David Brunton Scott (1832 - 1916)

Ancestors Descendants

DAVID BRUNTON SCOTT 1832-1916

David Brunton Scott's parents were James Scott, a shoemaker and Helen Brunton Scott. James was his older brother, and younger siblings were Catherine, Margaret, Adam, and Wiliiam. ^[1]

David Scott, Shoemaker and Grace Beverage both in the parish of Leslie, were regularly proclaimed in order to marriage on Sabbath 25th December 1853. They were married 26th Dec. 1853 by the Rev. L. Rose, Minister of Markinch. ^[2]

After their marriage on the 26th December 1853, David Brunton Scott & Grace Beveridge settled in Burntisland on the Fife coast where, like his father James, he set up in business as a bootmaker. Boot making was a trade David didn’t care for; he soon found work as an engine man and spent six years working for the Edinburgh & Northern Railway Company. In 1850 the first rail ferry in the world was opened (the Leviathan) linking Burntisland with Granton, near Edinburgh across the Firth of Forth.

Emigrated from Scotland to Nelson, New Zealand with his family per ship Golconda arriving in Nelson on the 27th December 1859 David Brunton Scott and Grace, both aged 27 years old, James aged 3 and Walter aged 2. ^{[3] [4]} After Euphemia’s death, David and Grace made the decision to immigrate to New Zealand as assisted immigrants. Friends Charles Nicoll and Henry Burt who had already settled in Nelson, entered into a bond with the New Zealand Government on behalf of the Scott family to sponsor David, Grace and their three surviving children as immigrants to New Zealand. The bond provided that the emigrants ‘would not become a burden upon the state’ and was entered into with the New Zealand Customs Department.

For the Scotts, Nelson was a disappointment. They very soon moved over the hills to Golden Bay and settled in Pohara, near Takaka where their first New Zealand baby, Euphemia McIntyre SCOTT was born on 12th September 1860. They called her Pheme to distinguish her from their baby Euphemia McIntyre who had died in Fife, just before they emigrated. This was a fresh beginning with all the pain of the old-world left behind.

In Pohara, David found work as a laborer working on the road from the mudflats on the Motupipi River to Clifton, the first road to be built in the district. Finding that labouring work would never provide the capital needed to establish his family in Golden Bay, David went looking for gold. He tried first in the diggings beyond Collingwood without much reward then still in need of capital, took his young family south to the goldfields of Dunstan in central Otago and then to Waipori in south Otago – but with little success. The birth of their sixth child Margaret Nicoll SCOTT was registered in Dunedin in 1862, named for their sponsor Charles Nicoll who had helped them to emigrate.

Two years later, the family was back in Motupipi where David took a 600-acre Government land grant they called Mount Pleasant. These were hard years for the family as they struggled to bring their land into production. Provisions were hard to come by and sometimes the crops failed. More than once seed potatoes were lifted to eat within a few weeks of being planted. To bring in cash, David took labouring work where he could find it and resumed his old trade of shoe and boot making.

After years of backbreaking work by David and his family, the farm near Clifton in Motupipi was a great success and their family settled happily into Golden Bay, most marrying into Nelson and Golden Bay families.

After about thirty years of farming, David and Grace Scott sold Mount Pleasant and in 1897 retired to a cottage and 23 acres in Motupipi.

The diving suit

In 1889, David & Grace made a trip back to Scotland. David’s father James died in Leslie, Fife in 1884 and David went ‘home’ to claim his share of his father’s estate. There, he found that his two brothers Adam and William (reputed to be lawyers) had managed to cheat him of his share, thinking that he would never return home to lay claim to it. David brought back to New Zealand one of the first underwater diving suits to be made, intending to use it to search Golden Bay riverbeds for gold.

They came home to tragedy. Their daughters had decided to spring clean the family home in readiness for their parents' return. Emma who had been working hard all day, went down to the river for a swim to cool off and caught a chill. She died on the 9th October 1889 and is buried in the churchyard in East Takaka.

On the 31st May 1900, Grace died at home in Motupipi. She was buried beside Emma in East Takaka Churchyard.

David Brunton Scott moved to Washington Valley in Nelson where he married Mary Beveridge Pearce. David again took up boot making and found work as a gardener. Mary kept a shop in Washington Valley. David Brunton Scott died in Nelson on 21st October 1916. Mary (Beveridge) (Pearce) Scott died on the 28th June 1922

DAVID BRUNTON SCOTT : buried in East Takaka Cemetery - block R plot 7

The Cyclopaedia of New Zealand

“Mr. David Scott , who resided at Motupipi for over forty years, now (1905) lives in retirement in Nelson. Mr. Scott was born in Fifeshire, Scotland, on the 26th of July, 1832, and was apprenticed to the trade of a shoemaker. He did not like the work, however, and left it to become an engineman with the Edinburgh and Northern Railway Company, in whose service he remained for six years and ahalf. In 1859, he left the Old Country in the ship “Golconda,” and landed in Nelson on the 26th of December of that year. Disappointed in his expectations from friends who had induced him to come out, he went direct to Motupipi, and assisted in the formation of the first road in the district, from the mud flats at Motupipi to Clifton. He afterwards went digging for gold in various parts of Nelson, and on the Otago goldfields, and worked at Dunstan and Waipori, but with little success. Thereupon he returned to his home at Motupipi, and took up 600 acres of land from the Government. In connection with this undertaking, he and his wife had to put up with many hardships, as provisions were often scarce, and the crops a failure. Sometimes provisions ran so short that the potatoes, after being sown for a few weeks, had to be grubbed up again and eaten. However, working hard, early and late, Mr. and Mrs Scott made headway, and, after twenty-five years of fairly successful occupation, they sold their farm in March, 1897, and went to live in a pretty cottage at Motupipi, where they had twenty-three acres of land. Mr. and Mrs Scott have had a family of five sons and seven daughters. One daughter died when she was nineteen years of age, but the rest have grown to manhood and womanhood, and all are married. There are about sixty grandchildren, and the family in all consists of nearly ninety persons.”

Sources

1. ↑ i1851 census of Leslie, Fife.
2. ↑ 26.12.1853 Scott, David (OPR Marriages 444/00 0040 0417 Leslie (Fife)
3. ↑ Golconda Passengers 1859
4. ↑ Nelson Historical Society Journal, Volume 7, Issue 4, 2012 : The Takaka Pioneers’ Memorial — Part II page 61 by Ken Wright

• MARRIAGE: O.P.R. Marriages 444/00 0040 0417 Leslie (Fife) 26/12/1853 Scott David
• MARRIAGE "Scotland, Marriages, 1561-1910," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XTPB-3YV : accessed 23 May 2015), David Scott and Grace Beveridge, 26 Dec 1853; citing Leslie,Fife,Scotland, reference ; FHL microfilm 1,040,386.
• Dept. of Internal Affairs New Zealand www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz
• N.Z. MARRIAGE - 1902/713 - Mary Beveridge Pearce & David Brunton Scott
• N.Z. DEATHS - 1916/7703 - Scott David Brunton aged 84 years