Remembering William Henry Teschemaker

Remembering William Henry Teschemaker

William Henry Teschemaker was an early European settler in the North Otago area. His name is associated with the former catholic girl’s boarding school which was established on his property at Taipo after his death. Teschemaker was one of North Otago’s early run-holders, an educated and hard working man whose life is significant to the history of North Otago. He is the only Teschemaker buried in the Oamaru Cemetery; his grave marked by a simple marble slab laid into the ground.

William Henry Teschemaker was born in Devon, England in 1829. He was the oldest son of John Teschemaker, the descendant of Dutch sugar growers from the Demerara region of South America. John Teschemaker, who had a doctorate in law, was educated in England where he married an Englishwoman and settled.

William, the oldest of the Teschemaker boys, was schooled at Blundell’s School in Tiverton, Devon and then went on to gain higher education at Exeter College, Oxford University in 1851. After graduating, Teschemaker immigrated to New Zealand with his cousin Edwin Francis Rich. The pair arrived in Wellington but soon after arrival crossed Cook Strait to Nelson.

When the pair initially arrived in Nelson they were tempted to join a party of four to head to Australia for the gold rush but something changed their minds and instead they decided to become sheep farmers. The limited farmland in Nelson had already been taken up, so Teschemaker and Rich acquired 861 sheep and in March 1853 started to drive them south. When they arrived in the Canterbury region in June they found that all the best land had been taken so decided to carry on and acquire runs in the Otago region.

By September 1854 Teschemaker and Rich had reached the Waitaki River with their sheep. They were not permitted to cross the river without first having their sheep inspected for an infectious parasite called ‘scab’. The sheep were inspected and found to have the disease; they had to stay on an island in the middle of the Waitaki River until they were treated and cured.

Teschemaker and Rich were able to move on to their runs in early 1855. They had acquired runs 98 (Kauru Hill) and 99 (Balruddery). The former was held by Teschemaker and the latter by Rich, but the two were in partnership. In 1858 Rich sold his share of the land to Teschemaker and their partnership was dissolved. It is believed Rich moved further south. Teschemaker became a respected breeder of merino sheep.

Teschemaker later sold Balruddery but retained Kauru Hill and bought more land in Taipo near the Kakanui River. Taipo was where Teschemaker had his impressive Oamaru stone homestead built in the early 1860s.

Teschemaker was a bachelor until his 40s when he travelled to England to marry Eliza Jeanette Pitman in 1872. The couple returned to Otago a few years after their wedding and had seven children.

Little is recorded of Teschemakers life outside of farming. While he was not a particularly public man, he did serve a term as a Provincial Councillor from 1858 to 1861 and in 1858 he was also appointed a Justice of the Peace. Teschemaker was a member of the A&P Society Committee and was a director of the New Zealand Refrigeration Company.

William Henry Teschemaker passed away on 24 July 1888 at the age of 59. His property was managed by his son until it was sold in 1903. The land at Taipo was sold to John McCarthy and the Crown took over Kauru Hill in 1904. McCarthy only had the property for two years before he died; his widow gifted the homestead and twenty acres of land to the Dominican Nuns who established a Catholic girl’s boarding school on the site which they called ‘Teschemakers’. The stone homestead was added to on either side to form the convent buildings; the school closed down in the 1970s.

All information in this article comes from the Waitaki Museum and Archive.

Sources for this article:

• McDonald, K C (date unknown) ‘W H Teschemaker’, North Otago Museum Archive, n. 35622.
• Pinney, R (1981) Early Northern Otago Runs. p.83-85
• Sorrell, P (1998). ‘Teschemaker, William Henry’ in Southern People, a Dictionary of Otago Southland Biography’, p. 503.
• Teschemaker, T. J (1989). The Teschemaker Family. North Otago Museum Archive, n. 23561.
• Oamaru Mail (25 July 1888) ‘Death of Mr W H Teschemaker’, p. 3

Written by Shanann Carr, Curator of Archives, April 2009