Clues to Inhabitants

Some are still remembered as public figures, but others remain unknown except in the letters they have left describing the lives of their neighbours and themselves in another era.

Records of early immigrant ships which came to Nelson, and detailed passenger lists, give clues as to how the population of the infant cathedral city was compounded. Land. court and mercantile documents of varied kinds give other glimpses of the people who formed the community a century and more ago. and in later decades merging into the present century.

What pictures of a long forgotten social scene are conjured up by such an entry as "Invitation to dance in Mr Kerr's barn, November 24, 1843," and another invitation to dance at the Wakatu Hotel about the same time. Both were sent to John Waring Saxton, copies of whose diaries from 1841 to 1851 are also in the Bett Collection.