A centenarian’s stormy life
A fish that saved a ship, and tragedy on the railway: Emily Carter packed it all into her long life. Tina White reports.
It’s 1874, and the immigrant ship Crusader, packed with British families on their way to faraway New Zealand, is ploughing through a night-time storm.
Suddenly the word gets out: ‘‘She’s sprung a leak!’’ A bucket brigade is formed among the young men, to supplement pumps working to keep the water out.
Emily Allington, 17, is on the ship with her farm-labourer
parents George and Hannah, and siblings.
‘‘We ran into a gale in a bay,’’ she would tell a reporter much later. ‘‘Then a fantastic thing happened. A huge fish was swept against the ship, swam into the hole, plugging it and saving the ship from certain disaster.’’
She said people didn’t believe her when she retold this story.
But the son of Crusader’s Captain Renaut wrote in a memoir: ‘‘After the immigrants were landed [at Lyttelton] and the cargo discharged, the ship was docked. A hole was located in the ship’s bottom, and inside was the skeleton of a fish that had got in through the hole.
‘‘It is possible that, when the leak took up off the Cape of Good Hope, the fish’s body was blocking the orifice, preventing the water from flowing in freely.’’
Many years later, on June 22, 1956, Emily, now Mrs Carter, was telling her life story to a Manawatu¯ newspaper reporter on the eve of her 100th birthday.
‘‘The ship’s roll of passengers was exactly the same at the end of the 96 days’ voyage,’’ she said, ‘‘with seven deaths and seven births recorded.’’ A wedding had also taken place at sea.
Emily, whose occupation was described as ‘‘servant’’ on the passenger list, was born in Warwickshire, central England, where her father George was an official of the National Union of Agricultural Labourers, whose members were often treated badly by their employers, with low wages and substandard housing.
A free passage to New Zealand was the gateway to a better life.
In Lyttelton, Emily got a job at the Bank of New Zealand, and soon met and married Charles Carter, a young railway engine driver.
Because of Charles’ job, the couple travelled all over the country in the following years. ‘‘Each of our 14 children was born in a different town,’’ she would tell her interviewer.
Around 1894, however, tragedy struck the family. Their house burned down, and one of their children fell ill and died.
Then came Saturday, March 11, 1899, a windy, dark evening with torrential rain; 300 people on the homeward Ashburton-to-Christchurch run after a works picnic were crammed into two excursion trains.
The first left Ashburton at 6.05pm. The second train, driven by Charles Carter, left 30 minutes late.
The first train left Rakaia and pulled up on the platform’s south side, waiting for the Christchurch-to-Ashburton train, also late, to cross. Meanwhile, Charles’ train was moving towards Rakaia a bit faster (a common practice) to make up the time.
Because of missed signals, slippery rails and an unfortunate chain of circumstances, Charles’
train, travelling into Rakaia station, ploughed into the rear carriages of the first train; its drivers, seeing Charles’ train coming, had started moving theirs, but not quickly enough to avoid a collision. Four passengers died; 22 were injured.
The inquest jury brought in a verdict of negligence – equivalent to manslaughter – so Charles stood trial in the Supreme Court at Christchurch. He was acquitted, but lost his job of 24 years.
Now in his own words ‘‘a ruined man’’, Charles spent his meagre savings to clear his name and support his family. He petitioned the Railways Department for compensation, but was turned down, although he had loyal supporters.
Eventually, improved safety measures were installed on all trains, and Emily’s husband was granted a full pardon.
In 1916, the Carter family moved finally to quiet Tokomaru, in Manawatu¯ .
Son Charles died in World War I, his father and namesake in 1941.
At the newspaper interview marking her 100th birthday, Emily didn’t linger over the tragedies.
She talked about her first childhood memory: the highly polished floors of her mother’s house, shining like the moonlight on the water during calm nights at sea, so long ago.
Emily Allington Carter died seven months later. Her headstone, mistakenly, lists her age as 99.