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How a fishing trip stopover played its part in shaping one of our great rowing legacy stories.
“I think I was probably about 12...my dad had a boat and we were out fishing in the Sounds. We were coming back from Tory Channel and he said, ‘We’re gonna go in and have a look at something’.
“I remember tying up the boat, it was this bright, open, sunny area and then we walked in under the cover of the trees and everything was all shady and quiet and still.
“We walked up a hill through the bush and came to a flat piece of ground where people had either settled or gardened, and then up a bit further on the hill, I have a very clear, very vivid memory of it, in that quiet spot in the bush there were all these graves.
“The bush was taking over at that point but there were all these headstones with names on them, the Woodgates, the Huntleys, the Aldridges.”
That was 1972. Rob Woodgate has never been back to that sacred site he visited as a 12-year-old, but it’s never been a place of finality for him, or the people who are buried there.
In fact, it’s the opposite. The quiet spot up on the hill above Tahuahua (Blackwood) Bay is a beginning point for one of the great legacy stories of New Zealand Rowing.
Trinity roots
There are three Thomas Woodgates in this story.
The first lived above Tahuahua Bay but worked out on Tory Channel at a whaling station in the early 1900s.
During the summer months he was up in the high country of the Molesworth shearing – clipping wool for New Zealand’s booming export market.
The second Thomas Woodgate lies buried in the bush above the bay.
And the third, lives in Christchurch and has just finished his NCEA exams. Next year he’ll be heading to study and sweep in New York.
And across these more than 100 years is another Marlborough identity that genealogically binds them together. He doesn’t share the same Christian name, and in only some records does he share the same surname.
From family tragedy to rowing fame
The first Thomas Woodgate was Rob’s great-grandfather.
“Originally, these guys rowed for a living,” says Rob. “They were whalers who took Māori wives...[they’d] row out into Cook Strait, maybe with a southerly gale approaching, stick a harpoon in a whale, go for a ride for a time and then when he’s finally finished fighting and dying, row for miles towing 60 tons of dead weight back into the Sounds.”
Thomas’ wife, Annie Huntley, was of Ngāi Tahu and Te Atiawa descent.
New Zealand’s influenza epidemic is most commonly remembered for its impact on a population already devastated by the immense casualties of the First World War. In a two-month assault between October and December of 1918, 9000 people died from the virus.
But by then it had been circulating in waves for almost 30 years throughout the country and in 1911 it swept through the small settlements around Tahuahua Bay.
Annie was pregnant with her 11th child at the time. Agnes Hannah was born on October 4, 1911.
While recovering, Annie contracted the virus and just six days later she died in Picton Hospital.
Four days after that, Annie’s mother succumbed to the virus after coming to help with the birth.
On October 21, Annie’s eldest boy, 18-year-old Thomas, died from the virus and eight days later her father Charles Huntley also died.
They are all buried up on the hill overlooking Tahuahua Bay, that quiet, overgrown.
Read the rest of this article here: rowinghub.co.nz/origins-and-originals-a-ngai-tahu-legend-a-star-named-nola-and-two-boys-from-st-bedes/
This article was supplied by rowinghub.co.nz, the official content hub of Rowing New Zealand. Explore rowinghub.co.nz for more rowing-related content like this. Andy Hay wrote this article. Andy is a freelance producer, writer and rowing coach. He was cox of the world champion New Zealand eight of 1982 and ‘83. He is NZ Olympian #446.