William George Skelton

William George Skelton, B 16.1.1847 first visited New Zealand whilst employed on a ship in 1863; two years later he went o Barrytown, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand where he settled at the age of eighteen, trying his hand at Goldmining in which he experienced ‘ups’ and ‘downs’.

After a time, he met a young lady from Belfast, Ireland, named Elizabeth Graham who had come to New Zealand with her mother and sister in early January 1880 on the ship ‘East Minster’, the family were to join Elizabeth’s father, Thomas Graham. Thomas Graham had come out a few years earlier in the Gold Rush years to seek his fortune.

Following William and Elizabeth’s marriage William they had twelve children in all.

William worked for the Greymouth Harbour Board. The couple were living in Preston Road at the time of the Jubilee Flood in 1887; the water came up to the mantelpiece above the fireplace in their home. Shortly after the flood the family returned to Barrytown; William set to work to build a house, the greater part being built in pit-sawn timber, which came from north of Canoe Creek. The house was on seven and a half acres of land; William kept a good garden, an orchard and beehives.

In 1908 William sold the property for forty-three pounds sterling buying another house for a similar amount situated on an acre leasehold site at North Beach, Cobden, on the West Coast of New Zealand.

The ‘acre sites’ were held by a miner’s right at the cost of five shillings per annum. William worked the beach on a miner’s right, a reasonable living was gained by the extraction of gold from black sand on this beach; but, of course, this entailed plenty of hard work. Williams’s health began to fail; fortunately, his son Thomas James Skelton (my grandfather) born 14th September 1899 who was then aged twelve, was able to extract the gold with help from other members of the family.