AN OLD IDENTITY.
1827-1906.
MR. SAMUEL CARROLL.
Three-score, years and ten is the span of life allotted to mankind by the Psalmist,
but even in these days of higher pressure and quicker pulsations men do exceed
the limit, and In some cases even retain a degree of cheerful juvenility and
healthfulness which was probably unsurpassed by the patriarchs of the earliest
times A case in point is afforded by Mr. S. Carroll, well known for many years
past as secretary to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. To-morrow he enters
upon his eightieth year, and were it not for his well-known character for
veracity, and to the fact that he has lived here so long that the public records
are corroborative evidence, one might well be inclined to doubt that so many
years have passed over his bead.
As a matter of fact, however, Mr. Carroll, who
might easily be taken for "just over sixty," was born in London,
" within the sound of Bow Bells," seventy-nine years ago, and appears
to be cut out for a centenarian. At the age of fifteen he left the City of
London School and went into his father's office in Mincing-lane, where he was
soon initiated into the details of trade with China and the Straits Settlements.
Subsequently he became a partner the business, in 1843. Ten years later he
joined a firm which had branches at Singapore, Batavia, and Manila, and went
out, to those branches on a five year engagement. At the end of the five years,
his father having passed away, he returned to London (in 1859), and on his wav
Home he met with an adventure. The steamer Alma, on which be was a passenger,
was wrecked in the Red Sea. Questioned about the details, Mr. Carroll remembered
one remarkable fact The shipwrecked crew and passengers got ashore all right,
and although water was scarce, there was plenty of beer! The incident of the
wreck, by the bye, was subsequently dramatised in Tom Taylor's play entitled
"The Overland. Route” Many old playgoers in Wellington remember it.
However, Mr. Carroll at last got safely back to London, and went into business
again in Mincing-lane. Three years later, for family reasons, his mother, four
sisters, brother, and self sailed for New Zealand. “Why did you select New
Zealand?" he was asked. "Well," replied Mr. Carroll, "we had
a friend at Home who had lived at Wellington, and he recommended us very
strongly to go there." The Carroll family arrived here in October, 1862,
and in December of the same year, the subject of the present notice became
secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. He has not held that position continuously
ever since. He retained it for two years, and then resigned, as he was by that
time in the service of the New Zealand Steam Navigation Company, which suggested
that, he should not occupy the two positions. The Chamber of Commerce, it may be
added, was resuscitated in 1875, with Mr. W. H. Levin as president and Mr.
Carroll as secretary. Mr. Carroll has been secretary ever since.
Talking about
those old times in Wellington, Mr. Carroll told many an anecdote which served to
illustrate the state of things then prevailing. In fact, as a teller of
"yarns about the old days, Mr. Carroll is unique, but the value of the
stories is generally discounted from a pressman's point of view, by his proviso
that "this is not for publication." Business in those days, it was
gathered, was done in a free and easy way, and there was nothing like so much
trouble and worry as there is now. Instead of landing and warehousing goods, an
importer would receive the invoices by an earlier mail, and place his goods
among various people at a reasonable advance on invoice prices. That, as may be
imagined, saved a lot of trouble.
Those were the days of the Provincial Council,
when Dr. Featherston was Superintendent. People lived very simply then; they
were content with modest abodes, and social intercourse was comparatively
unrestricted. Even then, however, there wore cliques, and Mr Carroll related —
but that is not for publication! On the whole, however, he thought there was
more sociability then than now. There was scarcely anything in the way of
theatricals or anything of that sort. There was a Choral Society, and travelling
entertainers would drop in occasionally, and give entertainments, while
prominent citizens would sometimes lecture at the Athenaeum — Judge Johnson
would give a Shakespearian reading; Colonel Gorton would lecture on travels, and
so on. Everybody knew everybody else, and new arrivals were spotted at once, and
were kindly and courteously welcomed.
With the development of Sir Julius Vogel's
public works and immigration policy, the city began to go ahead, and a big land
boom — which afterwards: burst — was engineered. Apropos of the boom, Mr
Carroll tells a good yarn. One old identity (of a name even now remembered) was
boasting that he was worth £40,000. "I'll bet you £1000 you can't prove
it," said another equally well-known "Well, I'm worth £30,000, any
way," was the reply, and a now deceased lawyer was called in to act as
arbiter. Cheques were signed, each for £1000, and handed over to the umpire,
who promptly tore them up. and thus gave his verdict : "You are both ------
Fools. You (naming the boaster) are not worth anything like £30,000, and I
decide that you each give me a new suit of clothes." They did, and the £30,000
man soon afterwards failed!
Besides being secretary to the Chamber of Commerce,
Mr. Carroll was appointed Provisional Trustee in Bankruptcy, and was also
engaged in other lines of business. In 1873 be started the Trade Review, which
he regards as his most important undertaking, and which he still carries on.
Incidentally he joined the militia, and did Sentry-go at Mount Cook barracks
during the Maori troubles, but the troubles never came very near him, and the
stream of his life flowed quietly and peaceably all through. That, probably, is
the secret of his hale old age. "I have been a looker-on at the game,"
he remarks, and, looking at his still vigorous step and noticing the clearness
of his mental vision, one cannot help thinking that lookers-on not only see most
of the game, but see more games played than those who engage in the contest. Mr.
Carroll is a worthy representative of a generation which is fast passing away,
and his many friends will join in wishing him "Many happy returns of the
day."
Source – Papers Past - Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 72, 22 September 1906, Page 9
All Sorts of People
Mr. Samuel Carroll, the Historical secretary of the
Wellington Chamber of Commerce, looks with a cold, steely eye on some newspaper
men. Ail artist attached to one of the papers once committed a libel on him on
the shape of a sketch. The sketch is kept on the inside of the door of Mr.
Carroll's strong-room now. It is out of harm's way there. The artist
aforementioned may have been anathematised or excommunicated or pullverised.
What particular fate happened him doesn't exactly transpire. However, all
newspaper men are not pushing to get libels on their hands, and, as a matter of
fact, Mr. Samuel Carroll doesn't lend himself to the game. He's highly
interesting.
*
*
*
When you reflect that Mr. Carroll secretaried the
Wellington, Chamber of Commerce in 1862, you begun to realise that you are
digging up ancient history by chatting with this interesting gentleman. Samuel
first reported himself to this planet in London. In his early youth he came to
Wellington in the ship "Asterope." That was in 1862. Wellington
consisted of the two flats, the Te Aro flat amid Thorndon flat, in those days.
There were one or two houses dropped on the Terrace. As the Te Aro flat was
considered to be away out in, the country, and no trains ran out there in those
days, Mr. Carroll settled down in, Hawkestone street.
*
*
*
On coming ashore from his ship, Samuel Carroll ran up
against a job. Mr. James Kelham was the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, and
Mr. Carroll slipped into the secretaryship. A coincidence which Mr. Kelham
discovered) on that first day in '62 was that Mr. Carroll's father and he (Mr.
Kelham had played cricket together in the same club in England fifty years
earlier. But that's going into English history, and the Lance doesn't want to
dead with Alfred the Great and his times. With the one break of ten years —
from '64 to '74 — Mr. Carroll, has been secretary of the Wellington Chamber
right through. He has watched prices rise and fall, and marked them up and down
in his "Trade Review" since 1875.
*
*
*
Mr. Carroll laughs over the time when he paid 80 shillings
per ton for Newcastle screened coal here in Wellington. It was bought from Mr.
Edward Pearce, now partner in Levin and Co., from his yard which stood on the
site of the new Hotel Windsor. Cartage to Hawkestone street cost another eight
shillings in those palmy days. Thirty-six years ago Mr. Carroll moved up into
the country to live — that is up to Brougham-street, where he still resides.
His first difficulty, at any rate, in his new home was that of getting a servant
— the eternal problem. But the excuse then for the difficulty was that
"the house was too far out of town." Mr. Carroll is still going strong
on work, and looks good for the century.
*
*
*
Source Papers Past - New Zealand Free Lance, Volume VIII, Issue 406, 18 April 1908,
Page 4
Cyclopaedia of New Zealand [Wellington Provincial District]
Monthly Papers
New Zealand Trade Review
(Samuel Carroll, proprietor), Lambton Quay, Wellington. This journal was
established in 1873 as the Wellington
Monthly Price Current and Trade Report, which title was altered about 1884
to its present designation. Mr. Carroll acquired the paper in April, 1875. It is
sixteen pages large foolscap in size, is issued monthly, and circulates
throughout the Colony, and in Australia, England, America, and on the Continent
of Europe. The Review is
non-political, its concern being to encourage trade by supplying information on
New Zealand touching the Customs revenue, imports, exports, bank rates,
shipping, with special summary of cargo to and from the Colony. The Review is
filed at the offices of the leading trade and commercial journals of the world,
and is recognised as the best authority in the trade statistics of New Zealand.
Mr. Samuel Carroll,
proprietor of the New Zealand Trade Review,
was born in London on the 23rd of September, 1827. He was educated at private
schools and at the City of London School. Mr. Carroll was brought up in the
office of his father, who was a produce broker in Mincing Lane, London. After
some years he became a partner, the firm being S. Carroll and Son. In 1853 Mr.
Carroll retired from the business, and went out to Singapore, Batavia, and
Manilla on behalf of Scholfield, Doering and Company, of Liverpool and Glasgow.
After five years his father died in London, and Mr. Carroll returned to England.
He remained three years, during which he was engaged in mercantile pursuits.
Coming to New Zealand in 1862, per ship “Asterope,” he accepted the position
of accountant to the New Zealand Steam Navigation-Company, with whom he remained
for nine years, till the Company was wound up. For many years Mr. Carroll has
filled the office of secretary to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, and has
been well known as a commission agent and accountant.
Source - NZTEC Cyclopaedia of NZ Wellington Provincial District 1897
DEATH OF MR. S. CARROLL.
AN APPRECIATION.
Those who have been accustomed to see for so many years
the secretary of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce in his office will, no
doubt, deeply regret to hear of his death, after a brief illness, on Saturday
evening last. As a colonist of nearly fifty years .Mr. Carroll occupied an
important place in the history of Wellington, to which city he came in 1862. He
was cradled in commerce, so to say, and began his business career in the office
of his father, Mr. Samuel Carroll, - East India .merchant, Mincing-lane, in
1843. He was educated in the city of London and was freeman. Of his citizenship
he was intensely proud. The motto of the city, Domme dirige nos, meant very much
to him in the ordering of his life. He was, too, a member of the Cloth workers'
Company, and, was exceedingly .proud of his connection with that ancient trade
guild.
In the 'fifties Mr. Carroll was connected with an English house doing
business with the East Indies, and he served in Batavia, Singapore, and Manila.
On returning to England in the P. and O. steamer Alma in 1859 Mr. Carroll and
his fellow passengers were wrecked on the Harnish islands, in the Red Sea. On
each side of the sea there were then, as now, fierce Bedouin .hordes ready to
plunder and Murder the .passengers and crew, and on the' Islands there was no
water. The shipwrecked, party were all taken off three and a half days later by
H.M.S. Cyclops, after much suffering from thirst and exposure to the terrific
heat of the Red Sea. Only one life was lost, that of the purser, and he died
from sunstroke. There was no Suez Canal in those days, so the members of the
party were overlanded from Suez to the Nile, and thence to Alexandria, where
they took ship for London. That was the mail route in those days. The incident
of the wreck formed the basis of Tom Taylor's "Overland Route."
In Wellington Mr. Carroll began his duties as secretary to the Chamber of .Commerce
in 1862, and continued them until 1864, when he was appointed secretary of the
Wellington Steam Navigation Company. This company, after paying a ten per cent
dividend every year and returning £19 for every £10 share on liquidation, was
the forerunner .of the New Zealand Steam Navigation Company. The representative
of that company at Picton was the late Mr. Arthur Beauchamp (father of. the
present chairman of the Bank of New Zealand), who died recently. Mr. Arthur
Beauchamp, Mr. D. M. Luckie, and Mr. Carroll were born in the same year, 1827.
In 1875 Mr. Carroll was reappointed secretary of the Chamber of Commerce and
held, that post until his death. In 1875, too, he founded the New Zealand Trade
Review, and this journal provided him with a vehicle for the expression of his
exceedingly cautious views on financial and commercial topics. He was one who
believed most fervently in keeping the well of English undefiled. The modern
tendency to use inflated language over things that do not matter was most
abhorrent to him. He was a very well-read man, and a French scholar. His long
residence in Wellington, combined with his wonderfully clear memory right to the
last, had enabled him to acquire ,an abundant store of reminiscences of the
earlier New Zealand politicians and their peculiarities. For himself he took no
active part in politics at all.
Mr. Carroll is survived by his son, Mr. C. W.
Carroll, for some years his collaborator; and his daughters, Mrs. C. A. Ogilvie,
Mrs. J. JL Deck, and Miss Carroll. His wife predeceased him about eight years
ago.
Source Papers Past Evening Post, 5 December 1910
