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George Frederic Allen (1837–1929) and His Whānau

A Family Dossier

By Warwick Allen
30 September 2026
Abstract

George Frederic Allen (1837–1929) was an architect, surveyor, teacher, musician and mountain guide who sailed from England to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1860 and made his home in Whanganui. This dossier tells his story, and the story of the people around him.

A note on names. His name is spelt “Frederic” in his marriage and death registrations and in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. He signed himself “Geo. Fred. Allen”, the newspapers of his day printed “Frederick” or “Fredric” as often as not, and the family often writes “Frederick” or simply “GF Allen”. In his day, Whanganui was spelt “Wanganui”, so older sources use that form.

Every fact in this dossier comes from a published source or an official record, listed at the end. Where a detail is uncertain or still to be confirmed, the text says so.

His life at a glance

George lived for 92 years, and nearly 69 of them were spent in New Zealand. The table below sets out the main events in order.

Date What happened
15 Feb 1837 Born at 69 Tooley Street, London, the eldest son of the architect George Allen and Maria, née Day.
28 Jun 1848 His father dies, leaving Maria with six children aged between one and eleven.
Oct 1853 Moves from the family home in Brighton to London to train as an architect and surveyor in his late father’s firm.
5 Apr 1860 Sails from Gravesend for New Zealand in the Egmont.
18 Jul 1860 The Egmont anchors off Queen Street Wharf, Auckland.
1860–61 Works about eighteen months on Great Barrier Island, until the kauri venture fails.
About 1862 Teaches at the Church of England Grammar School, then practises with J. O. Barnard.
Jul 1862 Moves to Wellington as a district surveyor.
Nov 1862 Is sent to Whanganui, where he lives for most of the next forty years.
21 Oct 1863 Marries Caroline Frances (Carrie) Hanson at St Matthew’s Church, Auckland.
7 Oct 1864 His first child, Fred, is born.
Jul 1865 Finds a message in a bottle from besieged Pipiriki and joins the relief party.
1866 Christ Church, Whanganui, opens, with furniture he designed. He joins Lodge Tongariro.
1867 Draws the plans for Trenton House, now called Oneida, at Fordell. It is built in 1869–70.
1871–73 St Stephen’s Church, Marton, is built to his design. It opens on St Stephen’s Day, 26 December 1873.
1879 His youngest child, Ralph, is born.
1880 The plans for a new church at Waverley are held at his office.
1883 Surveys at Te Korito and visits Kaiwhaiki.
11 Oct 1889 Whanganui citizens present him with a purse of sovereigns.
1892 His sons build the family a cottage at Te Pohue, near Mangamahu.
1894 Publishes Willis’s Guide Book and draws his panorama of Ruapehu and Ngāuruhoe.
10 Mar 1895 Sketches Ruapehu erupting.
10 Jan 1903 Carrie dies at Oneida.
11 Feb 1907 Marries Sarah Alice (Nellie) Thomas, née Edmeades, in Dunedin.
Apr–Jul 1924 Writes “Wanganui in the ’60s” and is reunited in Whanganui with his brother Charles.
28 Feb 1929 Dies at Masterton, aged 92. He is buried in the Archer Street Cemetery on 2 March.

Sources: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Hanson-Allen Family website; George’s reminiscences; New Zealander, 21 July 1860, “Maritime Record”; Heritage New Zealand: St Stephen’s Church, Marton; Masterton District Council cemetery search.

Beginnings in London

George Frederic Allen was born on 15 February 1837 at 69 Tooley Street, near London Bridge, the eldest son of the architect George Allen and his wife Maria, née Day. (The family website spells her name “Marie”.)

His father had been articled to an architect named Sames, taken over the practice at that address and held several surveying posts in the district. The firm, Allen, Snooke & Stock, designed many of the principal warehouses along the Thames. Family research also credits George senior with the façades at each end of London Bridge, which was rebuilt in the 1820s. He died on 28 June 1848, leaving Maria with six children aged between one and eleven.

George was the eldest of nine children, three of whom died as babies. The family’s trees on MyHeritage and Geni give their dates as follows.

Child Born Died
George Frederic 15 Feb 1837 28 Feb 1929
Mary Frances 19 Nov 1838 20 Feb 1839
Charles William 26 Mar 1840 1924
Emma Louisa 31 Mar 1841 1916
Maria 17 Jul 1842 31 Jul 1842
Julia 17 Nov 1843 29 Nov 1934
Henry Thomas 24 Sep 1844 10 Jan 1845
Alfred Henry 17 Jan 1846 14 Jul 1904
Emily Georgina Drew 30 Jun 1847 1893

This fits the family website’s statement that six children were living when their father died in June 1848, the youngest, Emily, being then a few days short of her first birthday. Two of George’s brothers and sisters appear later in this story: Charles William and Julia. Their mother, Maria, was born on 31 May 1806 and died on 16 May 1862, two years after George sailed.

In October 1853, at the age of sixteen, George moved from the family home in Brighton to London. There he studied architecture and surveying in his late father’s business, as a pupil of the partner Henry Stock. By 1856 the family was living at Sydenham Cottage in Epsom.

The Allens were friends of the Reverend George Loudon Hanson, vicar of Great Burstead in Essex, and his wife Frances Jane, née Surridge. Their children spent much time with the Allen children. George was close to Tom (Thomas Surridge) Hanson, who was born at Felsted on 25 February 1839 and died in 1897, and he had clearly noticed Tom’s sister Caroline Frances, known as Carrie, who was the Hansons’ eldest daughter. She was born at Felsted, Essex, on 31 August 1840.

Sources: Hanson-Allen Family website; Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Geni: George Frederic Allen; the family’s MyHeritage site, “Allen Web Site”, “export-Forest” tree; New Zealander, 22 October 1863.

Sailing to Aotearoa on the Egmont

George gave up a secure place in London to take a risk on the other side of the world. It had been arranged that he would join his late father’s firm as a junior partner. Instead, a friend, Captain John Young, who had visited New Zealand, suggested that the two of them start a sawmill to cut kauri for sale in Auckland. While still in England, George accepted the post of engineer to the Great Barrier Island Kauri Timber & Copper Mining Company.

He was twenty-three when the Egmont, an 800-ton ship commanded by Captain Gibson, left Gravesend on 5 April 1860, the day before Good Friday. The voyage was not uneventful. On 12 July, off Dusky Bay, a southerly gale carried away the tiller and broke the rudder head, but the ship made her way up the west coast and sighted the Three Kings Islands a few days later. She was off Great Barrier Island on the evening of Tuesday 17 July, and at 2 p.m. on Wednesday 18 July 1860 she anchored off Queen Street Wharf in Auckland, 104 days after leaving Gravesend. She brought about a hundred passengers. The list of cabin passengers printed in the Daily Southern Cross includes “John B. Young” and “G. F. Allen”, so George and his partner made the voyage together.

This settles a question that the first edition of this dossier left open. The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography gives 19 July, which is the date on which the ship was formally entered at Customs. The date of 7 August 1860 in George’s undated reminiscences is a slip, whether of memory or of transcription. In his 1924 newspaper article, George himself wrote only that he arrived in July, after 104 days.

His Newfoundland dog, Flora, seems to have made the voyage with him. George had trained a dog of that name in London in 1856. That dog was with him on Great Barrier Island, and he still had a dog called Flora when he reached Whanganui in 1863.

Sources: New Zealander, 21 July 1860, “Maritime Record”; Daily Southern Cross, 20 July 1860, “Shipping Intelligence”; Auckland Examiner, 21 July 1860; G. F. Allen, “Wanganui in the ’60s”; Hanson-Allen Family website; George’s reminiscences; Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Great Barrier Island painting and caption.

Aotea Great Barrier Island: the kauri venture that failed

George and Captain Young spent about eighteen months on Great Barrier Island (Aotea), and the venture ended in financial loss. The company had bought sawmilling equipment and employed both Māori and European workers. It also built a dam on a stream that was said at the time to be the largest in New Zealand.

The plan was to fell kauri, roll the logs into the stream bed and let the dammed water carry them down to the sea. In the eighteen months George was there, there was too little rain to fill the dam, but the men kept felling trees anyway. Then heavy rain came. The dam overflowed and collapsed, and the logs rushed out to sea, breaking the boom that was meant to catch them. Very few were saved.

With most of the company’s capital gone, the men were paid off and George returned to Auckland. In his own summing-up, he had spent £145 on the work and came back owing £20, with £5 in the bank.

There were happier memories. For the first three months George and Captain Young boarded at the cottage of an old Swedish sailor, Robinson, at the head of Kaiarara Bay, Port Fitzroy. Mrs Robinson was an excellent cook and housekeeper, and she later did their washing and bread-baking once their own cottages were built.

George also explored. He climbed Hirakimata, the island’s highest peak, which the Admiralty chart called Mount Hobson. The climb was slow because of fallen trees, so he reached the top at sunset and slept there beside a fire, with his dog Flora for company. In the morning, with a telescope, he could make out the windmill at Auckland, St Paul’s Church and Mount Eden. A nearby peak, Allen’s Peak, and the double-peaked Mount Young, named for his partner, appear in a small painting that he captioned and signed in September 1862.

Sources: Hanson-Allen Family website; Great Barrier Island painting and caption; George’s reminiscences; Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.

Auckland and Wellington: architect, then government surveyor

Back in Auckland, George found work as an assistant master at the Church of England Grammar School for a few months. Then a chance came to return to his own profession, and he went into partnership as an architect and surveyor with James Orme Barnard.

The partners entered a competition for the design of the first St Matthew’s Church in Auckland, in which they beat five other architects and won a prize of £20. George later noted with pride that the church was built of kauri and was still sound. By 1929 it was being used as a Sunday school. In their first six months together, working sixteen-hour days, the two men earned £350.

In the winter of 1862 William Fox, who was then Premier, offered both men posts as district surveyors in the Province of Wellington. A district surveyor measured and mapped land so that its boundaries could be recorded. Each post paid a certain salary of £300 a year, and although they were reluctant to leave Auckland, the pair accepted. In his 1924 article George wrote that the appointment was made by the Superintendent of the province, Dr Isaac Featherston, and that he sailed for Wellington in the steamer Lord Worsley in July 1862. In Wellington he did one survey and a good deal of mapping, and he joined the Pacific Lodge of Freemasons.

In November 1862 the partners went separate ways. Barnard was sent to the Wairarapa, and George was “lent” to Whanganui “for the summer months”. He stayed for most of the rest of his working life.

Sources: George’s reminiscences; G. F. Allen, “Wanganui in the ’60s”; Hanson-Allen Family website; Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Wanganui Herald, 1 March 1929.

Settling in Whanganui, 1862–1870

George reached Whanganui in November 1862 in the Stormbird, an iron screw steamer of the Wellington Steam Navigation Company. She had been built as a yacht for the King of Sweden and was then a pretty vessel rigged as a topsail schooner. As was the custom, she fired her six-pounders as she came up the river past Pūtiki. The arrival of a mail steamer was the great event of the month, so the whole town turned out at the wharf.

He reported to the senior district surveyor, David Porter, and worked with him for three years and three months without a cross word between them. Porter was also captain of the Victoria Company of Volunteer Riflemen, and George joined the company as a private a few days after he arrived. When the volunteer companies were later merged into the Militia, he served in it too, for about four years in all.

His first lodging was the Commercial Hotel, kept by George Howe, where a week cost thirty shillings for himself and his Newfoundland dog. He then took a sitting room and two tiny bedrooms with Mr and Mrs William Pick, at the corner of Wilson and Ridgway Streets, and stayed there for over a year, until after his marriage. In his 1924 article George remembered that Mrs Pick would not let the cat into his sitting room, and that one day the cat escaped up the chimney.

In 1863 his fiancée, Carrie, sailed to join him (see the whānau section below). The family website says that George asked his employers for three months’ leave for a honeymoon and that, when they allowed only one month, he resigned and took up private surveying. That does not sit easily with George’s own statement that he worked with Porter for three years and three months, which would take him to about early 1866, and the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography follows George’s timing. Either way, he later set up in private practice, surveyed properties at Papaiti and drew up plans for a new vicarage. When the fighting in the district brought surveying to a stop, he opened a private school.

The message in the bottle, 1865

On 19 July 1865 about 300 militiamen under Major Brassey were besieged in their redoubts at Pipiriki, up the Whanganui River, by Pai Mārire fighters, and they ran short of ammunition and food. Brassey sent messages downriver in bottles. According to the family, he wrote in Latin because some of the besiegers could read English; the Australian War Memorial’s account says there were two bottles, one in French and one in Latin. George found one of the bottles and carried the message to the Militia office. He also took part in the party led by Major C. C. Rookes that was sent up the river to relieve Pipiriki. The siege was over within about twelve days.

Military matters dominated Whanganui for years afterwards. One visitor to the Allens’ home in St Hill Street was Major von Tempsky, shortly before his death in battle in 1868.

Sources: G. F. Allen, “Wanganui in the ’60s”; George’s reminiscences; Hanson-Allen Family website; Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Australian War Memorial: The river and the redoubts.

The whānau: Carrie and the seven children

Caroline Frances Hanson, known as Carrie, was George’s wife and the heart of the family. She was born at Felsted, Essex, on 31 August 1840, the eldest daughter of the Reverend George Loudon Hanson and Frances Jane, née Surridge. After George settled in Whanganui, Carrie sailed to New Zealand in the Ganges and reached Auckland on 12 October 1863. She and George were married nine days later, on 21 October 1863, by the Reverend David Jones in the new St Matthew’s Church, the church George had helped to design. The marriage notice describes the bridegroom as “of the Wellington Provincial Survey Department, Whanganui”.

The couple made their home in St Hill Street, Whanganui, and Carrie joined the town’s musical life. At the first concert of the new Wanganui Choral Society in January 1864, she sang the second verse of the hymn “Brightest and Best”, and George sang the third.

Life was not easy for her. George often spent long periods surveying in the backblocks, and he was known to spend days in bed with bad headaches. The family remembers him as talented and cheerful but sometimes impractical, so much of the household burden fell to Carrie. When an attack on Whanganui seemed likely during the wars, she gathered her small children and took shelter with the townspeople in the Rutland Stockade.

In 1892 her two eldest sons built her and George a small cottage of ponga logs and daub on land that had been won in a ballot at Te Pohue, in the Mangamahu Valley. The nearest road was seven miles away along a bridle track. George’s obituary says that the family settled at Mangamahu about 1890.

Their children

Each child was given the middle name Hanson, after Carrie’s family. Five of the seven children grew up. This matches the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, which mentions four sons and a daughter, and George’s obituary, which lists four sons and a daughter as surviving him in 1929, together with 19 grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.

flowchart TD
    %% Generation 1: the parents of George and of Carrie
    GA["George Allen<br/>architect, London<br/>d. 1848"]
    MD["Maria Day<br/>1806–1862"]
    GLH["Rev. George Loudon Hanson<br/>vicar of Great Burstead, Essex"]
    FJS["Frances Jane Surridge"]
    GA --- MA(["m."])
    MD --- MA
    GLH --- MH(["m."])
    FJS --- MH

    %% Generation 2: George and his two wives
    MA --> GFA["George Frederic Allen<br/>1837–1929<br/>architect and surveyor"]
    MH --> CFH["Caroline Frances Hanson<br/>‘Carrie’<br/>1840–1903"]
    SAE["Sarah Alice Edmeades<br/>‘Nellie’<br/>c. 1844–1931<br/>widow of Nickless and Thomas"]
    GFA --- M1(["m. 1863"])
    CFH --- M1
    GFA -.- M2(["m. 1907"])
    SAE -.- M2

    %% Generation 3: the seven children of George and Carrie, in birth order
    M1 --> C1["Frederick Hanson ‘Fred’<br/>1864–1946<br/>m. 1894 Ethel Elizabeth Barns"]
    M1 --> C2["Charles Ernest Hanson ‘Charlie’<br/>1866–1953<br/>m. 1901 Julia Caldwell"]
    M1 --> C3["Barnard John Hanson<br/>1868–1868"]
    M1 --> C4["Arnold Hanson<br/>1869–1875"]
    M1 --> C5["Francis Dillon Hanson ‘Frank’<br/>c. 1872–1941<br/>m. 1913 Louisa Mary Dykes"]
    M1 --> C6["Maude Olive Hanson<br/>1875–1968<br/>m. 1899 Oliver Taylor"]
    M1 --> C7["Ralph Hanson<br/>1879–1958<br/>m. 1904 Mary Jones, div. 1917<br/>m. 1920 Ida Constance Holland"]

    classDef allen fill:#e8f0fa,stroke:#2f5d8a,color:#10263d
    classDef hanson fill:#f6ecdf,stroke:#8a5a2f,color:#3d2610
    classDef spouse fill:#eef3ea,stroke:#4f7a3a,color:#1c2e13
    classDef infant fill:#f4f4f4,stroke:#8a8a8a,color:#444,stroke-dasharray: 4 3
    classDef marriage fill:#ffffff,stroke:#666,color:#333
    class GA,GFA,C1,C2,C5,C6,C7 allen
    style GFA stroke-width:3px
    class GLH,CFH hanson
    class MD,FJS,SAE spouse
    class C3,C4 infant
    class MA,MH,M1,M2 marriage

The tree reads from the grandparents at the top, to George and his two wives in the middle, to his children with Carrie in birth order along the bottom. The rounded boxes mark marriages, the dotted lines mark George’s second marriage, and the grey dashed boxes mark the two boys who died young. Blue boxes are Allens, brown boxes are Hansons and green boxes are people who married into the family. The diagram is written in Mermaid, so it displays as a picture in GitHub, Obsidian and most other Markdown viewers.

Child Born Died What we know
Frederick Hanson ("Fred") 7 Oct 1864, Whanganui 21 Sep 1946, Raetihi He was a farmer, a surveyor and a local-body politician, and he sat on the Wanganui East Borough Council (at first called Eastbrook) by 1908. He married Ethel Elizabeth Barns (born at Whanganui on 9 October 1871, died at Christchurch in 1948) on 26 April 1894, and they had six children. In 1924 he hosted his father and uncle in Whanganui.
Charles Ernest Hanson ("Charlie") 25 Jun 1866 18 Jan 1953, Whanganui He was a farmer and surveyor, and his birth was not registered until 1921. He lived at Pukeroa in 1904, and by 1913 he was a land agent at Frankton Junction, where he chaired the Frankton Town Board. He was Mayor of Frankton by 1915 (the family website says twice) and resigned in May 1916 when he left the district. He was living at Tauranga in 1929. He wrote an unpublished memoir, *Eighty Years in New Zealand*. He married Julia Caldwell on 6 June 1901, and they had no children. He is buried at Aramoho Cemetery.
Barnard John Hanson Late Sep 1868 10 Nov 1868, Whanganui He died as a baby, aged six weeks. No birth registration has been found.
Arnold Hanson 30 Nov 1869 10 Mar 1875, Whanganui He died of acute laryngitis at the age of five. Fred and Maude later gave the name Arnold to their sons, presumably in his memory.
Francis Dillon Hanson ("Frank") About 1872–73 19 Apr 1941, aged 68 He went up Ruapehu with his father in the 1890s, was the up-river mail contractor at Mangamahu in 1897, and later farmed at Kōriniti on the Whanganui River. He married Louisa Mary Dykes on 19 March 1913 at Pūtiki Mission. They had a daughter, Annie, who was born in 1915 and lived only a day. He is buried at Aramoho Cemetery. No birth registration has been found.
Maude Olive Hanson 29 Jun 1875, Whanganui 4 Nov 1968, Auckland She was the only daughter. She married Oliver Taylor on 5 April 1899 at Te Pohue, and they had ten children. The first and last died at birth, and eight grew up. She was living at Ōtāhuhu in 1929.
Ralph Hanson 11 Sep 1879, Whanganui 8 May 1958, Palmerston North He was a surveyor and farmer, and for many years a government Rural Land Valuer at Palmerston North. He married Mary Jones on 1 January 1904 at Fred's home at Mangamahu, and they were divorced on 10 May 1917. He married Ida Constance Holland on 29 September 1920, and they had four children.

The dates of birth, marriage and death in the table have been checked against the official indexes and the Aramoho Cemetery register wherever an entry exists. The other details come from the family website and from newspapers. The family website gives Charlie’s birth year as 1886 and his death as 18 July 1953, and it gives Frank’s death as 1942; the official records show that these were misprints for 1866, 18 January 1953 and 1941.

A photograph taken in August 1889 shows the whole family together. Fred, Charlie and Frank stand at the back, although the family is not sure which of the first two is which. George, Carrie, Maude and Ralph are seated in front.

Cousins across the sea

George’s sister Julia married Carrie’s brother William Hanson, a homeopathic doctor. They settled in Fort Myers, Florida, where Julia became a leader of the women’s clubs. She died there on 29 November 1934, aged 91, and is buried in the Fort Myers Cemetery. Some of their descendants still live in Fort Myers.

George’s brother, Captain Charles William Allen, left England for Canada in 1859, a year before George sailed. The family website says that he became a journalist and newspaper editor, and the newspapers of 1924 call him a Canadian army veteran. In July 1924, at the age of 84, he came to New Zealand to see George, whom he had not seen for sixty-five years. The brothers met on the Wellington wharf, and the recognition was instant. In Whanganui they stayed with Fred and were the guests of honour at a lively evening at which George, then 87, sang and led the choruses. Charles died later that year at Regina, Canada, on his way home to Winnipeg. The family tree on MyHeritage records his burial at Philadelphia, which may explain why one Whanganui newspaper described him as living in Philadelphia.

Sources: The children of George and Carrie; Hanson-Allen Family website; Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Births, Deaths & Marriages Historical Records; Whanganui District Council cemetery search; Daily Southern Cross, 13 October 1863; New Zealander, 22 October 1863; Wanganui Chronicle, 14 December 1907; Wanganui Chronicle, 17 June 1908; Waikato Argus, 3 April 1913; Waikato Times, 19 April 1915; New Zealand Herald, 19 May 1916; Wanganui Chronicle, 29 April 1897; Wanganui Chronicle, 30 July 1924; Manawatu Standard, 4 December 1924; Wanganui Herald, 1 March 1929.

Faith, music and community

George was a devout Anglican who led his family in prayers every morning and evening. He became a churchwarden of Christ Church in Whanganui and designed the furniture for the new church, which opened in 1866. He also drew up plans for a new vicarage.

Music was the other great love of his life. He played the organ and the flute, sang solos, and formed the church choir. When the Wanganui Choral Society held its first practice in June 1863, 86 people came, and George took charge of the more experienced singers. He went on to serve on the society’s founding committee and as its conductor and a soloist. His obituary adds that he was at various times choirmaster of Christ Church and of St Mary’s Church, and for many years conductor of the old Philharmonic Society.

He was also a joiner of clubs and a helper of the town. He was a Freemason, first in the Pacific Lodge in Wellington and from 1866 in Lodge Tongariro in Whanganui, where he was at one time secretary. In Lodge St Andrew Kilwinning he was chaplain, choirmaster and secretary, and at his death he was its last surviving foundation member. He designed the old Freemasons’ Hall in St Hill Street. He was also the secretary of the Wanganui Volunteer Fire Brigade.

Sources: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Hanson-Allen Family website; George’s reminiscences; Wanganui Herald, 1 March 1929.

Buildings and surveys

George’s best-known surviving work is Oneida, a tall, steep-roofed timber house in the “carpenter Gothic” style at Fordell, north-east of Whanganui. He drew the plans in 1867, and the house was built in 1869–70 for Joseph and Mary Ann Burnett. It was first called Trenton House, and it was later the home of Cornelius (Con) Burnett. Heritage New Zealand lists it as a Category 1 historic place (List number 160). Its central hall rises 13.5 metres from the ground floor to the apex of the roof.

Te Ara, the online encyclopedia of New Zealand, counts Oneida among the country’s best Gothic Revival houses, alongside Highwic in Auckland. The family website suggests that Highwic influenced George’s design, since he was working in Auckland around the time Highwic was built, in 1862. The likelier explanation for the resemblance is a shared American source. Te Ara says that Highwic’s design was taken from one of Andrew Jackson Downing’s American pattern books, and Heritage New Zealand notes that the Burnetts had lived near Utica, in Oneida County, New York, and credits their American experience for the style of the house.

His second surviving landmark is St Stephen’s Anglican Church in Marton, which the Reverend Towgood commissioned from him after the wars ended. The foundation stone was laid in 1871, and the church was opened and consecrated on St Stephen’s Day 1873. It stands on the site of a redoubt from the 1860s wars, has changed little since it was built, and is listed by Heritage New Zealand as a Category 2 historic place (List number 1250). It shares the tall, striking look of Oneida.

A church of the same name at Waverley, built in 1880, was almost certainly his work as well. In March 1880 the tender notice for the “New Church at Waverley” told builders that the plans and specifications could be seen “at the office of Mr G. F. Allen, Architect, Wanganui”.

Probably few of his other Whanganui buildings still stand. The old Freemasons’ Hall in St Hill Street had already been replaced by 1929. He could also be generous to a fault. The family remembers that he once designed a building for a friend without charging for it, at a time when his own household had little money.

Surveys of the land

Once peace returned in 1869, George surveyed large blocks of land in the Waitotara valley and along the Whanganui River. The work took him into the upper river country, where he climbed Ruapehu, Ngāuruhoe and Tongariro. In 1883 he surveyed land at Te Korito for the settler Charles Smith, on the river opposite Kaiwhaiki (see the section on the land and the river).

His sons followed him into the work. George took them out of school as soon as he could to help on the survey parties. They learned the trade by doing it, but they had no formal qualifications, so their work had to be signed off by their father for the Land Transfer Office.

Sources: Heritage New Zealand: Oneida Homestead; Heritage New Zealand: St Stephen’s Church, Marton; Te Ara: 19th-century domestic architecture; Te Ara: Whanganui places; Whanganui Chronicle: St Stephen’s 150th anniversary; Wanganui Chronicle, 25 March 1880; Puke Ariki: St Stephen’s Church, Waverley; Hanson-Allen Family website; Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Wanganui Herald, 1 March 1929.

The land and the river: the world George entered

The Whanganui River is a tupuna, an ancestor, to Whanganui iwi, who say: Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au (I am the river and the river is me). Iwi began petitioning Parliament to protect the river in the 1870s. In 2017 the Te Awa Tupua Act recognised the river as a legal person, and the Crown apologised for past wrongs.

When George arrived in 1862, Whanganui was a small Pākehā town in a district that Māori had lived in and cared for over many generations. The river was the highway into the interior. George’s own recollections describe settlers travelling upriver by canoe. He also recorded the tradition, told to him by the interpreter John White, that the river was named “Whanganui” (the great waiting) because an ancestor who came from Taranaki had to wait there for low water.

War on the river

The 1860s brought war to the district. At Moutoa Island in May 1864, lower-river Whanganui Māori defeated a force of Pai Mārire followers from upriver. In January 1865 General Cameron led about 2,000 British troops to the Waitōtara block, and Cameron himself believed that the real aim of the campaign was to acquire land.

At Pipiriki in July 1865, Major Brassey’s garrison of militia was besieged by Pai Mārire. Brassey floated messages downriver in bottles, and George found one. A relief force that included Whanganui Māori under Mete Kīngi went upriver, and the besiegers dispersed; George was a member of the party led by Major Rookes. So his bottle story belongs to a conflict that was as much between Whanganui hapū and iwi as between Māori and Pākehā. Peace between the upper and lower river tribes came by the middle of 1866.

Surveying and the land

A surveyor’s maps and boundary lines were part of how land passed into settler ownership. After 1869, George surveyed large blocks in the Waitōtara valley and along the Whanganui River. This dossier records that work as part of his story. Whanganui iwi have their own accounts of these years, and it is worth listening to them.

Signs of respect and curiosity

George left a few small signs that he paid attention to the people whose land he worked on. Local Māori told him that the mountain Ngāuruhoe was really called Auruahoe, and he kept using that name. He also spelt the town’s name Whanganui, with an h, long before that spelling was made official, having been told by John White that such names should always carry the h.

In 1883, surveying land at Te Korito, he crossed to Kaiwhaiki, then a base for supporters of the Māori King. A sentry with a fixed bayonet stopped him and his chainman. That evening he was allowed, rather reluctantly, to sit in on a meeting in the whare rūnanga, introduced to the chief Te Oti Takarangi. The meeting grew heated, with strong words against the Pākehā authorities, and George decided it was time to leave.

Sources: NZHistory: Fighting on the Whanganui River; NZHistory: The 1865 campaign; Australian War Memorial: The river and the redoubts; Te Ara: Whanganui places; National Geographic: Whanganui River is a legal person; G. F. Allen, “Wanganui in the ’60s”; George’s reminiscences; Hanson-Allen Family website.

Mountain guide and tourism pioneer

George’s survey work took him far up the Whanganui River and into the central North Island, where he climbed Ruapehu, Ngāuruhoe and Tongariro. By the 1890s tourists were beginning to follow the route he knew so well, and George turned his knowledge into a guide book.

Willis’s Guide Book of New Route for Tourists: Auckland–Wellington, via the Hot Springs, Taupo, the Volcanoes and the Wanganui River was published in Whanganui in 1894 by the printer A. D. Willis, who was then the member of Parliament for Wanganui, and a supplementary edition followed in 1902. The first edition runs to 176 pages, with 22 leaves of plates and folding maps, and George drew some of the illustrations himself. Both editions are catalogued on Trove, the National Library of Australia’s catalogue, and the State Library of New South Wales has put the 1894 edition online.

He was a capable artist as well as a surveyor. His 1894 panorama of Ruapehu and Ngāuruhoe later appeared on the cover of Kairuri: The Measurer of the Land, a 1988 book marking one hundred years of the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors. On 10 March 1895 he sketched Ruapehu in eruption from his home on “Mr Allen’s Run” at Te Pohue, seven miles from Mangamahu and some 34 miles from the mountain, and noted place names and distances in the margins.

He also built a summer camp on the bank of the Waihohonu Stream, halfway between Waiouru and Taupō and between Ruapehu and Ngāuruhoe. It gave coach passengers a place to stop for refreshments, and George also offered overnight accommodation for those who wished to join his guided tours up the mountains. Accounts printed in the Whanganui newspapers in April 1894 describe how, the month before, he climbed Ruapehu twice from the Waihohonu camp, where there was a slab-built shelter in a natural clearing in the bush. He went up once with Mr Willis and his son Frank, and once with an English traveller, Herbert Jones. The party went on to Tokaanu and, at Waihī, met the young paramount chief of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, whom the newspaper called “Te Heuheu No. 4” and described as a very intelligent man of about thirty. As Horonuku Te Heuheu Tūkino IV had died in 1888, this was presumably his son Tūreiti Te Heuheu Tūkino V.

It is worth remembering the history of the mountains. In 1887 Horonuku Te Heuheu Tūkino IV of Ngāti Tūwharetoa made a tuku, a customary gift, of the three volcanic peaks, and Tongariro National Park was established in 1894, the same year as George’s guide book. It was New Zealand’s first national park, and in 1993 it became the first place in the world to be inscribed on the World Heritage List as a cultural landscape, giving it dual natural and cultural World Heritage status. For Ngāti Tūwharetoa the maunga carry deep cultural and spiritual significance.

Sources: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Hanson-Allen Family website; Mount Ruapehu erupting, 1895; Trove: Willis’s Guide Book, 1894; Trove: Supplementary edition, 1902; Wanganui Herald, 19 April 1894, “A Trip to Taupo”; Wanganui Chronicle, 25 April 1894, “Ruapehu”; Te Ara: Te Heuheu Tūkino V, Tūreiti; Wikipedia: George Allen (architect); DOC: Tongariro National Park history and culture.

Later years, 1889–1929

On 11 October 1889 the citizens of Whanganui presented George with a purse of sovereigns to thank him for his public service. By then he had lived in the town for more than twenty-five years.

Carrie developed heart trouble late in 1902. After a busy Christmas family gathering she fell ill again, and she was taken to Oneida to stay with the Burnett family, friends of the Allens. She died there, in George’s arms, at about 1 a.m. on 10 January 1903, aged 62. Her obituary called her one of the best and most unselfish mothers who ever lived. She was buried at the front of the Matarawa church, near Oneida, in a grave that is now unmarked but can be located from the church records. George was taken to Rotorua to recover after the funeral.

He kept working. By April 1904 he was inspecting the Upper Turakina Bridge, paid twelve shillings for each day he worked, and he was building a new cottage for his son Frank nearby. He used his son Charlie’s home at Pukeroa, about a mile from the bridge, as his postal address. At some time after Carrie’s death he also lived at 7 Kent Terrace, Wellington.

On 11 February 1907 George married again, at St Peter’s Church, Caversham, Dunedin. His new wife was Sarah Alice Thomas, known as Nellie, a London-born widow of about 63, née Edmeades. Her first husband, Henry William Nickless, had been in charge of the Whakaiahuwaka Native School, about three miles above Parikino on the Whanganui River, and died on 15 July 1892, aged 49. On 24 March 1897 she married Richard Thomas, who had also died by 1907. There were no children of George’s second marriage.

The couple lived at 2 Latham Street, Napier, around 1920, and by 1929 they were living in Opaki Road, Masterton. His children lived far away, in Whanganui, Palmerston North, Tauranga and Ōtāhuhu by 1929, so visits were hard, although the family sent him money from time to time. On 5 April 1924 the Wanganui Chronicle published his article “Wanganui in the ’60s”, and that July his brother Charles came from Canada to see him after sixty-five years apart.

George died at Masterton on 28 February 1929, aged 92, and was buried in the Archer Street Cemetery on 2 March (Plan II, row 17, plot GA). The family website describes the grave as unmarked but locatable. Nellie died in Masterton on 4 April 1931, aged 87, and was buried in the next row (Plan II, row 16, plot SAA).

Sources: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Hanson-Allen Family website; Births, Deaths & Marriages Historical Records; Wanganui Herald, 1 March 1929; Masterton District Council cemetery search.

Legacy, and places to visit

George left buildings, maps, drawings and a guide book. He also left a large family, and several of his descendants followed him into surveying, farming and local government. The family website says that a railway suburb and a street in Frankton, now part of Hamilton, are named after his son Charlie, who was Mayor of Frankton during the First World War. That naming has not yet been confirmed from another source.

These are places connected with the family:

  • Oneida, Fordell. George’s house for the Burnett family stands north-east of Whanganui. Heritage New Zealand notes that it is private property with no public access.
  • St Stephen’s Church, Marton. This is the second of his two best-known surviving buildings, and it is still an active parish church, in Maunder Street.
  • Matarawa church cemetery. Carrie is buried here, near Oneida, in a grave that is unmarked but recorded in the church’s records.
  • Archer Street Cemetery, Masterton. George (Plan II, row 17, plot GA) and Nellie (Plan II, row 16, plot SAA) are buried here in neighbouring rows.
  • Aramoho Cemetery, Whanganui. Frank (buried 21 April 1941) and Charlie (died 18 January 1953) are here. The register also lists a Louisa Mary Allen (buried 2 September 1942) and a Julia Allen (died 10 January 1957), who are probably their wives.
  • Whanganui Regional Museum. It holds George’s original pencilled reminiscences and biographical index cards, according to the family website.
  • Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. It holds a copy of Charlie’s memoir, Eighty Years in New Zealand.
  • Aotea Great Barrier Island. The mountain Hirakimata is where George slept beside a fire in 1860–61.
  • Tongariro National Park. George’s Waihohonu camp stood on the coach route between Waiouru and Taupō. The park’s historic Waihohonu Hut was completed in 1904 by the Tourist and Health Resorts Department for coach travellers from Waiouru or Tokaanu. The Department of Conservation’s history of the hut does not mention George’s camp, so please treat any link between the two as unconfirmed.

Sources: Hanson-Allen Family website; The children of George and Carrie; Heritage New Zealand: Oneida Homestead; Heritage New Zealand: St Stephen’s Church, Marton; Whanganui District Council cemetery search; Masterton District Council cemetery search; DOC: Waihohonu Hut.

Sources and open questions

The family website was compiled by Val Burr, George’s great-granddaughter, and draws on his own reminiscences, diaries and letters.

Other newspaper articles from Papers Past are linked in the sections where they are used.

For the wider context, these pages were read in summary rather than in full, so please read them before relying on them: Te Ara: Whanganui places, NZHistory: The 1865 campaign, NZHistory: Fighting on the Whanganui River, Australian War Memorial: The river and the redoubts, Puke Ariki: St Stephen’s Church, Waverley, DOC: Tongariro National Park history and culture, Te Ara: Te Heuheu Tūkino V, Tūreiti and National Geographic: Whanganui River is a legal person.

Further reading

  • Athol Kirk, “George Frederick Allen, 1857–1929”, Historical Record 14, no. 1 (1983), pages 17–19. The dates in this title look like a misprint for 1837–1929.
  • Elizabeth Allen, A Farm on the Wanganui River (Wanganui, 1980).
  • Nola Easdale, Kairuri: The Measurer of the Land (Petone, 1988).
  • G. F. Allen, Willis’s Guide Book of New Route for Tourists (1894), and its supplementary edition (1902), on Trove: Willis’s Guide Book, 1894.
  • Chas. E. H. Allen, Eighty Years in New Zealand (unpublished memoir, about 1944), Alexander Turnbull Library.

Points still to be confirmed

  • When George left government service, and whether the honeymoon story or his own “three years and three months” is right.
  • Whether a railway suburb and a street in Frankton are named after Charlie.
  • Whether the historic Waihohonu Hut is on or near the site of George’s camp.
  • Where the births of Barnard, Frank and Maude were registered, if at all.
  • Whether William Fox or Isaac Featherston made George’s 1862 appointment. George’s two accounts differ, and both men may have been involved.
  • The exact year of George’s two climbs of Ruapehu from Waihohonu. The accounts were printed in April 1894, but the days of the week they give fit March 1893.

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