At the Hem of the Empire

When William John Smith unexpectedly proposes to eighteen year old Ann Neilson, she imagines a future as a prosperous colonist's wife in the convict free settlement of South Australia.  She finds herself instead at Kororāreka in New Zealand's Bay of Islands, a place widely known as the Hell Hole of the South Pacific. With her eldest at death's door and the family losing everying in the first Māori uprising, does she have the courage to start again?

Based on the life of Ann Smith, nee Neilson, At the Hem of the Empire  brings to life the overlooked and forgotten experiences of a woman who witnessed the birth of modern New Zealand and whose family left its mark upon South Australia.