Barefoot Settlers

Godfrey Sadler arrived in New Zealand in 1888, aged 16. Departing England, he had left behind his parents Robert and Alice and two sisters Dorothy Paradine and Mary Alice. In Taranaki he took up a cadetship with the Bewley family on their farm 'Leighhurst' near Inglewood. He missed his family very much, in particular his sisters, and kept in regular contact with them. In this letter, written at Easter in 1888, he describes the local children to his sister Mary, “I wonder how you would like to be, a settlers child, as it were; they all run about without shoes & stockings in the wet grass and they seem to enjoy it, another sight is to see 3 on a horse or poney [sic] riding to school, perhaps a boy infront [sic] and two girls, and riding as hard as the horse can go…” Unfortunately for Godfrey, he never got to see his much loved family again. Three years after writing this letter, while working in Waitara, he was kicked in the abdomen by a horse and died in hospital a few hours later.