Mr and Mrs Peter Bayne (née Catherine Anderson)

Peter and Catherine Bayne came to Otago on the Sir Edward Paget in 1856 with their four sons and twin daughters as well as Catherine’s younger brother George.  The voyage was a troubled one and the ship’s captain was prosecuted for breaches of the Passenger Act, including undersupplying the immigrants’ rations, when the vessel arrived in Dunedin.  This must have been hard for a family that included six young children. Peter and Catherine were Highlanders from Perthshire in Scotland, Peter born in Muthill and Catherine near Aberfeldy. They had married at Blackford near Auchterarder in 1848. Catherine is remembered as being very short and a Gaelic speaker. Peter had worked as a whisky distiller in Scotland and carried on illicit distillation in Otago.

Peter Bayne got work as a saw miller on arrival in Otago, clearing the bush clad hills of the Peninsula. The Baynes bought a 71-acre block of bush at Company Bay in 1862, felling its trees and rafting them over the harbour for sale in Dunedin. They then established their farm, dairying and market gardening, and taking its produce to market in an open boat. Peter’s sly grog operation, meanwhile, was concealed in their cellar, with a secret entrance through the dog kennels and smoke from the still piped up through the main chimney.  He also had a 10-gallon cream can with a false bottom; whisky below and cream in the top third.  His half-brother James Christie operated a hotel nearby, which may have provided an outlet for Peter’s product.

Peter and Catherine relocated to Tapanui in 1874 but the Peninsula farm was carried on by one of their sons and remained in family hands for the next century. The Baynes suffered some hard times in Tapanui.  Peter committed suicide there in 1880, taking poison after a bout of heavy drinking. Three of the children also died and Catherine lost her home and possessions in a fire in 1885.  In 1896 she moved to Kokonga to live with her eldest daughter and died there in 1904, aged 84.  She was survived by eight sons, three daughters and some 70 grandchildren and great grandchildren.