While visiting the Mangawhai Museum some years ago, I found the name John OSBORNE listed on the Mangawai School Roll, with the name of his guardian listed as Robert BROWN of Tara which is near Mangawhai. The dates the boy was in school were between 22/9/1888 and 5/5/1889. He had previously attended school to Standard 1 at Parnell School in Auckland. Wondering who this boy was, I embarked on some research that lead me to Thomas OSBORNE, the father of the boy, who had been a carpenter in the building of Mansion House on Kawau Island.

Robert BROWN of Tara was my great grandfather, and family stories had been told about Robert being a gardener on Kawau Island at some time. He had told his youngest daughter a story about the troublesome monkeys getting into the gardens and stealing fruit, so one day Robert had thrown his spade at them and managed to chop the tail off one of the monkeys. I still had no idea what time Robert had been employed as a gardener, but the connection to John OSBORNE in 1888 has given me a better idea.

Looking for information about who John OSBORNE was and how he was connected to my great grandfather, lead me to familytreecircles, where I found information about Thomas OSBORNE. I had read a book about Kawau Island that mentioned Thomas OSBORNE had kept detailed diaries which were held at Auckland Museum. In the hope of finding something more, I researched those diaries, only to find a couple of mentions of Mr. and Mrs. BROWN arriving by local steamer, but as there were many BROWNS living in nearby Te Arai and Mangawhai at the time, and it is a common name, it was not clear enough information to give me a good lead on pinpointing dates.