The Enderby Settlement

by The Enderby Settlement (epub)

  On 8 July, a Maori woman of about 30 at Matioro’s pa succeeded where Kuini had failed – she hanged herself from a tree when she learnt her husband had taken her younger sister as his second wife. Her body was taken down, dressed in fine clothes and shawls and placed in a chair under an arch of green branches. Her husband showed her to some of the Fantome’s officers. He asked if Pakeha people ever did the same; to which they replied that yes, they did. He did not seem in the least troubled, although his new wife was greatly distressed.22

  Dunedin in 1852, the final year of the Enderby Settlement. This is thought to be the earliest surviving photograph of the town.

  Toitū Early Settlers Museum, Dunedin

  Three days later, at four in the morning, a shot was fired and there were shouts of ‘Sail O!’ announcing the Black Dog’s return from Wellington. Mackworth dressed hurriedly and was soon aboard to greet George Dundas, who told him that Preston had sailed for Sydney and would not be joining them. That evening he wrote: ‘Was sincerely happy to see Mr Dundas … I cannot describe the satisfaction we all feel at the prospect of an immediate release from this miserable banishment.’ The following day he vacated his rooms and transferred his belongings to the Earl of Hardwicke.23

  The Brisk and the Black Dog, as the first two ships to go, were scheduled to sail on Saturday 17 July, along with four of the ships’ officers’ wives and children, Dr and Mrs Rodd, the Goodgers, the blacksmith and his family and some dozen others. Reuben Bishop had rejoined the Brisk as a member of the crew, leaving Hannah behind with her people; later, in Northumberland, he went on to remarry more than once.24

  To Mackworth’s exasperation, in what had become almost a tradition, the crew of the Brisk ‘threw every obstacle in the way of her proceeding to sea’. To make matters worse, it was dead calm and the vessels had to be towed clear of the sheltering land before they could find even the lightest breeze. After they had left, a series of fights broke out among the landsmen who had done this arduous work and been rewarded with generous quantities of grog.25

  There was a sense of unreality about the last few days. Bare rectangles were left on the land where buildings and cottages had so recently stood. The warehouse was being dismantled: two of the Fantome’s helpers who attempted to steal from its remaining stores were caught in the act.26 Only two cottages remained: the one given to Matioro, and William Whitelock’s. Whitelock had volunteered to stay behind to look after the remnants of the Company’s property;27 for sealing he would have the use of the cutter Auckland. Another settler, Dickens, who had a Maori wife, had also opted to stay.28

  The final days were busy and confusing. Dundas had a serious accident when he was struck on the head by the branch of a tree that was being felled; but he was tended by the Fantome’s doctor and was soon exerting himself again with ‘unflinching perseverance’ and efforts ‘enough to kill any man’.29 On 22 July the settlement experienced its first earthquake: it was sharp, though not severe, and lasted almost a minute. Small fish were seen to leap out of the water, and ships in the harbour trembled as if casks were being rolled across their decks.30

  Old road through regenerating trees.

  Paul Dingwell

  The Maori people, having turned down Dundas and Preston’s earlier offer to remove them from the islands,31 had belatedly asked to be taken to Stewart Island on the Fantome but had been refused.32 Mackworth, who was coping with numerous problems, felt ‘the conduct of the New Zealanders at this time [was] especially disgusting after the kindness shown to them’.33 and that generally ‘affairs here would at this time have borne a very serious aspect if the Fantome had not remained’.34

  Ngatere and Matioro’s letter to Grey when Ngatere was in Wellington for the Queen’s birthday celebrations had resulted in Grey ordering that they be left a small flock of sheep and the cutter Auckland, and this had been done.35 However, Grey never directly responded to Ngatere’s suggestion that Grey ‘hasten here within the year’, or Matioro’s ‘Be quick now, you and Selwyn! – do not exile us!’36

  On Wednesday 4 August 1852, HMS Fantome, the Earl of Hardwicke and the Fancy finally weighed anchor and headed across Port Ross for the open sea. Back at the settlement, William Whitelock had hoisted the Union Jack as a last salute.37

  The Fancy was bound for England with Mr Dundas, sailing by way of Otago and Sydney. Several colonists intended to settle in Australia, some no doubt hoping to try their luck on the Victoria goldfields.38

  The Earl of Hardwicke, with Mackworth on board, was to sail for Port Chalmers, where settlers would leave the ship, before it too crossed the Tasman to Sydney. It would return briefly to the Auckland Islands on a last whaling trip before finally leaving Sydney for London in March 1853.39

  As the islands became lost in the general greyness of sea and sky, and the Earl of Hardwicke took on the roll of the Southern Ocean, Mackworth records his parting thought: ‘The satisfaction I feel at this moment is beyond description. My miserable life at Port Ross will never be forgotten.’40

  Juliet Valpy, who at 16 married William Mackworth, less than six weeks after the break-up of the Enderby Settlement.

  Epilogue

  Several colonists, William Mackworth among them, left the Earl of Hardwicke when they reached Port Chalmers on Friday 13 August 1852. It was expected that the 245 packages comprising Government House would be put ashore,1 in accordance with Dundas’s wishes. The Otago Witness reported:

  The Auckland Islands are abandoned as a whaling station … The breaking up is so complete, that the Government House has been brought away, and is now being offered for sale. It … will probably be purchased in the colony and converted into a public house. Alas, the mutability of fortune! so lately the residence of the representative of royalty … in a month or two degraded to a gin shop, or a store for the sale of soap and candles!’2

  However, it appears there were no takers, as the building went on to Sydney and was advertised for sale by auction in the Sydney Morning Herald.3 Robert Towns, the Company’s agent, wrote to a Robert Newton, asking him to:

  arrange for sale on Friday or Saturday next a Splendid Wooden House – English built – 14 rooms. The house may be seen at my wharf, also a ground plan – and questions answered – [PS] The above was the Government House at Port Ross, Auckland Islands, but you must not say anything about that in your advertisement.4

  The advertisement appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 6 and 8 October; it offered in addition a carriage, plough, harrows, 48 bedsteads, firebricks and corrugated iron. The house was purchased, along with six other dismantled buildings of the Southern Whale Fishery Company, by David Moore of Melbourne and reoffered for sale there; it was now credited with not 12 or 14 but 15 rooms!5

  Although Juliet Valpy was never mentioned in Mackworth’s diary, he lost no time going to see her. Her sister Caroline Valpy records, not quite accurately, that ‘Exactly to the month, two years later’ – after being sent away with orders not even to write to her for two years – ‘William Mackworth rode past our dining room window, and in a day or two all was settled happily, especially to the parties most nearly concerned.’6

  William married Juliet six weeks later in a double wedding on 22 September, at which Juliet’s sister Catherine married a young farmer, James Fulton, who had been on the same ship when the Valpy family emigrated to New Zealand.7 Judge Valpy was bedridden and unable to attend the wedding; he died three days later.8

  After the wedding, the Mackworths made a brief visit to England to introduce Juliet to William’s family, before sailing for Australia. On the return voyage William turned down the offer of a position as aide-de-camp to Sir George Grey, who was travelling south to become Governor of Cape Colony in South Africa. The young couple continued on to Australia, where Mackworth became a partner in an import–export firm in Melbourne.9 Less than eight months later, on 4 December 1855, he died of typhoid fever. Juliet, who was pregnant, was taken into the Munces’ home and gave birth to a baby daughter, Wilhelmina, three
months later. Juliet’s mother brought them back to the Valpy family home in Dunedin.10 Two years later, when she was still only 20, Juliet married neighbouring runholder Bayly Pike;11 and it is through their descendants that William Mackworth’s diary survives. Wilhelmina never married; she died in 1917, and is buried in the Valpy family plot in Caversham, Dunedin.12

  The Earl of Hardwicke left the Otago settlement on 30 August 1852 and reached Sydney 15 days later, with the Munce family, Captain and Mrs Barton and their children, the Munces’ servant, and four passengers in steerage.13

  After the birth of George at Port Ross in 1851, William and Elizabeth Munce had seven more children – three of whom died in their infancy – bringing the total of William’s offspring to 13. His diary was passed down through the family, and published in 1999 with William Mackworth’s as the Enderby Settlement Diaries.14

  Prominent among the colonists intending to settle or return to Australia, besides the Munces and the Ewingtons, were the young Bracegirdle brothers and the Crane family. Fred and James Bracegirdle, who had been apprentices on the Samuel Enderby and the Sir James Ross, are thought to have gone to the Victoria gold diggings before continuing their seafaring careers. Fred sailed on merchant ships to many parts of the world; it was said of him that ‘the wilder the weather, and the greater the need of sou’wester and sea-boots, the more he revelled in it’ – so the Auckland Islands must have suited him well! He died in 1916, aged 85. James had died in Hong Kong in 1864.15

  Captain Frederick Bracegirdle, master mariner, later the Sydney pilot and assistant harbourmaster. As a 19-year-old he was an apprentice on the Samuel Enderby, while his brother James was an apprentice on the Sir James Ross.

  Courtesy descendant Julie Tadman

  George Crane, who had papered and painted Munce’s house and helped him out on several occasions, had been in charge of building operations at the Enderby Settlement. In Sydney, he set himself up as a builder. He found it difficult to get hold of materials such as cement, marble and lead, so he started to import them. The importing and manufacturing side of the business grew, including making pressed metal ceilings and mouldings and lead shot from a shot tower. The Cranes had 13 children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. George died in 1906 and Georgiana in 1907.16

  As a young man, George Crane was in charge of builders at the Enderby Settlement. He went on to found the manufacturing and importing business of G.E. Crane & Sons, listed on the Sydney Stock Exchange as the Crane Group. He died in 1906.

  Courtesy descendant Janet Denne

  The Cripps family was among the Enderby settlers destined for Wellington. Sarah’s recollection of her sickening voyage out was a factor in their deciding not to sail home to England. After two years in Wellington, Sarah and Isaac went to work for Valentine Smith, the Enderby Settlement’s first accountant, on his property at Mataikona in the Wairarapa. By this time Smith was becoming a prominent landowner and sheep farmer. He was MP for Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa from 1855 to 1858, and died in 1895.17

  Sarah Cripps, the colony’s nurse and midwife. Later she became well known for her dedication and hospitality. She is the only Enderby settler known to be listed in the New Zealand Dictionary of Biography.

  Miriam Macgregor (ed.), Petticoat Pioneers, Reed, 1973

  The Cripps built an accommodation house on the road to Napier, which they named Sevenoaks after their home town in Kent. They also ran a small shop and post office. They soon had a great reputation for hospitality. But ‘Granny Cripps’s’ greatest fame was as a dedicated midwife, just as she had been on the Auckland Islands. Her story is told in Miriam Macgregor’s Petticoat Pioneers;18 and she was the subject of a National Radio talk on Women’s Hour.19 The Cripps had 10 children. Sarah died in 1892, and Isaac in 1904.20

  James Hindsley Bromley was born at Port Ross on 9 March 1852, and died at Scotts Ferry near Bulls in 1892. His father (also James), the Enderby Settlement’s butcher, met and married his mother Charlotte, 18, during a whirlwind courtship in Dunedin, where James senior had gone to buy sheep in 1850.

  Courtesy the late Hazel Lane, descendant, of Taradale

  James Hindsley Bromley (‘Jimmy Dun’) continued his trade as a butcher at Porirua;21 according to a descendant, he may have run a pub there between 1852 and 1856.22 Born in Greenwich, England, in 1820, he died in 1878.23

  George and Matilda Cook eventually went north to George’s ancestral land in the Bay of Islands, where the family’s interest in whaling continued: their son H.F. (Bertie) Cook had a whaling station at Whangamumu, and later established a whaling station at the head of North East Harbour on Campbell Island, from 1911 to 1914.24

  Among those travelling back to England were Tom and Mary Goodger; their second son was born in Sydney en route. The family returned to New Zealand in 1858,25 and Tom purchased Christchurch’s first hansom cab. He weighed 22 stone, and had to be hoisted up to his seat and down again at the end of the day. All four of his sons were cabbies; and at his funeral, there were 80 vehicles in the funeral cortege, most of them cabs.26

  Charles Enderby and Tom Goodger, his valet and the storekeeper, had been more than employer and loyal employee: they shared a strong interest in horses and racing, and remained friends for many years. In 1868 Enderby wrote to Mary Goodger: ‘I am gratified at learning that Matteora [her son] is steady – but you must be particular in prohibiting, or dissuading him from ever betting on horses more than a few shillings, for – if he begins to gamble, and in the first instance is fortunate, the time will arrive when he will repent it.’

  Regarding her sons Mateora and Jerry, he hoped that both were earning good wages, and advised: ‘You should make them understand that they have each of them cost you (up to 12 years of age) from £60 to £100, which you might have had in the Savings Bank if they had not been borne. Sons and daughters rarely if ever bear this in mind, or make any return for such expenses.’27

  Enderby’s efforts to vindicate his name and see justice done in his struggle against Dundas and Preston continued in London for another two years after his arrival, with increasing emphasis on their culpability for the death of seaman Downs, and for keeping of official certificates and records from him. There was no satisfactory conclusion, although the conflict was the subject of two long, complex and detailed Parliamentary Papers, which did at least put his side of the argument.

  In spite of the strong evidence Enderby presented in a lengthy handwritten letter to Sir William Molesworth, who was briefly Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1855,28 the British government continued in its determination not to become involved. As early as 16 April 1853, one of Molesworth’s predecessors, the Duke of Newcastle, in formally advising Enderby that the Queen had accepted his resignation, had warned him that the British Government could not interfere in litigation between him and ‘the gentlemen of the Southern Whale Fishery Company’.29 So unfortunately for Enderby a precedent had been set. Previously, there had been correspondence with a Sir George Grey – the Duke of Newcastle’s successor and one of Molesworth’s predecessors30 – in which Dundas and Preston had protested with hurt innocence against Enderby’s accusations that they had caused Downs’ death through criminal neglect. They dismissed Enderby’s charges31 as ‘false and malicious’ and ‘monstrous fabrications’.32

  Enderby’s letter to Sir William Molesworth was his final effort to have all aspects of his case against Dundas and Preston reconsidered. Not until he reached London did he discover that shortly before Downs’ death, the men had been left unattended and without food or medicine for 17½ hours.33 Nor had he known that in their reports to the Southern Whale Fishery Company, Dundas and Preston had made no mention of their refusal to return the register of births, marriages and deaths or to furnish him with Downs’ death certificate; nor had they even reported on the man’s burial34 –significant omissions, when considering blame.

  Enderby had presented a strong case, but it was longwinded and repetitive, which did him no service; and Molesworth commented on
a handwritten sheet attached to the final page:

  Mr Enderby seems to me to evade the serious question – why, if he entertained suspicions about Downes’s death in Feby 1853, he did not communicate those suspicions to Sir E. Home when the Calliope visited the islands in March the same year. I think he may be merely answered, that the Secy of State does not intend to pronounce any further opinion on a matter already decided by his predecessor.

  Molesworth’s scribbled note represented the British government finally washing its hands of the whole Enderby affair. It had no particular interest in the death of a seaman, and Sir Everard Home would have felt the Downs crisis was outside his sphere; he was more concerned as to what he could do to support Enderby’s official position and protect the royal prerogative. The British government also considered Enderby to be Lieutenant Governor as a result of his own efforts, to give his settlement increased protection and status for its dealings and trade with the neighbouring colonies of New Zealand, New South Wales and Tasmania. His viceregal office had ceased to be valid because the Southern Whale Fishery Company no longer existed.35 Its operations had closed down by June 1854,36 although it still had its office address of 37 Old Broad Street in mid-November 1854.37 When it ceased altogether, so did its records – which are assumed to have been destroyed or lost at the time.38