Page:Gillespies Beach Beginnings • Alexander (2010).pdf/3



This publication, is, unapologetically, a mixture of geography, anecdote and memories plus historical extracts from various sources. Critics generally do not like such a mixture, but I want readers who may well be mainly kith and kin to gain a greater understanding of the starting point of their New Zealand heritage, be it on the maternal or paternal side. It is, for the most part, a record of one family’s descendants, with emphasis on those who lived out all or part of their lives in South Westland. It also aims to highlight the New Zealand starting point of Gillespie’s Beach.

A considerable amount of material about the Sullivan and Williams families is contained in Black Sands & Golden Years, 1877-1979, that wonderful book compiled by Margaret Hall of Hokitika to celebrate the Weheka-Fox Glacier School Jubilee. There have also been articles in other books and magazines published over the years. I added to this in one chapter of my book, Westland Heritage. Most sources are no longer in print nor are they easy to locate except in the New Zealand Room of public libraries. Whilst some repetition cannot be avoided, I have endeavoured to expand on previous writings, including historical newspaper reports obtained via the Internet not readily available when earlier accounts were written. Dates quoted sometimes differ by a year or so in different accounts because precise dates can be difficult to pinpoint unless they exist in official records. Researchers also tend to repeat mistakes made when their source material contains errors of which we have all been guilty.

As I know from my childhood years in South Westland in the 1930s, the lilt of the Irish brogue was once a familiar sound on the