer of the Brunel Company’s sailing ship Brunel. He is the son of Mr T Larchin, chief Clerk in the Customs Department
Thomas Larchin was still alive in 1906. In that year, the NZ Cyclopaedia records a Thomas Larchin of Wellington and so it is likely that it was he who died in or shortly before 1908. He would then have been some 70 years old. The Government must have employed him because his name in included in the Customs and Marine Civil List of 1881 as a clerk. In 1893, his name is recorded amongst the guests at a Governor’s Levee held at Government House in Wellington on 24 May 1893. In the 1870’s there were several references to Mr and Mrs Larchin being teachers on the West Coast of the South Island at Westport. They were both highly regarded. Although Thomas had left the school by 1878, the Grey River Argus reported on 1 November 1878, as follows:
“Things have come to a pretty pass at the Westport State School, says the Buller News, as indicated by the circumstance which transpired the other day. The boys of the first class, or at least a portion of them, had formed a "mutual protection society," with intent to mob the master should he, in their opinion, unjustly or excessively punish one of their number. Naturally, it must be inferred from the combination of the scholars to defend each other that the master has been in the habit of ill-treating them. On the other hand, it is said that the spirit of insubordination is of long standing ; that the school was, when the present master entered it, in a terrible state of disorder and that he has accomplished a good deal in reducing it to even its present state of discipline. If we are not misinformed, "the conspirators" committed their first depredation yesterday. The schoolmaster was administering a little caning when the caned hand closed and obtained possession of the weapon. Other hands helped, and sad be it, but it remains to be reported that the schoolmaster was pummeled on the floor. The use of the cane appears to have had a contrary effect upon the discipline of the school which was maintained in good order by the late master, Mr Larchin, by moral suasion alone.”
More information on Thomas has now come to light, as recorded in the Cyclopaedia of New Zealand of 1897:
Mr Thomas Larchin Chief Clerk in the Customs Department, was born in 1838, in Surrey, England. He was educated at King's College, London, and learned the business of a brewer with his father's firm in“the world's metropolis.”
Coming to New Zealand in 1864, per ship “Charlotte Jane,” to Bluff Harbour, he became a teacher under Government and had charge of the Waimea West School, and subsequently, of Westport, one of the largest schools in Nelson province. Mr. T. R. Fleming, M.A., LL.B., now Inspector of Schools, was one of Mr. Larchin's pupils at Westport, and it was then that he gained his first scholarship; the school proved its efficiency by gaining the provincial reading prize.
Retiring in 1878, Mr. Larchin joined the Customs at Westport as writer, and in the following year was transferred to the head office in Wellington. Mr. Larchin was appointed in 1880 to take charge of the beer duty work as an expert, for which his early training well qualified him.He was appointed chief clerk by Sir Julius Vogel in 1887.
Mr. Larchin is a member of the Masonic fraternity,E.C. Joining Mr. Egmont Lodge in 1869, he afterwards transferred to the Phoenix Lodge, Westport, of which he was W.M. He is now a member of the Wellington Lodge, 1521, of which he is a “P.M.,” and has held the position of Past District Grand Senior Warden.
In his earlier years Mr. Larchin was fond of cricket, rowing, and boxing, and still takes great interest in these pastimes.
Mr. Larchin was married in 1870 to Marie Louise Pheney, neé Donnini, and has two children, one daughter and one son. The son is a second officer in the service of the New Zealand Shipping Company.
It is interesting to note that the ship on which he came to New Zealand, the “Charlotte Jane” was owned by Thomas’ father, Henry Larchin. As Chief Clerk in the Customs Department, his name is recorded no less than 422 times in the New Zealand Archives, up until 1908 when he no doubt retired.
It is significant that in the same year, 1908, his son, Henry Louis died. He had never married, and at the age of just thirty-six it is possible that his death was the result of a shipping tragedy.
In The New Zealand Free Lance Magazine in September 1902, a society article entitled “Afternoon Tea Gossip” referred to the attendance of Miss Larchin at a euchre party. As there was only one Larchin family in New Zealand, this undoubtedly referred to Lillie Eleanor. At this stage she would have been aged around 26. She never married and died in 1940.
During his retirement, nothing more is known about Thomas Larchin and his wife, Marie Louise. She died on 14 January 1922, Thomas, three weeks later on 10 February 1922. They are both buried in Paraparaumu Cemetery, at Paraparaumu on the coast, some 40 miles north of Wellington.
Hawera and Normanby Star – 15 February 1922 (this is part of the Larchin family narrative by Merv Shearman):
The late Mr Thomas Larchin, whose death was reported yesterday, was born in Richmond, England, about 87 years ago. He came to New Zealand in the early sixties and settled in New Plymouth. Being a brewer by profession he took over the brewery then owned by Seccomb Bros., and situated near the entrance of what is now Pukekura Park. Mr Larchin used to tell stories of New Plymouth’s residents and happenings in those far away days ; how beer for the rebel natives used to be placed on bullock drays and driven out to a certain point where the bullocks were removed and returned to town, and the remainder of the delivery was completed by our friends the “enemy.” Towards the seventies Mr Larchin migrated to the Nelson province. There he turned his attention to educational matters and was for some years master of Waimea West School. About 1877 he joined the Customs service at Westport. In the year 1880, when the beer duty impost was inaugurated, on account of his technical knowledge of brewing he was appointed inspector of breweries. From that position he was in 1887 promoted to chief clerk of the Customs Department. He held this position for 21 years, retiring on superannuation in 1908. Mr Larchin was for many years a member of the Masonic fraternity, being a pastmaster under the English constitution. During his closing years he resided at Paraparaumu. His only son, who was an officer in the s.s. Albion Company, died some years ago.
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