Dundas and Preston, thanked and praised by the Company for their ‘eminent services’,39 were never censured by the British government.
It remains doubtful that justice was done.
Incredibly, despite the setbacks he had suffered, Enderby’s enthusiasm for the Auckland Islands had not lessened in the 16 years since he had left with Dundas and Preston in April 1852. In his letter of 1 June 1868 to Mary Goodger he added:
You may have heard that there have been several fearful shipwrecks at the Auckland Islands40 and that the Government propose establishing a depot of provisions, but I have written them, that unless someone be left in charge it will be plundered, and recommended the formation of a settlement, and pointed out that cattle and sheep would do well on Enderby, Rose, Ewing and Green islands, but that on Auckland Island the wild dogs would kill the sheep. I have volunteered to go out, and form such settlement and point out where pigs are to be found, also fish, cockles etc – but not to reside there for more than a few months, as I am growing too old. I received a reply a few days since thanking me for the information, and stating that they had forwarded my offer to the Governor of New Zealand.
The offer was not accepted. He was 70 at the time.
In 1876, paralysed down one side, Charles Enderby died of heart disease at his sister’s home at 12 Neville Terrace, Brompton, Kensington, at the considerable age for those days of 78.41
In 1854 Matioro and some 30 Maori and Moriori were taken to Stewart Island as the first stop of Matioro’s journey home to Taranaki. He died at Waikanae. The last of the Maori and Moriori people were finally taken off the Auckland Islands early in 1856.42
In 1859 the discovery of fossil oil had led to the rapid decline of whaling; it did not see a revival until the twentieth century with the advent of modern refrigerated factory ships, a growing demand for whale meat, and shore factories such as those of South Georgia. By the middle of the twentieth century, with the use of sonar and spotting helicopters, production based on whaling in the Antarctic was the highest in the history of whaling.43 These days, protected right whales gather to calve in Port Ross in numbers that would have galvanised the Enderby settlers.
For all the harshness, isolation and discomfort of the Auckland Islands, the Enderby settlers had lived on one of the most beautiful places on earth: the islands gained World Heritage status in 1998.44 Pigs are still numerous on the main island, but the wild dogs have not survived; nor, amazingly, have rats.45 Since 1987, goats, rabbits and cattle have been eradicated: the cattle were finally eliminated in 1992, although a small number of goats and cattle were taken to New Zealand for their unique genetic qualities.46 Only Adams Island and Disappointment Island have remained free of introduced mammals.
Feral goats near the entrance to Port Ross. These goats have now been eliminated from the Auckland Islands, although some were saved and taken to New Zealand and Ruakura Research Centre because of their genetic value.
There are few signs of the Enderby Settlement today, apart from subtle changes in the shoreline – and the cemetery, which has the graves of Isabel Younger (the only burial mound marked with a permanent headstone) and the unmarked graves of Janet Stove, John Edward Downs and probably Thomas Cook; the other three mounds are the graves of later shipwrecked mariners.47 Little else is now apparent to the untrained eye. The line of the old road is all but lost. There is perhaps a half-buried, moss-covered brick; the occasional shard of pottery; and faint depressions, blurring with the years, where buildings and cottages once stood.
Assaulted by storms and the Southern Ocean, inhospitable to people but haven to seabirds and marine mammals – sea lions, fur seals and unmolested visiting whales – the Auckland Islands are one of the last few unspoilt environments on Earth: elemental islands, surrounded by the overwhelming presence of the weather and the sea.
Notes
Abbreviation
ESD Enderby Settlement Diaries: Records of a British colony at the Auckland Islands. Diarists William Augustus Mackworth & William John Munce, edited by P.R. Dingwall, C. Fraser, J.G. Gregory & C.J.R. Robertson, Wild Press & Wordsell Press, New Zealand, 1999.
Author’s Note
1 Madelene Ferguson Allen, Wake of the Invercauld, Shipwreck in the sub-Antarctic: A great-granddaughter’s pilgrimage, Exisle Publishing, Auckland, 1997.
2 ESD, Munce, 29 October 1850.
3 Catherine H.E. Fulton, ‘Unpublished Autobiography of Mrs James Fulton (née Catherine Valpy)’, 1915, Hocken Library, Dunedin, MS 846.
4 House of Commons Sessional Papers (Parliamentary Papers), Auckland Islands, 14 February 1853 and 6 July 1855.
5 While Burke’s Peerage was correct with William Mackworth’s details, Juliet’s father was, in fact, not Francis but William Henry Valpy: George Griffiths (ed.) The Advance Guard: Prize-winning and other leading essays from the historical biography competition, Series 1, Otago Daily Times, Dunedin, pp. 15–21.
6 Fulton, ‘Unpublished Autobiography of Mrs James Fulton’.
7 Charles Enderby to Mary Goodger, 1 June 1868. Munyard Family Collection, Canterbury Museum.
Chapter One: Raw Beginnings
1 Australian and New Zealand Gazette, London, 30 November 1850, p. 60.
2 Charles Enderby, The Auckland Islands: A short account of their climate, soil & productions; and the advantages of establishing there a settlement at Port Ross for carrying on the Southern Whale Fisheries, Pelham Richardson, London, 1849, p. 38.
3 Contained in Robert Carrick’s ‘Auckland Islands’, MS qMS0397, Alexander Turnbull Library, pp. 15–16. Shand, who signed his name at the top of F.R. Chapman’s handwritten record of Younger’s reminiscences, quotes Chapman inaccurately in ‘The occupation of the Chatham Islands, part V: The residence at the Auckland Islands’ (Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. II, p. 80) and Chapman, not Younger, incorrectly confuses Ocean with larger nearby Ewing Island. The ‘paint’ was presumably tattooing.
4 In his Proposal for Re-establishing the British Southern Whale Fishery, published in 1847, Enderby could well have believed the islands were uninhabited. But by the time he came to write his Auckland Islands: A short account, published in 1849, he would have known of HMS Fly’s visit of almost a year before, in which, after ‘a cruise to the Southward’, it had reported: ‘The only inhabitants of the island are a few maories who appear to be indifferently off.’ (New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Strait Guardian, 21 June 1848.)
5 Charles Enderby, Abstract of Reports from the Commissioner of the Southern Whale Fishery Company to the Directors, Pelham Richardson, London, 1850, p. 8.
6 Ibid., p. 3.
7 On arriving at the Aucklands in 1842 or 1843, all the Maori lived together under Matioro when, according to Michael King, ‘Matioro established his pa on top of Crozier Point.’ (King, Moriori: A people rediscovered, Viking, Penguin Books, 1989, p. 81.) By 1849, Matioro had abandoned the Crozier Point (or Ocean Point) pa to the care of Ngatere and moved across the harbour with his immediate supporters to build another village overlooking what would almost certainly have been Sandy Bay on Enderby Island, facing Port Ross (King, p. 82). Matioro was on Enderby Island at the time of the colonists’ arrival (Shand, ‘The occupation of the Chatham Islands’, p. 84), but soon after he moved from Enderby Island to the pa near the settlement (Enderby, Abstract of Reports, p. 9), possibly induced by the offer of employment and the ‘regular-built house’ that Malone later reported him to be living in (R.E. Malone, Three Years Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, 1854, p. 67). He was certainly at this pa by April 1850, because Enderby writes that ‘Matteoro resided near the Company’s station’ in his Abstract of Reports (pp. 3, 9). The road that was being pushed from the settlement towards the farm (ESD, 21 Mar 1851) eventually reached and passed this pa. At some stage ‘several family groups left both pa’ (i.e. the Enderby Island pa and Ocean or Crozier Point pa) and settled separately on Enderby Island and the main island (King, p. 82), e.g. Awarru’s family pa near Dea’s Head (ESD, 31 August 1850).<
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8 Abstract of Reports, pp. 8–9. McLaren (The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, p. 53) writes that Enderby ‘made it clear to the Maoris that he was Lord of the Islands’, and that he ‘took all the land that was being used by the natives, and claimed in addition, the hogs which had been brought from the Chatham Islands in the Hannah. He paid a small sum of money for compensation.’ ‘Lord of the Islands’ is McLaren’s term. King (Moriori, p. 82) uses the term ‘Lord of the Island’, citing Shand quoting Enderby (‘The occupation of the Chatham Islands’, p. 84), but Shand himself does not use the term. Nor does Enderby in his Abstract of Reports. And pigs had of course previously been landed by Bristow. James Belich (Making Peoples, Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 1996) appears to be influenced by McLaren and/or King when he quotes Enderby as saying, ‘I am the Lord of the island. I claim all the land you are using and all the pigs you possess.’
9 Abstract of Reports, pp. 8–9.
10 Carrick, Auckland Islands, p. 18.
11 Early confusion over the spelling of Maori names was common. Apart from slight differences in the spelling, there was soon general agreement over paramount chief Matioro. But Ngatere of Ocean Point is referred to as Manature by Shand, Nanateri by McLaren, Nannaterri by Enderby, and in the ESD as Manaterri or Nanaterri by Mackworth, and Etteri by Munce. As late as May 1852 the Wellington Independent referred to Ngatere as ‘Meteteri from the Auckland Islands’ (ch. 14, n. 10). However, King in Moriori (p. 83) has Matioro and Ngatere enrolled as constables, and Buddy Mikaere in Tu Tangata 32 also has Matioro and Ngatere; so, despite slight disagreement with the ESD, I have gone with Matioro and Ngatere.
12 Charles Payton, great-great-great-nephew of Abraham Bristow.
13 Enderby, A Short Account, p. 19.
14 Ibid., p. 21.
15 Charles Enderby, A Statement of Facts Connected with the Failure of the Southern Whale Fishery Company at the Auckland Islands; A vindication of the measures proposed to be adopted for its success, Richardson Brothers, London, 1854, p. 20.
16 Des Price, great-great-grandson of George and Matilda Cook, Tauranga. See ‘Auckland Islands settlement was doomed to fail’, New Zealand Genealogist, Sept/Oct. 1999.
17 Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, at Auckland Islands. Full list in McLaren, The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, app. III, p. 109.
18 William A. Mackworth, letter of 3 March 1850, copied in a letter from Arabella Jeffreys Valpy of 28 July 1897, Hocken Collections, Dunedin, MS-0451-011/ 011. This first letter was not begun until two months after Mackworth’s arrival due to pressure of work. It was also written over a period of time; for example, it notes the Brisk’s return without oil on 17 March, and the departure of the accountant Mr Smith on 18 March.
19 Enderby, Statement of Facts, p. 20.
20 A few of the cottages were semi-detached or double cottages. Similar cottages of the same era, for two families, can be visited at the Howick Historic Village in Auckland. The Howick double cottages have a small entry-porch at either end, which those at the Enderby Settlement do not appear to have had, from the paintings and sketches of the time.
21 Gilbert Herbert, Pioneers of Prefabrication: The British contribution in the nineteenth century, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore/London, 1978, p. 17.
22 Fergus B. McLaren, The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1948, p. 51. McLaren is quoting Robert Carrick, author of New Zealand’s Lone Lands (Government Printer, Wellington, 1892, p. 19). Carrick, in his turn, was quoting from Malone’s Three Years Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, which records the settlement as being named Hardwicke after Lord Hardwicke, chairman of the Southern Whale Fishery Company (p. 63). However, Enderby’s letters were always headed ‘Port Ross’. Nor does Mackworth call the settlement Hardwicke. His diary refers variously to ‘the Settlement’ (40 times), ‘Port Ross’ (11 times) and ‘the Colony’ (11 times). McLaren, as the most recent source, calls it Hardwicke several times. The confusion began with Malone.
23 ESD, 24 September 1850.
24 The First Report of the Directors of the Southern Whale Fishery Company, presented at the [first] Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders, 21 February 1850, W. Lewis & Son, London, held at Mitchell Library, Sydney, 997. 9/S.
25 Parliamentary Papers No. 122, London, 14 February 1853. Despatch of 20 February 1850.
26 Encyclopaedia Britannica.
27 Abstract of Reports, pp. 18, 23.
28 ESD, 1–2 January 1850.
29 New Zealand Journal (London), 11 August 1849, p. 191.
30 As this feature was named as Ocean Point by Enderby on his map of Port Ross, and referred to as such in ESD, I have kept to the original name rather than using Tucker Point, which it is marked as on the 1991 map.
31 ESD, 4–20 January 1850.
32 Enderby, Statement of Facts, p. 35.
33 Ibid., p. 23.
34 Enderby, Proposal for Re-establishing the British Southern Whale Fishery, p. 29.
35 Enderby, Statement of Facts, p. 23.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Abstract of Reports, pp. 8–9.
39 Shand, ‘The Occupation of the Chatham Islands’, p. 80.
40 King, Moriori.
41 Ibid., pp. 58–65.
42 Ibid., pp. 71–72.
43 Michael King & Robin Morrison, A Land Apart: The Chatham Islands of New Zealand, Random Century, 1991, pp. 137–38.
44 Shand, ‘The Occupation of the Chatham Islands’, p. 78. Before invading the Chathams, Matioro had previously been to the Auckland Islands on a sealing expedition, but his was not the first Maori or Polynesian contact. The dating of ivory fish-hooks and chert on Enderby Island reveals that Polynesians had at least visited around 1350 AD (Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand. Penguin, 2003, p. 36; and Atholl Anderson, ‘Prehistoric colonisation of the Auckland Islands’, paper for Department of Archaeology and Natural History, ANU, Canberra, Australia, ch. 2).
45 King, Moriori, pp. 54, 77.
46 Carrick, Auckland Islands, p. 16.
47 ESD, 10 January 1850.
48 Ibid., 16 January 1850.
49 Enderby, A Statement of Facts, p. 23.
Chapter Two: Whaling South
1 Ice-blink is the mirage-like reflection of icefields beyond the horizon.
2 Frank T. Bullen, The Cruise of the Cachalot, Macmillan, London, 1906, ch. 10.
3 R.H. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, Harper, 1840, ch. 34.
4 Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Cetacea’.
5 One of the most prized byproducts of whales was ambergris. Today, it has largely been replaced by synthetics as a fixative in perfumes. Rather like the pearl in the oyster, it originates because of an irritation in the stomach of sperm whales, such as undigested squid beaks, and is either expelled with faeces or regurgitated. At first it is soft, foul smelling and of little value. But after years of sunlight and floating in the ocean, it gradually turns from white or pale grey to dark grey or black and hardens, becoming waxy, with a sweet, earthy odour, before finally washing ashore, in lumps weighing from 15 g (half an ounce) up to 50 kg (100 lb). With modern substitutes, there might not be the same market for ambergris nowadays; but in 1962 one of the largest pieces ever found, weighing 248 lb, was valued at £13,200. (Encyclopaedia Britannica.)
6 Fergus B. McLaren, The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1948, p. 52.
7 Abstract of Reports, p. 4.
8 ‘Captain Frederick Bracegirdle, Master Mariner’, unpublished MS, Sydney Public Library, courtesy Julie Tadman (Captain Bracegirdle’s great-granddaughter, Wamuran, Queensland).
9 Ibid.
10 Herman Melville, Moby Dick, first published 1851, ch. 135: ‘The chase – third day’.
11 Spears, John R. The Story of the New England Whalers, Macmillan, 1908, pp. 300–01. The sperm whale which sank the American whaler Essex in 1820 was the inspiration for Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick. (Wikipedia).
13 Enderby, Charles. Proposal for re-establishing the British Southern Whale Fishery, through the medium of a Chartered Company, and in combination with the colonisation of the Auckland Islands, as the site of the Company’s whaling station, Effingham Wilson, London, 1847, p. 31.
14 Spears, The Story of the New England Whalers, pp. 328–29.
15 ESD, 7 April 1851. The first voyage was the Lord Duncan’s arrival voyage, with ‘Mrs Barton, Servant and child’ and several other wives and children; and the second voyage was the ship’s first whaling voyage, from 20 May 1851 – when Mackworth commented that ‘The absence of Mrs Barton will cause a great gap in our limited society’ – to 31 August 1881, when the ship returned with Mrs Barton ‘very ill’.
16 Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Boston: Revolutionary period’.
17 H.R. Mill, Letter, Royal Geographical Society, London, Archives corr., block 1881–1910, 3/12/1908 f1-2. Dr Mill writes in this letter: ‘I met a Captain Enderby a few months ago who was the son of one of the Enderbys and nephew of Charles Enderby. He showed me a letter or rather a bit of a letter for the rest was lost giving some account of the firm from which it appeared that their ships were employed to carry to Boston the taxed tea that started the American war.’
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