The Enderby Settlement

by The Enderby Settlement (epub)

  The next day, Sunday 17 November, the Mackworths ‘attended Scotch Church’ for the second time. There, the two young men may well have attracted the attention of William Valpy, his wife Caroline and their five children, who ranged in age from 14 to 23. William Valpy was a retired judge of the East India Company, and was reputed to be the richest man in New Zealand. He had emigrated from Britain to Dunedin for the sake of his health, on the recommendation of his wife’s brother, the Rev. Charles Jeffreys.10 Although he was an Anglican, he made a point of attending the Free Church of Scotland and was at pains to be on good terms with both Cargill and the Rev. Burns (nephew of the poet Robbie Burns).

  That same day, Sir George and Lady Grey arrived on HMS Fly. After Otago, they would be going on to the Auckland Islands. William Mackworth had an interview with Governor Grey and briefed him on the settlement.

  British India Judge William Valpy, Juliet Valpy’s father, who retired early due to ill health. He was at the time the richest man in the Otago settlement, and probably in New Zealand.

  Toitu Otago Settlers Museum

  Sir George had more urgent matters on his mind, however. He had recently put his draft constitution for New Zealand before the Legislative Council in Auckland, against considerable opposition; and had then run into a similar storm of protest to his proposals in Wellington. He hoped this trip to Otago might give matters time to settle down in the North Island. The situation in Otago might also prove delicate, though, as Grey was backing his friend Judge Valpy to represent the province on the Legislative Council; this could be seen as a slight to its strongly Scottish leaders, particularly Cargill and the Reverend Burns. It seemed likely that Valpy would get the nomination without Grey’s help, however, because he was contributing a considerable sum towards roads, swamp drainage, a flour mill and a sawmill.11 Besides his own farming equipment and horses, and his large staff of house and farm servants, he had brought the machinery and equipment for both mills out with him on the Ajax.12

  Early during their six-day stay in Dunedin, the Greys visited the Valpys on their property about 2.5 miles south of Dunedin – the ‘Forbury’ estate, backed by Caversham hill, near what is now Valpy Street and the 287 steps of Jacob’s Ladder. The track from Dunedin went around the mudflats of the inner harbour, past rural lots taken up by settlers’ plots, market gardens, smallholdings and farms being claimed from swampland, and crossed the flat expanse of land that is now South Dunedin. The Forbury, with 120 acres of land, was the largest of these rural properties.

  Judge Valpy’s daughter Catherine mistook the Mackworths to be members of Grey’s entourage. Some years later she wrote in her autobiography that:

  two of his suite, Messrs. Digby and William Mackworth, who were cousins, rode over to see the Forbury, and called upon my father. They were asked to stay to a dinner-tea, and during the evening Mr. Digby Mackworth delighted us with his singing and piano playing. He was quite a musician.

  William Mackworth fell in love at first sight with my sister Juliet, and the two young men (to my father’s surprise) appeared again on the scene several times during the next week or ten days …13

  During his stay, Mackworth makes brief mention of visits to the Taieri district, where Catherine’s friend James Fulton was farming with his brother. James had come out on the same ship as Catherine and her family.14 They were later married in a joint wedding, at which William Mackworth married Catherine’s sister Juliet.15

  Near the end of the Greys’ visit to Otago, the Governor held a levee at the Royal Hotel, where he so charmed everyone that it was not until the Fly had left for the Auckland Islands that Cargill and his supporters realised they had missed their opportunity to protest at Grey’s appointment of Valpy to the Legislative Council.16

  Grey was known for being devious; this was supported by reports that filtered back to New Zealand of his despatches to the Colonial Office. A journalist writing in the Wellington Independent was openly sarcastic about the Governor’s visit to Otago:

  Sir George Grey, finding that the Settlers in Cook’s Straits and at Auckland are no longer to be deluded by him … is trying a new beat, where he hopes he may still find some green enough to trust him … for he has found a soft spot to the southward, where he has gained a footing, and lost no time in recommencing his old games …

  We did hope that ‘Sandy’ [Cargill] would have proved ‘too far North’ for him, but Sir George is ‘Yorkshire too’, and he limed his twigs with the usual skill. First, he promised to spend £700 in the settlement; a large sum of money no doubt at Otago; and then finding that they wanted municipal institutions, he pulls out his Bill from his pocket and actually persuades our friends at the South that with a little tinkering and stretching, it will turn out just what they want … To see the colonists at Otago deceived by it and throwing up their hats in a fit of delight, is as good as a play … Do they expect they really will see this ‘munificent sum’ as they call it, of £700 spent at Otago? … It is amusing to see these shrewd Scotchmen so easily tickled.17

  The Southern Cross was equally caustic:

  His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief ‘dropped in’ for a few days at Otago in passing to the Auckland Islands. The Otagoites are all raptures with the BILL OF PRETENCE and the liberal promises of His Excellency in advancement of their settlement – such as the carrying out of the jetty to low water mark – the erection of an hospital – and the finishing of the swamp road. We give our Southern fellow-colonists joy. His Excellency is a perfect dab at swamp roads. Samples of these may be found hic et ubique in New Zealand.18

  Southern Whale Fishery £1 promissory note, used as payment of wages and salaries. Its use in New Zealand was questioned by Governor Grey.

  Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Ref. GH007488

  The Greys left on 23 November for their goodwill visit to the Auckland Islands. Grey had twice expressed his concern over the Enderby Settlement’s use of its own currency – promissory notes drawn on the Southern Whale Fishery Company – which he said was illegal tender and should no longer be used for trading in New Zealand. Mackworth had been able to write to Enderby warning him of this, before the Fly’s departure.19

  An easing in Mackworth’s workload allowed more time to visit The Forbury. Catherine records that:

  At last, when their stay in Otago was coming to an end, William Mackworth asked my father’s consent to an engagement with Juliet. This was emphatically refused, and he was told he must not mention the subject to my sister or to any of us. Juliet was only 15 years old. He might come back from Sydney and the Auckland Islands in two years but he was not to write. As it was not a direct refusal, the lover had to submit, and took leave with a heavy heart.20

  George Cook had still not returned with the sealing boat, and there was no knowing how long he might be. James Bromley had, however, found a suitable mob of 150 sheep. He had combined his search with a lightning courtship of 18-year-old Charlotte Pringle Bower, who had come out as an emigrant from Scotland on the Larkins with her widowed mother, two brothers and a sister. James and Charlotte were married five days before sailing on the Fancy to the Auckland Islands.21

  Mackworth, when he boarded the Fancy, was:

  disgusted with the drinking going on in the Cabin – Begged Captain Tapsell to have the bottles and glasses cleared away that one might have the use of the table – he complained of any such interference on my part – whereupon I hinted that so much drinking was not proper on board the Company’s ship – I was then addressed in a way that no man could submit to, and my authority defied – I there and then suspended Captain Tapsell. Put Mr Stove in command.

  Tapsell ‘insolently refused’ his suspension;22 but it was the final straw and he resigned the day after they got back to Port Ross.23

  The Fancy finally sailed on 5 December 1850, the day after the first anniversary of the Enderby Settlement. George Cook had at last arrived with the new boat, which was securely lashed to the deck. The men Mackworth had engaged for the whalin
g fleet were already aboard, as was Bromley’s mob of sheep. Bromley himself was accompanied by his new wife – a decisive accomplishment on his part, which may well have only added to Mackworth’s despair at his separation from Juliet Valpy.

  Sir George Grey, Governor of New Zealand, was 38 at the time of his visit to the Auckland Islands for the Colony’s first anniversary celebrations. Although the press referred to Grey continuing on to the Auckland Islands, only one of his biographers mentioned the week-long visit, in a mere three or four words, in an appendix of significant dates in Grey’s career; and none has dealt with Grey’s very considerable involvement with Enderby during and after the time of the Enderby settlement.

  Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, Ref. 7-A3952

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sir George Grey’s Visit

  HMS Fly, with Sir George and Lady Grey on board, had arrived at Port Ross early on the morning of Thursday 28 November 1850, and now lay at anchor off the settlement. The scene was very different from the Fly’s visit of nine months earlier with HMS Havannah, when most of the settlers were still accommodated on board. Green grass now covered the previously raw earth where rata and scrub had been cleared. The cottages and other buildings had been whitewashed, which greatly improved the appearance of the place.1 A jetty with sheerlegs and lifting tackle projected from the foreshore near the large warehouse and adjoining cooperage. Government House, the administration building and the bachelors’ quarters were all well established, with white picket fences around gardens and lawns. Paths linked the buildings, and the road now led out of sight around Erebus Cove. Four 12-pounder ceremonial guns had been mounted the week before on a flat expanse overlooking the water, and a flagstaff, its royal standard now sluggish in the rain, had been erected the previous day.2

  Grey could certainly be duplicitous, but he came with a formidable reputation. His father had died a hero, leading an attack by Wellington’s army on the fortress of Badajoz, six weeks before Grey was born; and Grey had been brought up from childhood to emulate him. As a young officer he had been appalled at the poverty he saw in Ireland, and he was convinced emigration to new lands was the answer to the Irish dilemma.

  At 25 Grey led the first of two courageous, if ill conceived and ill fated, expeditions for the Royal Geographical Society into the previously unexplored northwest of Australia in the hope of discovering a major river system that would open up the interior of the continent for extended settlement.3 In his Journals of Two Expeditions in North-West and Western Australia,4 a bestseller in its day, he wrote that he was reconnoitering the way ahead when the expedition was ambushed by Aboriginals and he was struck in the hip by a spear: ‘As I fell, I heard the savage yells of the natives’ delight and triumph …’ Grey rallied; the spear was wrenched from his wound and he advanced, shooting his assailant between the shoulders. ‘The effect was electrical. The tumult of the combat had ceased: not another spear was thrown, not another yell was uttered. Native after native dropped away, and noiselessly disappeared.5

  Sketch of the Enderby Settlement by William Mackworth, with features and buildings indicated.

  From Abstract of Reports …

  A closer view of the settlement, by Charles King, showing the ketch Auckland, the warehouse, a double cottage, bachelors’ quarters with central entrance, the flagstaff, and Government House to the far right. King, Mackworth and Enderby were all keen amateur artists.

  Mitchell Library, NSW

  ‘I already felt deeply the death of him I had been compelled to shoot,’ Grey wrote, and ‘one thing made the night very wretched, for then through the woods came the piercing shrieks of wailing women and the mournful cries of native men, sorrowing over him who had fallen that day by my hand.’6 The incident still troubled him, in an age when hunting Aboriginals was to some settlers still a sport. It was also the beginning of Grey’s addiction to laudanum, which he took at first as a painkiller while he lay critically ill for two weeks before he was fit enough to travel.

  The literary success of his Journals in Britain made Grey famous. At 27 he married Eliza Spencer (when she was only 16); and he became Governor of South Australia when he succeeded her father at the age of 28 – the youngest of Britain’s colonial governors. He was made Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand at 33, Governor-in-Chief two years later, and was knighted at 36. He was now 38.7

  In the late morning Lieutenant Governor Enderby was piped aboard HMS Fly; he left the ship a short while later to a 13-gun salute. At three o’clock Sir George and Lady Grey landed at the jetty to a somewhat more erratic salute from the settlement’s four 12-pounders, marking the start of a week-long viceregal visit which would culminate in the first anniversary of the founding of the colony.

  When travelling around New Zealand, Grey liked to be accompanied by at least two, and sometimes a whole retinue of chiefs. He was quick to gain their confidence: he spoke Maori and was deeply interested in their customs. Typically, on one such occasion, a companion recorded that ‘The Governor … amused himself all day in his tent surrounded by natives, learning their songs, proverbs, ceremonies, &c. &c., in collecting which he takes great interest.’8 He often disappointed the chiefs who accompanied him because, although he was Governor in Chief, ‘he did not appear in cocked hat and feathers, sword and silver lace, but travelled in a common shooting jacket, a Jim Crow hat, and trowsers rather the worse for wear’.9 It was fashionable for those in high authority like Grey, ‘Sandy’ Cargill, Edward Jerningham Wakefield of the New Zealand Company settlement in Wellington – and Enderby – to be deliberately scruffy, inferior in dress to their subordinates and clerks, and sometimes indistinguishable from tradesmen and labourers.

  Sir George and Lady Grey were shown around the settlement. For some months the pace of building had slowed as extra helpers returned to their normal trades; but work was progressing on a permanent blacksmith’s shop, and finishing touches were being made to the prefabricated cottages that had arrived on the Governor.

  The Enderby Settlement in 1850, seen from the peninsula. The volcanic knob on Mt Eden (Lord Auckland came from the Eden family) is directly above the grey warehouse in Davis Bay.

  Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref. D-O093-008-A-CT

  Grey had dealings with both Matioro and Ngatere during his stay. He obviously got on well with them, as Ngatere later addressed him with the words: ‘Greetings; great is my affection for you. My friend Governor Grey …’10 Grey had enjoyed pig hunting with them; Younger recalls that ‘the Maoris were with us and caught a live boar’.11

  Grey’s discussion with Matioro was particularly fruitful – he wrote down and made notes on at least two karakia or chants, one of which had special relevance to the Auckland Islands. The first chant, ‘Ko te whakawhiro a Mateoro [sic]’12 was ‘a charm repeated over a burning brand which was thrown into the sea with the object of making a gale clear up’.13 The chant was delivered ‘by Matioro in 1850 when the cutter he was in with Mr. Enderby was nearly lost in a gale of wind between Otago and the Auckland Islands’.14

  The second karakia, ‘He awa moana’, was also ‘an incantation to still a storm’15 and almost certainly related to a different incident that took place nearer land. Grey’s notes refer to it as being ‘He Karakia – to still16 a gale, from Matioro Auckland Islands Novr. 1850’. Grey’s handwritten translation refers to ‘taotao’ as meaning ‘to press down, to make smooth, to lay, as a storm on the sea’ and to ‘The rope, the rope, the sacred rope of Tane, pull safely your child the canoe on shore …’17

  It is not known whether Grey had contact with any of the Moriori at the Auckland Islands, or whether he had an opinion on their continuing state of slavery, which had been abolished in New Zealand for the past 10 years.18

  Wednesday 4 December was the first anniversary of the colony. The royal standard was hoisted and, in spite of heavy rain and wind, a well executed 21-gun salute was fired from the battery with the help of HMS Fly’s gunners. Because of the weather the day’s spo
rts had to be cancelled, although a race was held between the cutter Auckland, the Fly’s pinnace and another of its boats. The £5 prize was easily won by the Auckland, no doubt because its crew was more used to atrocious weather.

  A déjeuner which Sir George and Lady Grey, the officers of the Fly and the principal officers of the colony were due to attend at one o’clock was postponed. No doubt the weather was blamed; but the real reason was that Dr and Mrs Rodd, James Peek and Munce had all returned home after they discovered that Miss Hallett had also been invited. Instead, an afternoon of dancing and music was held at Government House, and in the evening some of the Fly’s seamen gave a theatrical performance in the bachelors’ quarters, which Munce described as ‘a wretched affair, but a crowded house’.19

  Late the following morning HMS Fly sailed for New Zealand with the vice-regal party. A correspondent for the Wellington Independent who was aboard reported: ‘The Governor of the Auckland Islands still appears sanguine of the success of the establishment; although the place has a most uninviting and dreary appearance.’ He admitted, though, that ‘The people looked healthy and appeared reconciled to the place,’ adding that ‘On the 5th Dec. the thermometer stood at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and during the morning there were several falls of a mixture of snow and hail, which will give an idea of the climate of the Aucklands, it being nearly midsummer.’20

  It was Sir George’s intention to call in at Port Cooper (now Lyttelton) and the proposed site of the Canterbury settlement on his way home, in the hope that he might coincide with the arrival of the settlers’ first ships. He achieved this with remarkable accuracy – or good fortune; they anchored in Governors Bay in Lyttelton Harbour on the 13th, three days before the arrival of the first two ships, the Charlotte Jane and the Randolph; the Sir George Seymour arrived the day after. As the Independent commented: ‘The first two left England on the 13th and the latter on the 14th Sept.; it is remarkable that in a distance of sixteen thousand miles, they should arrive within an hour or two of their order of sailing.’21