Mathieson Street in Wanganui recalls Captain Kenneth Mathieson, originally from Glasgow, who arrived in New Zealand in November 1841 as master of his own ship the Clydeside. He established a shipyard at Kaiwharawhara (then known as Kaiwarra). As well as building and repairing ships, he was later involved in the flax trade and built a large flourmill at Kaiwharawhara in partnership with a Mr Shultze.
Kenneth Mathieson returned to the UK in the Clydeside in 1843, but was back the following year. He owned several pieces of land in Wanganui and on one of them, where Aramoho School stands today, he established a boat building yard. It’s this connection that is recorded in the name of Mathieson Street.
Like many pioneering businessmen, Kenneth Mathieson foundered under a burden of debt before his enterprises became sufficiently profitable. Serious damage to his ship the Clydeside may have been the final straw. He appointed trustees to sell land and other assets in Wellington and Wanganui to repay his creditors.
In 1846 he left New Zealand for Asia, probably Singapore or Hong Kong. This postal history blog tells the fascinating story of how a letter he sent from what is now Vanuatu reached his mother in Scotland.
Kenneth was back in New Zealand in 1847. He is said to have married Margaret Byron, though this is not recorded in the New Zealand marriage records (and she is not on the passenger list for the Clydeside in 1841). They are believed to have had two children, though neither is recorded in the New Zealand birth records: Kenneth Alexander (1849) who married and had five children, and Isabella (1851) who married but had no children.
Some descendants believe that Kenneth Snr was lost at sea, after which his widow left for Australia in about 1852, penniless, and settled in Newcastle in New South Wales, and that she later remarried a Captain Green and died, again a widow, in 1919. The postal history article has him joining his brother in Geelong, Victoria, and again building ships.
Sources:
Street names of Wanganui, by Athol Kirk.
Onslow settlers of the 1840s: Kenneth Mathieson, by Julie Bremner, in the Journal of the Onslow Historical Society 18(4) 12-14 (1988).
The pre-post office era: the 1846 Mathieson letter. The New Hebrides: postal history & stamps, a website maintained by Roland Klinger.