Richard Barton

Richard Barton
Richard Barton as a young boy
Born	(1790-08-30)30 August 1790 Newport, Isle of Wight, England
Died	20 August 1866(1866-08-20) (aged 75) Trentham, New Zealand
Nationality	British
Known for	Early New Zealand settler, Establishment of Trentham

Richard Barton (30 August 1790 – 20 August 1866) was the first European resident of Trentham, Upper Hutt, in New Zealand. He was born in Newport, Isle of Wight, England.

Barton's earliest profession is documented as a farmer near Newport on the Isle of Wight in Hampshire, England. He was qualified in estate management for some years before progressing to Superintendent of Estates for the Duke of Sutherland in Trentham, Staffordshire. He also leased quarries at Brora from the Duke.

Barton had been Supervisor at the then Trentham Hall, a large Georgian house commissioned by the then 2nd Duke, when he was sponsored, along with a party of younger men under his leadership from this estate, by the Duke of Sutherland to emigrate to New Zealand as a means of relieving overpopulation in the region.

For his work he secured a gift from the Duke for an allotment of a 100-acre section in the new colony of New Zealand.

In 1839, widowed and with a daughter, Barton joined his friend Dudley Sinclair, son of Sir George Sinclair who was a Director of the New Zealand Company, and family on the "Oriental", the first of the New Zealand Company's emigrant vessels to leave England, though the second of four early settler ships to reach Port Nicholson.

An early document from the Morning Chronicle describes the emigrants on-board the Oriental in the Departure of the New Zealand Colony:

The emigrants on board the Oriental are of a very superior class. They are chiefly young men and women of from twenty to thirty years of age – the women looking healthy and buxom, the men intelligent and resolute. Here too are a number of Highlanders from the estates of the Duke of Sutherland: they are a fine hardy set of fellows, and capable, no doubt of fighting their way in any region of the world in which they may be placed. Great care appears to have been taken to secure their comfort. They are clad in one uniform dress – a blue jacket and cap, and tartan trousers – everything upon their backs appears to be perfectly new.

Barton became an agent for the New Zealand Company and was responsible for the Highlanders on board the Oriental. Mr. Dudley Sinclair eventually went on to Australia. He enlisted a considerable number of young Highlanders as recruits for the settlement, persuading more than 40 to emigrate. He arranged dances to be held during the winter in the hope of getting the Highlanders married and was able to employ a number of them when they arrived on the ship "Blenheim" when it arrived in 1841.