“There was no more assiduous keeper of newspaper clippings then Sam Nichol’s wife Eliza. Deaths, births and marriages were faithfully recorded by her in her family scrap book. Any published item about friends or relations was also kept and it is obvious that she had a special pride in her brother, George Kingswell, who travelled the world before he became one of South Africa’s best known journalists, rising to become a director of the Rand Daily Mail and Sunday Times.

“Eliza matured from the girl who could stop the Bluff train simply by hanging a towel from her window to a woman who was mistress of one finest homes in the province. Her only public activity was the presidency of the Ladies Guild of St. Mathews Anglican Church in Bluff, as the provinces of public and business affairs were dominated by her husband. Such was the regard in which she was held, however, that when she died at the age of 59 in August 1913, the flags of the ships in port, including those of two home liners, were flown at half-mast.”

source, “A Saga of the South”, J N McClenaghan, 1966, page 42.

According to the Invercargill City Council Cemetery records:

Robert Nichol (father of Samuel Nichol) is buried at Blufff Cemetery: Block 1, Plot 71, and the inscription reads:

Sacred
To the memory of
Robert Nichol
Who died 19 Feby 1872
Aged 75 years
Because I live ye shall live also
Also sacred to the memory of
Anne Willis
Relict of Robert Nichol
Who died on the 12th August 1896
In her 94 year
And God shall wipe away all
Tears from their eyes

Then appears Elizabeth Kingswell (mother of Eliza Annie):

Sacred
To the memory of
Elizabeth Kingswell
Died 4th April 1894
Aged 62 years
She was not for God took her

And Samuel is adjacent:

Sacred
To the memory of
Eliza Annie
Beloved wife of
Samuel Nichol
Died 1st August 1913
Aged 59 years
Also
Samuel Nichol
Beloved husband of above
Died 9th February 1924
Aged 84 years
There remaineth a rest to the people of God

Samuel Nichol

The Cyclopedia of New Zealand, Vol 4, Page 884

Mr. Samuel Nichol (of the firm Messrs. Nichol Bros., Merchants, Bluff and Invercargill), was Mayor of Campbelltown or Bluff from 1888 to 1897. Mr. Nichol devoted considerable time in furthering the raising of a loan of £5,000, which the rate payers approved, for the purpose of improving the streets, and drainage of the borough. Born at Hobart, Tasmania, in 1840, Mr. Nichol is the second son of the late Mr. Robert Nichol, an ex-bank manager, and was educated at Hobart where he received a thorough commercial training, in the firm of Messers. Chapman and Thomas, merchants. Mr. Nichol left his native land in 1859 for New Zealand and arrived at Riverton, in the brig ‘Reliance,’ and served as station cadet with Captain Raymond, the well-known squatter. He afterwards became chief clerk in the Wharfinger’s department at Invercargill, and subsequently he was Wharfinger at Bluff. When the Provincial Government opened the Bluff line, they offered Mr. Nichol the special position of Station Agent, which he accepted, they being so satisfied with his past services. In consequence of the falling of the revenue, the Provincial Government leased the Bluff railway for eighteen months to Messrs. Nichol and Sherar, whose management was so successful and profitable, that the Government would not renew the lease. From that time, Mr. Nichol had associated with him in business his brother, Mr. Geo. W. Nichol, and the late Mr. Geo. E. Tucker. Mr Samuel Nichol was one of the first elected members of the Bluff Harbour Board. He has been a justice of the peace since 1885. He became initiated into Freemasonry in Lodge Southern Cross, Invercargill, about 1863, and was elected W.M. of Lodge Fortitude, No. 2301, E.C. (now No. 64, N.Z.C.) at Bluff on the 14th of January 1894. He also holds the rank of G.S. in the Grand Lodge of New Zealand.

Update, July 2005, generously provided by a direct descendant.

SAMUEL NICHOL (Sam) was born on the 9th September 1840 at Newtown and baptised at the Wesleyan church, Hobart. He was the best Greek scholar at his college. Sam came to New Zealand in 1859 on the “Reliance,” which arrived at Riverton.

He was in partnership with his brother, George, in the business of “Nichol Brothers” in Bluff and Invercargill, and at one time with his brother-in-law, George Tucker.

Sir Joseph Ward, later prime minister, worked as a clerk at Samuel Nichol’s general store on the Bluff waterfront until 1876

He married Annie Elizabeth (or Eliza Anne) Kingswell in Invercargill in 24 January 1871 and their children were Eliza (Elsie Shallcrass), Louie (Mrs. Bannerman) and Ernest. His home was “Mornington” at the Bluff, and which had a tower overlooking the harbour and also a billiard room, and to where sea captains would often visit. The property consisted of 2 ½ acres, with a tennis court and croquet green and staffed by a cook, 2 maids and a full-time gardener.

Sam died on the 9th February 1924 and is buried at Bluff alongside his parents.

Sam was Mayor of Bluff 1888-92 and from 1895-97. He appears as a passenger on the “Ringarooma” on its voyage from Melbourne to Bluff in September 1876.

Samuel’s brother George W. Nichol, (pictured left) was born 1835 in Hobart Tasmania and arrived New Zealand 1861. He worked in Dunedin and later in Greymouth. In 1874 he joined his brother in the company of Nichol Bros and opened a branch in Invercargill (which George managed). He built a home “Glenfoyle’ at Ocean Beach (below) and travelled daily by train to Invercargill. He died 11 May 1907.

He married Mary Campion (1843-1929) and their children are:

Annie, 1872-1924
Mary, born 1874
Isabella, born 1873
George, 1876-1952, married Ethel Anne Howell – they had two sons.
Harry, 1878-1971, married in the 1930s to Agnes Hansen (of Stewart Island, she died before 1940). Two daughters Mary (Mrs Ken Wright) and Agnes (wife of Dr G. A. Tait of Invercargill). A photograph of Harry Nichol appears in his 21 July 1970 Obit in the Southland Times (NZ Bios 1971 Vol. 4, page 11).

Update, July 2005, generously provided by a direct descendant.

GEORGE WILLIS NICHOL was born on the 8th February 1835 and was baptised in the Anglican church, Newtown, Hobart, when his father’s profession is stated as gentleman. He was named after his mother’s deceased brother, Dr. George Willis, of whom she had been very fond, and who had died when quite young in Jamaica.

George came to New Zealand in 1861, perhaps with his parents, landing at Dunedin.

He married Mary Emma Campion in 1870, possibly Greymouth, and their children were Isabella, Anne, Mary, George and Henry. In 1869, there is a registered wine and spirit merchant, Hamilton & Nichol on Mawhera Quay, Greymouth.

George later moved to Bluff where he was a merchant and the first mayor in 1879. His house was “Glenfoyle” with 6 bedrooms and a servants’ bedroom. The gates are still standing, although the homestead has been demolished.

George died at “Glenfoyle,” Ocean Beach, Bluff, on the 11th May 1907 and was buried at Bluff.

There is still a trading Nichol Bros & Co Ltd, trading in Invercargill. They are stock food manufacturers.

There is a Nichol Street in Invercargill

On Nichol Road, Ocean Road, Omaui (on the Invercargill-Bluff highway). The iron gates of the original Nichol homestead are still visible. (see below)

Obit: Southland Times 20 April 1956.

Mr E. A Nichol, a well known resident of Bluff, has died aged 77. A tower of strength in the community, Mr Nichol was a man of many interests, some of his exploits particularly in his younger days when Bluff was only a shadow of its present size being well remembered among the older generation.
Born in Bluff, Mr Nichol was educated there and at the Southland Boys’ High School. On leaving school he joined his father, the late Samuel Nichol, in the family business. A keen sportsman, he represented the Awarua Boating Club and right to the time of his death was a keen rifle shot, competing in Trenthan matches with success. A more dangerous pursuit was for whales in a boat from his father’s whaling vessel Chance. The excursions ceased after the boat was towed to Center Island by a whale which nearly accounted for one of the crew.
Mr Nichol served as Mayor of Bluff for two terms and was a member of the borough council for more than 20 years. He was also associated with several other organisations , notably the Southland Motor Association, the Bluff Harbour Board, and the Awarua Licensing Committee before business interests forced him to give up much of his work. The locally-famous working bees on the Bluff road were organised by him. A devout churchman he conducted the St Matthew’s Church choir for 25 years.
Mr Nichol was married in 1908 to Miss Hilda Metzger and is survived by his four children.

Ernest Nichol:  son of Ernest & Hilda Nichol

He appears as follows in the Southland Boys’ High School Register: “2065- Nichol, Ernest Samuel. Company Director, Nichol Bros. and Co. Ltd., Ernest Nichol Ltd., etc., PO Box 12, Invercargill. With Wright, Stephenson and Co. Ltd., 1927-46. 31 Duke Street, Invercargill. At School 1923-26. From Bluff. Son of 256. Brother of 2348.

Ernest Nichol – Man of the South
By F. W. G. Miller
Appeared in the Southland Times 9 September 1980.

What is it that makes a true blue Southlander? Whatever it is, Ernest Nichol must have it in full measure if family background is any criterion.
The most Southland part of the Southland is surely Bluff, because it was known to European whalers and sealers long before there was a town called Invercargill.
Ernest Nichol’s grandfather, Sam Nichol, came to New Zealand from Tasmania in 1859 and after working for a year or two with Captain Raymond at Merrivale he went to Bluff and started there the business that has carried the family name since. Sam was the son of a banker, Robert Nichol, who later came to Bluff where he died – so there are three generations of Nichol buried in Bluff.
Although he retired from active control as managing director of Ernest Nichol Ltd, he retains chairmanship of the two family concerns and has various other interests that enable him to live at 71 a full and active life.
Living as he did at Bluff, Ernest early grew to love the sea and has acquired a knowledge of the Southland coast as thorough as that of many fishermen who ply these uncertain waters.
Ernest went to the Bluff School and from there to Southland Boys’ High – and when he left there he found that jobs weren’t too easy to come by. He was keen to join Wright Stephensons but there was no openings so in the end he took a job with the Union Steam Ship Company and worked there for 18 months.
Then he was able to join Wright Stephensons an worked there for 18 years. In 1939 he was appointed assistant manager at the firm’s London office, so in readiness for the transfer he sold all of his possessions – and then with World War II under way everything came to a halt.
Loose End
His job with W.S. and Co. had already been filled and he found himself a free man at a loose end in the company.
Just at that time, however, word was received that there would be no more root seeds or brassica seeds from England and that New Zealand would have to produce its own.
The Government was concerned at the situation and an arrangement was made with W. S. and Co. to start production of Brassica seeds.
The manager, Sir John Hunt, who had some knowledge of seed production, choose Ernest Nichol to start the production of brassica seed for New Zealand. His task was to select individual bulbs, turnips and Swedes, and let them go to seed.
They were grown under individual bags so they would not cross-pollinate. He sowed hundreds of rows of seeds with a little hand-sowing machine. Every row was pegged at every hundred and any row that showed itself to be a poor yielder they chopped out. In this way they soon had a selection of high quality seed, much better, in fact, than any they had had from the United Kingdom.
Hard, Rewarding
Until they could multiply those seeds sufficiently to sow out a whole area they had to make do for a start with any seed and the work of roguing those was terrifically hard but highly rewarding.
Ernest stayed at this job until the end of the war and then the question of London cropped up again. By that time he didn’t want to go because his family was growing up. Then his cousin, the late Harry Nichol, who ran Nichol Bros, wanted to retire, so Ernest bought the business out in 1946. The knowledge he had acquired of seeds now stood him in good stead.
His business has grown through the years and when he retired from direct control it was with the knowledge that he had indeed been successful.
But long before he retired he spent a great deal of his spare time in pursuing his great love affair with the sea. In 1957 he launched his 36ft twin-screw cruiser, Susanne (named after his to daughters), and this has been his pride and joy.
Strait Crossings
It has taken Ernest and his family and friends all round Stewart Island and he was made 10 cruises to the West Coast fiords. He has taken her across Foveaux Strait 100 times or more, and every trip is an adventure, different from all the others, for the sea has many faces and many moods.
“I have respect for Foveaux Strait,” he says. “It is certainly one of the rough corners of the world.
“To me, the sea is a challenge, and if you have the urge to venture on it and can gratify that urge you find a tremendous elation in meeting that challenge.
“I am keyed up ever time I set out because you know that anything can happen – you can leave Bluff in perfect weather and then find yourself in the grip of a screaming gale. It is notorious area and that is what makes it so exciting – to me at any rate.”
The Susanne was designed in England by a well-known naval architect and when Ernest told him where he intended to cruise the architect said, “You have no need to tell me anything about Foveaux Strait,”
Log Book
Ernest has meticulously keep a log book which has records every trip he has made in the Susanne and this occupies two solidly bound volumes – and a glace through the pages gives a fair idea of the joy an happiness it has brought to all who have accompanied him on his trips.
Take this entry, for instance, chosen at random (and there many others like it). It is dated 1966 and reads: “Left Half Moon Bay at 10.45am for North Arm… gathered box of scallops mostly with the scoop. Boys and I took dinghy up the river and speared six flounders under pleasant conditions. Caught cod at Ulva for cray bait and set pots. Returned at 5.30 after a very pleasant day. Monday: Fine and sunny. Lift cray pots and had about 80.”
“But you don’t get them like that now,’’ says Ernest.
Crayfishing, apparently is like gold mining – the harvest runs out.
Club Stalwart
Alongside his interest in his cruiser in his devotion to the Yacht Club at Green Point which he and a few others started in 1955. They leased the land from the Railways Department and had their own dinghy shed and built themselves a slipway capable of taking a vessel of 30 tons.
This took 44 working bees with the whole 15 or so members turning up on every occasion, with hardly a one ever missing out.
This was indeed a fully self-help job, with no Government assistance of any kind, although the Harbour Board made material available from the old oyster wharf.
Ernest Nichol is commodore to the club and has held some such office ever since its establishment. The present position is that the club is in splendid heart and there is a fleet of yachts that would be a credit to any seaport town.
Hand in hand with his business interests has been his association with the Alliance Freezing Company of which he was a director for 13 years until his retirement 18 months ago.
Widely Travelled
Again, on the recreational side, he has travelled widely, making four or five trips to Britain, with others to Australia and spending a period each winter in Fiji. Then, of course there is his house at Stewart Island to which he sojourns frequently, and in the winter too there is the duck shooting season – he has never missed a season since he learned to shoot at the age of nine. And, for variation, he goes to Central Otago for the Quail shooting.
But apart from these recreational activities there is another side to Ernest Nichol’s character. From his grandfather and his father he has inherited a strong association with the Anglican Church.
He has carried on the tradition and has been a member of the All Saints vestry for 39 years and a member of the Dunedin Diocesan Trust Board for 15 years. He retired only last year and received a letter of appreciation from the Bishop in which he referred to his valuable contribution to the church as a man with a wide business knowledge.
This, then, is the picture of a dyed in the wool Southlander. When he was weighing up the proposition to buy his second business he discussed the project with his wife Barbara.
“We could go and live in a warmer climate in the north,” he said, “but if we buy this business we will be committed for the rest of our lives.”
It did not take them long to make up their minds. Southland was their destiny, and in Southland they elected to stay. They have never regretted it – and after all, they can at least get away for part of the winter.

Hilda Metzger’s father was Mr Joseph Metzger – who is mentioned in “Those Sheltering Hills; a history of Bluff” by J.E. Bremer; page 43.

“The Bay View Hotel, which is situated on the eastern corner of Palmer and Gore Streets was built by Mr Joseph Metzger, about 1890 and is a two-story building with four bedrooms for guests.
Mr Joseph Metzger was born in Wurtemburg, Germany, in 1849 and was educated in Germany and Bradford, Yorkshire, England. he worked in the pork butchering trade in Bradford for four years and left Liverpool in 1872 by the ship Milwall for Melbourne. After traveling through Australia, he was engaged by Mr J. H. Smith, a butcher of Invercargill, and later was in partnership with Mr Thomas Maltby for eleven years. Mr Metzger afterwards built the Bay View Hotel at Bluff which he conducted himself. He was elected as a councilor in 1896 and took a keen interest in all local matters, was a member of the Southland Victualler Association, vice-president of the Awarua Boating Club, president of the Football Club, a member of the Gun and Rifle Clubs and the school committee. Mr Metzger was an enthusiastic yachtsman and gained the championship at the New Year Regatta held at Bluff on New Years Day in 1898 sailing his own yacht.”

Louise Viva Nichol: daughter of Samuel & Eliza Nichol

Born, about 1890, Bluff (then known as Campbelltown), New Zealand
Married, on 12 December 1913, in Bluff, James William Hugh Bannerman (1887-1917)
Known to be alive in 1924 and living in Timaru, New Zealand.
J.W.H Bannerman was the author of:

“History of Otago representative cricket, 1863-1906 : with a chapter on the pre-rep period, 1848-1863” compiled by J.W.H. Bannerman, Dunedin [N.Z.] : Crown Print Co., 1907.
“Milestones, or, Wrecks of southern New Zealand” compiled by J.W.H. Bannerman. Bluff [N.Z.] : Bluff Press, 1913.
According to the internet based Cricket Archive he was born on the 20th May 1887, Ophir, Otago, New Zealand and played for Southland in the summer of 1914/15

He appears as follows in the Southland Boys’ High School Register: “397- Bannerman, James W. Hugh. Journalist with “Southland Daily News;” editor of the “Bluff Press.” Died of wounds, France, December 23 1917, aged 30. At School 1900. Otago B.H.S 1900-06. Served with the Infantry during World War 1 – Lieutenant.”
According to the records of the 29th Reinforcements: Otago Infantry Regiment – C Company. J W H Bannerman sailed on the “Ruahine (No. 92) leaving New Zealand on 15 August 1917. He is buried at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Poperinge, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium.

An article about J W H Bannerman was published in the Autumn 1985 issue of The Cricket Statistician (No.52), the journal of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians – which can be read here.

Children of James & Louise Bannerman

• Lois Burns Bannerman, b.1914, d. 1917 (age 3)
• William Hugh Bannerman, b. 1915, d. 8 December 1941 (age 25)

William Hugh Bannerman was a Bombardier in the 4th Field Regiment of the New Zealand Artillery. Killed at El Alamein, North Africa 8 December 1941.

Information about this part of the Bannerman family history (and a great deal on the Burness family) can be found at http://www.burness.ca/ And, also at http://roderickcraig.ourfamily.com/bannerm/pafg04.htm

Elsie Eliza Nichol: daughter of Samuel & Eliza Nichol

Born in Bluff (then known as Campbelltown), New Zealand
Married 4 July 1894, Charles Edward Shallcrass (1866-1944)
Known to be alive in 1924 and living in Timaru, New Zealand.

Children of Charles & Elsie Shallcrass

• Charles “Chas” Arnott Nichol Shallcrass, b. 9 July 1896
• Robert Errol Shallcrass, b. 24 June 1897
• George Willis Shallcrass, died young
• John Frank Shallcrass, b. 1904 d. 1944
• Charles Edward Shallcrass was born on 27 Sep 1866 in New Zealand. He was Manager Pyne, Gould, Guiness Ltd. Foundation member P. G. G. Ltd. Manager of Timaru branch, and he retired in 1936. He died in 1944.