Jonathan Roberts: The Timaru Gaol-Breaker

The story of this hut starts with Jonathan Roberts, born in Cornwall in 1861, whose parents moved here to Canterbury to farm. When he was 17, in 1877, he became a bank clerk in Temuka, then worked in Timaru, Christchurch, Akaroa, and Wellington before resigning at age 25 in 1885.

By late 1886, Roberts was in Christchurch, "between jobs," and then he got into trouble. He was accused of forging a Ballantyne and Co. cheque for £76 17s 6d. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months hard labor in September 1886. Some thought he was covering for his brother, James Henry Roberts, who later got four years for forging cheques himself.

After his release, Jonathan Roberts went back to Timaru, but in January 1888, he was charged with horse stealing and got five years hard labor. One story says he sold what he thought was his father's horse, but it was actually a neighbor's. The Timaru Herald, though, reported his trial was about stealing a horse from Hood’s Hotel, riding it to Timaru, and getting a young man to present it with a forged letter of ownership. Roberts was convicted because his handwriting matched the letter.

He protested his innocence and, taken aback by the sentence, he escaped from Timaru gaol between April 28 and May 30, 1888. During this time, he was seen working at a threshing mill and frequenting shops. People were amused, and some even said the women of Timaru prayed for his escape. He was eventually caught in Killinchy, working as a farm laborer.

He was sent to Christchurch gaol and on June 6 was sentenced to another year for the escape, then sent to Rīpapa Island. This island, once a Ngāi Tahu Pā and then a quarantine station, was also a gaol for Māori prisoners. Roberts escaped from there just two days after his sentencing, on June 8, 1888. He broke through a tin wall, crossed the channel at high tide, and made his way up the Purau valley to Port Levy. Then he tramped over the hills to the Kaituna Valley, where he built this hut out of supplejack. He camped here for a long time before eventually crossing to Teddington, then Lyttelton, where he got on a boat to America and got away.