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Historical records matching Richard Prouse
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About Richard Prouse
Excerpt from The Dominion 29 Jan 1964 Deeply moved by the magnitude of the adventure to which he was committing himself and his family, Richard Prowse (sic), as he prayed for help, vowed that if he should prosper in the new and unknown country, he would build a church as a token of thanksgiving. He prospered and he built the church. The church still stands and Richard Prowse's descendants have multiplied greatly.
Richard and Mary, and the five children, Mary, Sarah, William, Richard and Thomas all left Plymouth on October 5, 1839, on the sailing ship Duke of Roxburgh with Captain James Thomson in command. There had been two dozen other married couples on board as well as 12 single men, 16 single women and 39 children. After the seemingly endless five-month voyage, the joy of the emigrants at sighting New Zealand had been sadly quenched. A vicious gale had struck them in Cook Strait and the popular captain had been washed overboard and lost. The Prowse (sic) children used to recount to their children, and so on, down the generations, how the leader of the Wellington settlement, Colonel Wakefield, had restored confidence to the agitated and upset young mothers and families by boarding the ship at Wellington Heads and bringing her into port. It was cheering too, to find that two of the other four immigrant ships had already arrived and were anchored off Petone beach - Pito-one as they then called it. A never-forgotten sight for the Prowse children was that of a whale and her calf coming into the harbour as their ship lay at anchor. Another was that of some embarrassed women passengers of the Duke of Roxburgh being carried from the beach by naked Maoris who had stripped off their mats as they entered the water. The ladies had been on shore for a visit, and anxious to get back on board for a church service, had accepted the Maoris' offer to take them through the surf to the waiting boats. Always remembered, too, was the first church service held on shore. The Prouse children stood with their parents on Petone beach on that hot February morning, thankful for the shade of a grove of karaka trees. Maoris from the nearby pa and pakeha immigrants from the scattered tents and the waiting ships crowded together on the sand while the pious and fiery Presbyterian minister, the Rev. John Macfarlane, conducted the service. He was one of the shipload of Scots who had come on the Bengal Merchant. The Prouse family can still quote the order of that first service, which must have been indeed memorable under the circumstances. There was a prayer, followed by the "Old Hundredth". Then a Scripture reading was followed by the hymn "O God of Bethel, by Whose Hand..." Then came the sermon in which no doubt the Rev. Macfarlane would have given his powers of Scottish rhetoric full fling, and finally the singing of the Twenty-third Psalm. The memory still remains, too, of the putting up of tents and shanties on the beach or in the nearby sandhills for temporary shelter, and of the kindness and eagerness to help of the Maori people. Ten years after the landing on the beach, Richard Prowse moved his family over the hill to the remote wilds of Wainuiomata, started his mill and founded his family home. They had been years or rewarding hard work shared with him by his three strong, young sons and he could feel prosperity ahead. He and the boys built themselves a house of pitsawn timber and there they established themselves. That house, built by Richard Prowse and his sons in 1850, is still occupied today by their descendants. It has been moved from its original site and altered and added to but the core of the house is the same. It is occupied and owned by Mr and Mrs Claude Burdan. The church which the first Richard Prowse built in fulfilment of his vow was finished in 1860, at the end of his second decade in the new country, and the end of his first decade in Wainuiomata valley. The first preacher at the church was Mr J. Watkin, a pioneer Methodist missionary who links this landmark of the valley with the first days of missionary work in New Zealand. You can read the full article here:
https://horowhenua.kete.net.nz/item/efee8ce8-ccdd-46dd-95c9-44116ab...
Richard was born in 1792 to Richard Prouse and Mary Hardy.
Some research points to the marriage between Richard Prouse and Mary Snowden King as 12 May 1816. This would be consistent with the birth of first daughter Elizabeth in February 1817.
Immigration Arrived on the "Duke of Roxburgh" 7 February 1840 in Wellington having departed from Plymouth, England on 3 October 1839. [1]
Passenger List, Prouse family
Name Age Occupation Richard 42 Labourer & Lime Burner Mary 44 Mary 20 Servant Sarah 18 Servant William 15 Richard 10 Susan Osborne 9 Thomas 6 The ages listed here for Richard and Mary are not consistent with the ages given in the NZ registry of deaths.
Occupation: Shoemaker.
Cause: Influenza and Natural Decay.
On 30 September 1875 Richard Prouse passed away, aged 84. [2]
Burial: Richard and Mary are buried in the Wainuiomata Coast Road Churchyard, Lower Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand. [3]
Early Wellington settler. Arrived in 1840 on the Duke of Roxburgh. Married Mary on 12th May 1816.
http://horowhenua.kete.net.nz/site/topics/show/1903-richard-prouse-...
Richard Prouse Park - https://plus.google.com/103599965936716662471/about?gl=au&hl=en
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Richard Prouse's Timeline
| 1792 |
April 29, 1792
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Kingsbridge, Devon, England, United Kingdom
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April 29, 1792
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Aveton Gifford, Devon
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| 1817 |
February 11, 1817
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Aveton Gifford, Devon, England, United Kingdom
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| 1820 |
June 25, 1820
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Aveton Gifford, Devon, England, United Kingdom
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| 1822 |
December 13, 1822
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Aveton Gifford, Devon, England, United Kingdom
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| 1825 |
January 4, 1825
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Aveton Gifford, Devon, England, United Kingdom
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| 1829 |
October 4, 1829
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Aveton Gifford, Devon, England, United Kingdom
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| 1830 |
September 14, 1830
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Aveton Gifford, Devon, England, United Kingdom
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| 1834 |
August 5, 1834
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Aveton Gifford, Devon, England, United Kingdom
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