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Update. Thanks to a reply late today from the PRESS, I now have the mans name. Not a common one, but the family were known to local governance in the South Island, and had UK roots.The PRESS gave me info about an engagement announced in their Women's Section in 1895, with a wedding to follow shortly. It was also reported in another paper. She had Australian roots.

While the search tool was not good at getting hits for THE WARRIGAL'S, Christian + surname, there were a dozen or so interesting ones for the ladies surname; her travel movements and achievements. Some 18 months later her marriage was recorded in both the Christchurch papers, but to a different man. I will not publish these surnames at this time, as more research is required. Another search result in 1898, recorded the ladies father being now a Grand Father "as his daughter had married her first lover, and has two handsome little children. Who "the first lover was" I dont know.

I'm assuming that THE WARRIGAL eventually returned to Australia or the UK, and that is one of the reasons he is so unrecognized today.

- Alan.

Hello researchers across the ditch. Does any researcher have ready access to a reading room, where they can research the Melbourne LEADER for the year 1889? Those years don’t appear to be on TROVE.

In the WEEKLY PRESS, of Christchurch New Zealand, on August 5, 1890 in a piece of self promotion it states:-

......Fresh and graphic articles by ‘THE WARRIGAL’ appeared in twelve consecutive issues of the widely circulated Melbourne ‘Leader’ and ‘The Field’ the recognised English authority on sport, has also printed several clever sketches of New Zealand sport from the same facile pen......

“The Warrigal” was a prolific writer of “Sketches” for THE PRESS of Christchurch in the 1880’s and 1890’s. Having, thanks to NZ's PAPERS PAST, found one piece significant to my local research, I’m now studying over 70 of his articles which I consider very relevant to the history of that period. My discovery, I now know, was one of a series of at least 38 [nearly 80,000 words] but there is no reference to the writings, in historic reviewing of the press of the period, though I now consider it a significant descriptive works.

THE WARRIGAL’S descriptions of Gold Mining and minerals in NZ, Overland travel in NZ – topography - flora and fauna, the Maori you meet – their existence – their Meeting Houses and their recent past conflicts, plus “Sketches” with an Australian content, leave me with more questions than answers, to his identity.

So far no one is owning him and the legacy of his SKETCHES.

To complicate matters he was not the only one to use ‘The Warrigal’ as a pen name, as he points out in one of his Australian sketches, which include ‘A SUNDAY AT NARNGALLOORA’  and ‘A BOUNDARY RIDER’S EVENING’ north East of Ivanhoe NSW.

What I have found, is two articles published in 1889 in our WAIKATO TIMES attributed to THE WARRIGAL and the Melbourne ‘Leader.’ Are they two, of the 12 mentioned above is my question ?

‘THE WARRIGAL” AT NGARUAWAHIA, on May 18, 1889. Though the series of 38 articles started at Ngaruawahia, the copy was different to that, but the WAIKATO TIMES of June 1, 1889 carried ‘RIVER SCENES ON THE WAIKATO’  by The Warrigal in the ‘Leader’.  This ‘sketch’ copy though differently titled, was originally printed in the [Christchurch NZ] WEEKLY PRESS on May 11th.

More can be found on the NZ RC forum about the New Zealand end of the quest, and it would be best if the discussion continued on that thread, so as to keep it all together. Any assistance would be appreciated, as I've spent too many hours on this research detour already. But that is often the way with historic research.

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=666267.0.

-  Alan.

Hello again.
The more I read, I feel the Brothers William, George and James PARK, West Coast NZ, contemporary canoeing adventurers, may hold the clue to who "THE WARRIGAL" in this instance, was.  - Alan.

Hello again.

As can possibly be guessed from the minutes, this request is to do with local pioneer history, more so than specifically with genealogy. Though I've lived all my life in the Waikato, and studied the early pioneers, it was only in more recent times I learnt of the setting up of the small drainage board so that funds could be jointly raised, to poke a tunnel drain through 20 chain of a clay rise on the banks of the Mangawara River, allowing the locals to drain a peat lake on the other side and releasing some 2,500 acres of land for development. In some ways they were too successful with the drainage, as they could not continue to deepen the tunnel, as the peat consolidated, so were eventually forced to go the long way, of additional mileage of drains through neighbouring farms, to gain fall to the river. For me local accounts and Drainage minutes prove to be very interesting reading. For a start there were a large number of drainage boards but like with the roading boards of a generation earlier, it was not long before the boards were forced to amalgamate, as no farmer liked additional OUTSIDE traffic past his gate on local ratepayers roads, or upstream water, now wanting to more readily flood down over, or under, water logging his farm.

Following drainage, the big breaks were to come some 60 to 80 years later when in the late 50's copper was recognised as the missing trace element, and chisel ploughs became the implement of choice, to work very large quantities of lime into the soil. These few acres being only a speck on the original Woodlands Estate of nearly 90,000 acres, of what is now prime Waikato Dairying land.

- Alan.