Gellibrand.⁷¹ He also relinquished the lease of Lot 15, Parish of Tahawai. Hamiora Tu subsequently sold it to the ubiquitous Auckland solicitor, Henry Kissling.⁷²

Gill was quite shrewd with the others properties that he retained. In March 1870, Lots 13 and 14, Parish of Tahawai were transferred by way of a marriage settlement to W. H. Kissling and H. T. Clarke, to be held in trust for the future benefit of William George Sealy, of Nelson, and Gill’s daughter Mary Ann, soon to become Mrs William George Sealy.⁷³ In March 1878, Gill repeated this display of patriarchal benevolence and conveyed another property, Lot 12 Parish of Tahawai, to trustees Kissling and G H Davies, of Wellington.⁷⁴ The beneficiaries of the trust were Gill’s daughter, Emily, and Gill’s colleague, H. T. Clarke, to whom Miss Gill was engaged to be married.

3.5 Concluding comments

In 1871, government official, A. F. Halcombe, commented on the ‘facility with which’ the Maori owners of land in the district ‘part[ed] with the bulk of their lands’ soon after an individualised title was granted.⁷⁵ This comment could apply to a number of the reserves in the Katikati-Te Puna block. In hindsight, the quick onsale of the Katikati-Te Puna reserves was perhaps a prelude to the often unscrupulous private land speculation that was to become rife in the district in the 1870s.

It is impossible to discover whether or not underhand purchasing methods were used to buy the reserves in the Katikati-Te Puna block, as they later were in the rest of the confiscated district, because of a limited archive. It is also impossible to state whether a small group of individuals, such as R. J. Gill, W. H. Kissling, and Abraham Warbrick, who participated in a large number of transactions, were in collusion with one another. The only assertion that can be made with any confidence about the

⁷¹ Gill sold Lots 49 and 50, Parish of Te Puna to Gellibrand for £350, and assigned the leases of Lots 187, 188, 49 and 50, Parish of Te Puna to him as well.

⁷² Deed register K1 913, ref. 1835^K, LINZ, Auckland

⁷³ Deed register K1 373, ref. 773^K, LINZ, Auckland.

⁷⁴ Deed register K2 177, ref. 2042^K, LINZ, Auckland.

⁷⁵ ‘Report Upon Lands Suitable for the Settlement of Immigrants at Tauranga’, AJHR 1872, D-6, p. 2.