Death Of Madame Le Riche

Daughter of One of New Caledonia's Earliest Colonists

THE death has occurred in Noumea of Madame Le Riche, nee Elisabeth Paddon, last surviving daughter of the famous English mariner, Captain Paddon, who had a huge trading organ isation at He Nou before the French occupied New Caledonia. On one famous occasion, Captain Paddon saved the French in Noumea from being massacred in a native rising; but on another occasion he escaped to Sydney in an open whaling boat with a small native crew because the French shot one or two of his agents without proper trial and accused him of selling guns to the natives.

Madame Le Riche had a wonderful memory and tells many authentic stories about the early days and about the great native uprising in 1878 in which 200 white settlers were massacred. During this massacre she, then a young girl, was caught in the danger area near La Foa.

It was Paddon’s schooners that for years ran the mail service between Noumea and Sydney. Madame Le Riche went to Paita with the family when Paddon started there the most successful of all Caledonian village settlements with immigrants from Australia, England and Germany.

Her mother was a New Hebridean women whom Paddon married when he had his trading establishment at Ambryn in the late 1840’s. It was at Ambryn that Paddon succoured the Catholic priests when they were driven out of New Caledonia by the east coast natives.

When he died, the French gave Paddon an impressive funeral. To this day he is referred to as the “Father of New Caledonia.”

H.E.L.P.