Writing women’s experience into South Canterbury’s record
1834-1916
Author
Early Settler
Ellen Shephard Tripp completed a short memoir at Ōrāri Gorge in 1915. She wrote that she had done so at the request of her children, believing that her experiences might interest them and old friends in years to come.
More than a century later, My Early Days does something larger. It allows readers to encounter parts of nineteenth-century life through a woman’s own recollections rather than solely through station records, land transactions and accounts written about prominent men.
Ellen was born Ellen Shephard Harper in England in 1834. In 1856 she travelled to Canterbury with her parents and siblings after her father, Henry John Chitty Harper, was appointed the first Anglican Bishop of Christchurch. She married runholder Charles George Tripp in 1858.
Ellen and Charles lived first at Mount Peel and Mount Somers and later made Ōrāri Gorge their permanent home. Timaru District Council’s heritage research records that they moved there in September 1866 and raised eight children.
Her memoir recounts her English childhood, the voyage to New Zealand, marriage and life at Mount Peel and Ōrāri Gorge. These memories preserve domestic and family details that official property histories seldom record. They also reveal the movement, uncertainty and practical adjustment involved in establishing a household far from established towns and services.
Ellen died in December 1916. A contemporary obituary said she had lived at Ōrāri Gorge for about 50 years and was closely associated with Canterbury’s early pastoral period. Such obituary praise must be treated as commemoration rather than neutral assessment, but it confirms the duration of her connection with the place.
The value of Ellen’s record lies partly in what she included and partly in the questions it leaves. It was written from the viewpoint of a financially secure Pākehā settler family. It cannot stand for the experiences of mana whenua, station employees, domestic workers or neighbouring families whose voices were less likely to reach print.
Read critically, however, My Early Days remains an important South Canterbury source. Ellen wrote names, places, relationships and ordinary experiences onto the page. Because she did, later readers can investigate a world that would otherwise be known mainly through buildings, businesses and the records of men.
Read the existing WuHoo story Ellen Shephard Tripp, Eleanor Tripp and the Library Written Before It Was Built
Sources
Papers Past: Ellen Shephard Tripp, My Early Days
Ellen’s own account of her childhood, migration, marriage and early Canterbury life. The National Library states that the book is out of copyright in New Zealand.
Aoraki Heritage Collection: My Early Days
Confirms the work’s subject, original 1915 publication and later edition.
Timaru District Council: Ōrāri Gorge Homestead heritage assessment
Supports Ellen’s marriage, family and the sequence of residences before the family settled at Ōrāri Gorge.
Star, 15 December 1916: Ellen Shephard Tripp obituary
Confirms her family identity and long association with Ōrāri Gorge.