Now both men, Captain Erskine and Commander Oliver, had arrived and were soon ferried ashore. With them came Captain the Honourable Keith Stewart, RN, Colonel Bolton of the Royal Engineers, and a passenger, Charles King, son of a naval captain. The Lieutenant Governor, Mr Mackworth, and a select party of the colony’s officers and wives were invited to dine aboard HMS Havannah that evening.
Enderby and several others showed them around the settlement. The bachelors’ quarters had been completed two days previously, in a total time of nine weeks, and a fresh lot of married couples, families and single men were settling into the second wing. Government House had its central part and the Lieutenant Governor’s wing already standing, and would soon be ready for occupation. Several cottages were either finished or well advanced, and work was going on, with much hammering, to fix in place the galvanised iron walls of the very substantial warehouse near the wharf.
Captain Erskine, in spite of his earlier misgivings, was impressed at what had been done in such a short time. This led Mackworth to comment: ‘The officers of H.M. Ships expressed on several occasions their astonishment at the quantity of work done since our arrival on the Island.’16
It was still daylight in the long southern summer evening of the first day of the Navy’s visit, when the Lieutenant Governor, Mr Mackworth and their party were saluted by naval guns, and piped aboard the Havannah for dinner.
Several days of unusually fine weather allowed Enderby and the three captains, John Erskine, Richard Oliver and the Honourable Keith Stewart, the son-in-law of New South Wales and Tasmania’s Governor Sir Charles FitzRoy, to explore the islands of the harbour in the Lucy Ann, a small cutter lent by the Company’s Sydney agent, Robert Towns. They also sailed halfway down the east coast, with the intention of reaching the Southern Harbour; but as Enderby records:
Owing to light winds we did not get more than 20 miles [15 in fact] to the southward of Ocean Point; and Captain Erskine being unable to devote more time to exploring further, we entered a bay on the eastern coast, which he named Chapel Bay, from a hill on one side with a projecting rock on the top much resembling a chapel. This bay [now Musgrave Inlet] is about a mile and a half deep: near the entrance is a remarkable and beautiful grotto, into which we entered with the boat, and close to it is a cave 200 feet deep. At the head of the bay is a large and rapid stream of excellent water; and at the back, about two miles inland, a considerable waterfall, both as to volume and height; the land is also very rich and level for about a mile, part being thickly wooded and the remainder covered with grass and low shrubs. At the extremity of this valley is a sheet of water half a mile in diameter, quite fresh [Lake Hinemoa], into which the fall of water flows.17
The party returned to the settlement the following day. Captain Erskine intended to sail on 21 February, but the severest gale experienced since the colonists’ arrival delayed sailing by a further two days.
During this period Charles King, who had recently qualified as an accountant, asked if he could remain at the islands and be given employment by the Company. Enderby was delighted, as his secretary and accountant, Valentine Smith, was in poor health.
The Havannah and Fly sailed for Sydney on 23 February, leaving the colony feeling considerably less isolated than just 10 days before. And two days after the Navy’s departure, the Governor and his staff, with William Mackworth, who was to be temporarily accommodated there, moved into Government House.
Described as ‘A Splendid Wooden House – English built – 14 rooms’18 and a ‘magnificent and spacious mansion’ made in London of American red pine, with a plan area of 64 ft 6 in. × 62 ft (19.6 × 18.8m), Enderby’s viceregal residence had 10 ft (3m) ceilings in the five principal rooms, and 8 ft (2.4m) ceilings in the others. The building had two wings 13 ft (3.9m) wide facing one another off the main part of the building. An inner verandah around the three sides enclosed a cobblestone courtyard.19 A natural bank protected the building from the prevailing westerlies, and it stood on ‘a prominent location at a respectful distance from the main settlement area, overlooking Erebus Cove and with access by pathway to the shore’, past the partially finished administration building, about 50 metres away.20 Shipped in 245 packages of varying sizes, with all parts numbered, as with the Manning cottages and other buildings, Government House had involved considerable further work on site.21
There is no record of the duties or number of Enderby’s household staff, as his position as Lieutenant Governor of the Auckland Islands was a highly unusual one. He had a general commission, but no formal instructions, no legislation and no salary. The Colonial Office List, which would have given staffing details, did not appear until 1862, and any personal staff Enderby may have had were likely to have been private, rather than viceregal employees, concerned with his commercial interests.22
The colony’s storeman, Thomas Goodger, 38, was also Enderby’s valet,23 and probably served as butler on formal occasions. He was a large and genial man who liked ‘a pint pot with a drop of Old Tom [a strong kind of gin] in it’.24 He was a former groom, and shared a keen interest in horses and horse racing with his employer. His wife Mary, nine years younger than Tom, is likely to have been Enderby’s housekeeper. She was a widow, and already had a five-year-old daughter Mary (known as Polly) when she and Tom married 10 days before the three of them sailed for the Enderby Settlement. The cook was William Crozier;25 and Matilda Cook, who had been with Enderby in Greenwich, would almost certainly have continued her employment as general maid and, possibly, kitchen and scullery maid as well. Finally, Enderby would have had his own personal secretary or clerk. He records that he ‘brought with me from England two servants’;26 these are most likely to have been his personal secretary – probably Valentine Smith – and Matilda Cook.
Tom Goodger was the storekeeper and Charles Enderby’s valet. After they left the Enderby Settlement he and his wife ran a pub in England, before settling in Christchurch, where Tom owned the city’s first horse-drawn cab.
Courtesy the late Pauline Goodger and Canterbury Museum
It was a busy and confusing time that followed the move into Government House. With many still accommodated aboard the Samuel Enderby and the Fancy, work on buildings was the main priority. The work prevented the shipwrights, coopers and mechanics from getting on with their rightful trades, preparing the ships to go whaling. As Enderby had expected, the arrival of the Augusta from England, four days after the Navy’s departure – bringing two wives who had come to join their husbands, an extra ship’s officer and a cooper with their wives, four women and six children – added to the general disruption on the harbour and ashore.27 Thomas Dawson, Company servant and policeman, was married to the recently arrived Eliza Hyde aboard the Augusta by Enderby in his role as Lieutenant Governor.28 Efforts to house those still living on the Samuel Enderby, in particular – which was being discharged of the last of its cargo of stores and building materials – were inevitably delayed.
Into this upheaval there now came the chartered store ship Artemisia from Sydney, with beef cattle, two cows, two farm horses, sheep, stockmen and urgently needed provisions. Its arrival on 7 March was fortunate, as many supplies were beginning to run out. Only a few days before it had been necessary to deal with a delegation of landsmen requesting an increase in their rations. Enderby had agreed to all their demands except on the matter of potatoes, where he had felt that 10 pounds per week per man was too much, and reduced it to 7 pounds. This had caused a strike by all but six of the men, which brought the discharging of ships and building to a standstill. They had returned to work by the time the Artemisia arrived, but it had been a disturbing confrontation, which, incidentally, did nothing for the division of duties only recently agreed to between Enderby and Mackworth. Mackworth records that one of the Artemisia’s stockmen was taken on by the Chief Commissioner as a company servant at £50 a year, and was immediately put to work helping with the tricky job of ferrying cattle on Towns’ cutter Lucy Ann across the 7 kilometres to Enderb
y Island, which had the only readily grazeable land.
Enderby later pointed out that the arrival of the Augusta and Artemisia with settlers, livestock and stores put severe demands on ‘the very limited number of hands’ he had available. At the time,
the Company’s officers, servants, and dependents, consisted of 37 men and 18 women and children of the men; [of these men] nine were officers or non-producers, 15 mechanics, and only 13 labourers; to these may be added about nine New Zealanders [Maori], to whom I gave employment. The mechanics, by their agreement, were to make themselves generally useful, and did so until most of the dwellings were erected, after which I employed the shipwrights, coopers, and smiths, at their respective trades, for which there was plenty of occupation.
All this was accomplished before the Samuel Enderby was stripped of its steerage accommodation, re-equipped for its primary purpose of whaling, and made ready to sail.29
Had there been a greater number of whaling ships, as Enderby had originally proposed, with some of them already at sea and about to bring back blubber for processing to a base nowhere near ready for dealing with it, the chaos would have been unimaginable.30 As it was, work was still going on aboard the Samuel Enderby and the two visiting ships when the Brisk returned from her brief exploratory and whaling voyage. Mackworth, with typical brevity but rare emphasis, records: ‘Sun 17 Mar. Arrived the Brisk from the South. No Oil.’
Enderby had to concede that due to the delays imposed by the company directors, the season had been too far advanced for whaling anyway.31 As to determining the correctness of a report that there was a vast number of right whales in the Antarctic seas, Enderby saw that it was very important:
to decide this point the first season, for the purpose of determining my future whaling operations … since, if such reports had proved correct, my project of equipping vessels from the Auckland Islands would have afforded fourfold more profit than I had held out in any of my calculations … neither did this short voyage, two months, inflict any serious loss on the Company, for a like period of time is often spent by vessels on old whaling grounds without a single whale being seen.32
However, this was not the case with the Brisk, as Tapsell ‘had every reason to believe they would find plenty of right whales, since he had seen a great number of whales of the kind denominated Humpbacks, Finbacks, and Sulphur-bottoms. The Brisk’s crew, consisting of volunteers and two New Zealanders, had returned in good health, her captain reporting favourably on their conduct.’33 Tapsell was Enderby’s most experienced master in hunting right whales and had penetrated further south than any of the early explorers, in often appalling conditions,34 so Enderby’s decision to relieve him of his command and promote James Bunker35 to captain in his place is hard to understand.
The day following the Brisk’s return the Artemisia sailed with the Fancy’s disgraced Captain Davidson and several other employees who had either been dismissed, or had broken their contracts. John Valentine Smith, who had resigned because of heart palpitations brought on by stress, also left with the ship.
Mackworth would miss him. In a letter to his mother, started at the beginning of the month, he wrote: ‘Mr Smith, the secretary and accountant has been knocked up by his work and has left for England; he has promised to see you on his arrival. I am very sorry to lose him.’36 It had been an exceptionally busy time. Mackworth added that, ‘The greater part of the houses are erected and most of the people on shore. I have been intending for a length of time to sketch the settlement but have been unable as yet to steal a day for it … I am still on board the ‘Fancy’ and have no idea when I shall get out, my principle is to house the women first.’ His letter ended:
My letters and despatches to the Directors, written at odd times, have driven your letter to the last moment – the vessel to convey it to Sydney is now weighing anchor. You will doubtless read extracts from our despatches, giving a view of our affairs in the public papers. Now that I understand what whaling is, I am very sanguine about our success, only we shall have to put up with a dreadful climate, as far as rain and wind are concerned … I have oceans to tell you but feel quite bewildered …37
James Peek, the son of one of the Southern Whale Fishery Company’s directors of the same name, was also leaving on the Artemisia. Enderby hoped he would not take too bad an impression home with him, if he decided to carry on to England. It was unfortunate the Brisk had returned when it had, so close to the time of Peek’s departure. Apart from socialising, the young man had taken very little part in the colony’s activities, preferring to explore and collect specimens such as birds and plants. Enderby thought it unlikely he would see him again.
It was not until 3 April that the Samuel Enderby was at last able to leave on its first whaling voyage.
On the same day, a son was born to Thomas Clarke, Company servant, and his wife. The baby was delivered by Sarah Cripps, the colony’s midwife. The Clarkes now had their own cottage, as did several of the other workers, including John Maish, who was a carpenter by trade. He and his wife Louisa had two small sons already; and their third child, a daughter, had been born on 26 January – also delivered by Sarah Cripps.
Maori children from the pa began to put in an appearance at the Cranes’ cottage at mealtimes, and Mrs Crane soon found they were very partial to porridge. Years later, when describing the weather conditions at the Auckland Islands to his sons, George Crane used to say that it rained for six days in the week and blew a hurricane on the seventh!38
For most settlers, the distress of the long sea voyage out and the groans, shuddering and straining of the ship had slowly faded; but for some, the memories of those cramped four and a half months below deck lingered on. This was especially true for Sarah Cripps, a short, stout, and normally cheerful young woman of 27, with three small children of her own to care for – Mary Ann (4), Isaac (3) and Emily (1). She had been sick and weak for most of the voyage out on the Fancy and, except on rare occasions when the sea was calm, had been unable to leave the poorly lit, smelly and claustrophobic steerage accommodation. One of her descendants remembers that ‘during the six months nightmare of that voyage from England, Sarah Cripps never once was able to get out of bed. In the extremity of her misery she implored the Captain again and again to throw her overboard. And she developed a hatred for the sea, that she could never overcome.’39
Her husband, Isaac, two years older than Sarah, was a labourer, and one of the colony’s constables. Shortly before sailing, he had received his honourable discharge from the London Metropolitan Police, with a citation for good conduct; and on occasions that demanded it, he would have at his waist ‘the fine mahogany truncheon that he used to swing as he patrolled the London streets of the “Hungry Forties” ’.40
Unlike his colonists, the Lieutenant Governor had nobody he could talk things over with on equal terms. He was old enough to be Mackworth’s father – in fact he was the only person in his fifties in a colony of deliberately chosen young people. And he had a great deal on his mind.
He had had a difficult few weeks since moving into Government House. Not only had the Brisk returned ‘an empty ship’, but there was considerable discontent among the seamen and settlers at the colony’s isolation. The damage sustained by the Brisk in the hurricane had proved worse than anyone had thought, with the result that it was a full fortnight after the Samuel Enderby had sailed before it was ready for sea again. The inevitable gales had then held it up a further three days, and it was well out into Port Ross when it was discovered that the second mate, Mr Evans, was not on board. By the time he was found and conveyed intoxicated to the ship yet another day had been lost, with little done for morale ashore.
That evening, Enderby experienced the first of several epileptic seizures recorded by William Mackworth: ‘His Excellency suffered last night from a violent spasmodic attack, but was fortunately soon pronounced out of danger. We were much alarmed at the time.’41
Towards the end of April, after two long months at the col
ony, the Augusta was finally able to sail. Unloading had been held up day after day by gales that were strong enough to make it drag its anchors. It left with despatches, the six ringleaders of the strike over rations, and William Horsman, who had been dismissed from the Company’s service for theft.42 As with Captain Davidson’s departure on the Artemisia, it had been a difficult time: those who were impatient to go were a burden on the community.
No casual ships had called, and this emphasised the settlement’s isolation. What was needed was a cutter like the Lucy Ann, which by this time had returned to Sydney, capable of making quick voyages to New Zealand or New South Wales. When the hatch-boat Auckland, which was being built by Mr Phile of the Fancy and the carpenter from the Samuel Enderby, was ready, it would fill this need. But for now, it was a relief for Enderby to see the Augusta and its passengers sail. Their departure left the colony short of manpower, and in due course he would need to replace those dismissed with skilled labour from Sydney, where men could be hired for moderate wages – among them men transported from England for what were often trivial crimes committed in conditions of desperate family poverty.
With the Samuel Enderby and the Brisk away whaling, and landsmen and their families ashore at last, Enderby could now concentrate on the Fancy. During the visit of the Havannah and Fly, he had taken the opportunity to have a survey done on her by the Navy’s carpenters and his own shipwrights, who had reported that, in their opinion, she was unseaworthy. With the inshore whaling season beginning, Enderby decided to station her at the entrance to the harbour, ‘where she was moored and at anchorage in a situation where two colonial vessels, a few years before, had obtained in one season 3000 barrels of oil, [but] the season proved an unfortunate one, for few whales were seen’.43
The Enderby Settlement Page 6
