I've just trawled-through about thirty newspaper reports and am suffering PRINT fatigue! The various press accounts differ wildly, as they still do today, so nothing new there etc.
So far I've ascertained, that Uncle Tom was on a 'working holiday' with his brother, although the brother had left a few months earlier. He had been working as the Head Waiter of the Criterion Hotel, Dunedin (his body was identified by the proprietor, a Mr. William Thompson) and had now secured a new job at the Dunedin-Line Shipping Company. According to his friends, he said he ''would run down by steamer the Bluff, and then come back over-land to Dunedin, before settling down to his new work'' ... it was a ''mere pleasure trip'' says the article.
It all fits; in fact it fits better than the 'family story' - because his brother-in-law, and family, ran the Dunedin-Line Company; which males perfect sense. However, there are still many aspects that I have to separate the facts from the fantasy.
I was gobb-smacked by the brutal nature of some of the newspaper reporting; for example:
''Several bodies were yesterday seen, one being that of a large, powerfully-built man, with red-whiskers, having-on only his drawers, which were dangling from his feet'' !!!!
Imagine some poor, desolate relative reading that!
There were other, too graphic references, to the actual injuries, and condition of the bodies ... one refered to a young lady who had been shed of her skin, having been tumbled back and forth, by the breakers, over the reef and rocks!
It printed-out a lot better than it scanned; sort of reverse the normal result. I'll have another bash later.
