The Enderby Settlement
Page 24
2 ESD, 27 October 1850.
3 Ibid., 4 November 1850.
4 Angus Ross, ‘Founding Fathers’, in New Zealand’s Heritage: The making of a nation, Hamlyn, vol. 2, p. 530.
5 Alfred Saunders, History of New Zealand, Whitcombe & Tombs, Wellington, 1896, p. 259.
6 Ibid., p. 260.
7 Paul Hamlyn, New Zealand’s Heritage: The making of a nation, Hamlyn, 1971, pp. 356, 431, 522.
8 ESD, 14 November 1850.
9 Ibid., 16 November 1850.
10 Griffiths, G.J. (ed.) The Advance Guard. Series 1, Otago Daily Times, Dunedin. Article on Rev. Charles Jeffreys by G.L. Cumming, pp. 13–15, 19–20, 29. As a student at Cambridge University, Jeffreys had been a close second to his year’s senior wrangler – the man who would become Enderby’s friend Professor Airy, the Astronomer Royal. Later, as a tutor at Cambridge, Jeffreys had among his students George Selwyn – who would become Bishop of New Zealand – and Alfred (later Lord) Tennyson. He emigrated to Dunedin with his wife and family to join his sister and the Valpys in 1851. He left the Church of England to become an independent minister, turning down Bishop Selwyn’s plea to return to the Church of England.
11 Ibid., p. 20, and Otago News, 11 May 1850.
12 Rosemary Entwisle & Angela Brenssell, A Salute to Otago Artists: The Valpy Family; Watercolours, sketches and history of the family, Otago Early Settlers Museum, Dunedin, 1990, p. 2.
13 Fulton, unpublished autobiography, p. 13.
14 Ibid., p. 2.
15 Ibid., p. 14.
16 Saunders, History of New Zealand, p. 262.
17 Wellington Independent, 21 December 1850.
18 Southern Cross, 14 January 1851.
19 ESD, 21, 23 November 1850. Some 10 years later, Johnny Jones of Waikouaiti had £20,000 of his currency in circulation in Otago in promissory notes (Hamlyn, New Zealand’s Heritage, p. 358.)
20 Fulton, unpublished autobiography, p. 13.
21 Letters to the author from the late Hazel Lane, née Bromley, great-granddaughter, 23 April, 24 May 1998.
22 ESD, 3 December 1850.
23 Ibid., 12 December 1850.
Chapter Six: Sir George Grey’s Visit
1 ESD, 20 November 1850.
2 Ibid., 27, 28 November 1850.
3 J. Rutherford, Sir George Grey: A study in colonial government, Cassell, London, 1961, p. 8.
4 George Grey, Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia During the Years 1837, 38, and 39, T. & W. Boone, London, 1841.
5 Ibid., p. 150.
6 Ibid., pp. 152, 156.
7 Rutherford, Sir George Grey, pp. 659–61.
8 G.S. Cooper, Journal of an Expedition Overland from Auckland to Taranaki, Undertaken in the Summer of 1849–50, by His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief of New Zealand, entry of 11 December 1849, Williamson & Wilson, Auckland, 1851, quoted in Rutherford, Sir George Grey, p. 277.
9 Ibid.
10 Buddy Mikaere, ‘Maungahuka: The nearest Maori settlement to the South Pole’, in Tu Tangata 32, quoting Ngatere’s letter to Sir George Grey, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries.
11 Robert Carrick, ‘Auckland Islands’, Alexander Turnbull Library, MS qMS0397, quoting Thomas Younger, pp. 16–17.
12 Sir George Grey, Ko nga Moteatea, me nga Hakirara o nga Maori, Robert Stokes, Wellington, 1853, p. 155.
13 ‘Whakawhiro: a charm repeated over a burning brand’, in H.W. Williams, A Dictionary of the Maori Language, 7th edn, Government Printer, Wellington, 1971, quoting Grey’s Ko nga Moteatea, p. 155.
14 Grey’s handwritten notes on the chant, interleaved in Rev. Robert Maunsell’s Grammar of the New Zealand Language, J. Moore, Auckland, 1842. This karakia would have occurred during Enderby’s return voyage from New Zealand in the cutter Auckland a couple of months previously, in September 1850.
15 ‘Awa 5. An incantation to still a storm’, in Williams, A Dictionary of the Maori Language, which makes reference to Grey’s Ko nga Moteatea, p. 156.
16 Although in Grey’s often difficult handwriting it looks more like ‘kill’ [C.F.].
17 Sir George Grey, ‘Translations of Waiata’, Auckland Libraries, GNZMMSS 101, p. 645. There is no direct reference in the Auckland Libraries’ Sir George Grey Special Collections to Grey’s discussions with Matioro and Ngatere. The library’s Sir George Grey Special Collections manuscript librarian Kate de Courcy describes the outcome of her and colleague Robert Eruera’s research on my behalf as ‘a wonderful piece of serendipity! One would not expect to find Grey’s notes on waiata in an interleaved copy of Maunsell’s grammar!’ She goes on to say: ‘With regard to “interleaved”: the Maunsell grammar is just that … i.e. every second page is blank. In this copy Grey has written on at least 50 per cent of the interleaved pages, on the printed pages themselves quite randomly and on all the endpapers and inside the covers!’ (Kate de Courcy, emails to the author, 8 October 2009 and 18 September 2013).
18 Michael King, Moriori: A people rediscovered, Viking, Penguin Books, Auckland, 1989, p. 85.
19 ESD, 4 December 1850.
20 Wellington Independent, 25 December 1850.
21 Ibid. Saunders, in his History of New Zealand (Whitcombe & Tombs, 1896, p. 265) has the four vessels leaving Plymouth Sound on 7 and 8 September 1850. (The fourth ship, the Cressy, arrived on 27 December.)
22 Fergus B. McLaren, The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1948, p. 57.
23 Ibid.
24 Despatch No. 32 of 16 July 1852, from Pakington to Grey; British Parliamentary Papers, 1854 [1779] vol. 45, p. 304, no. 20 ¶34 [IUP/ BPP. Col. NZ vol. 9].
25 Loveridge, D.M. The Settlement of the Auckland Islands in the 1840s and 1850s: The Maungahuka Colony, the Enderby Colony and the Crown, Department of Conservation, Dunedin and Invercargill, INV 993.89 LOV. (WAI 64), 22 March 1995, pp. 29–31. Dr Donald Loveridge goes into this whole dispute and dilemma in considerable detail in his treatise.
26 Despatch No. 32 of 16 July 1852, from Pakington to Grey; British Parliamentary Papers, 1854 [1779] vol. 45, p. 304, no. 20 ¶34 [IUP/ BPP. Col. NZ vol. 9].
27 Robert Carrick, Historical Records of New Zealand South, Otago Daily Times & Witness Newspapers, Dunedin, 1903, p. 158. In view of such confusion, it is hardly surprising that New Zealand historians have dealt with the Enderby Settlement in differing ways. New Zealand’s Heritage gives it five pages, mentioning Sir George and Lady Grey’s visit, but not the colony’s politically equivocal situation (R.A. Falla, ‘The Enderby Settlement’, New Zealand’s Heritage, p. 612). Michael King noted Grey’s visit and commented at some length on the Enderby Settlement in his book Moriori, pp. 82–86, but again made no mention of the Auckland Islands’ possible connection with New Zealand at that time. If he took it to be a British colony, which of course it was, this is no doubt why he made no mention of it in his History of New Zealand; his only reference to the Auckland Islands was with regard to pre-European Maori exploration and contact (M. King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin, Auckland, 2003, pp. 36, 53). James Belich gives the Enderby colony the briefest mention, probably for the same reason: on pp. 183–84 of Making Peoples (Allen Lane/Penguin, 1996) he comments on Enderby’s relationship with the Maori (ch. 2, n. 8), and states that ‘the Enderby colony was intended to grow rich on farming and whaling, but was abandoned in 1852, having killed one whale’. This is true for Port Ross harbour, but not for the whaling fleet and the enterprise as a whole. He does not mention the Enderby Settlement in his later work Paradise Reforged (Allen Lane/Penguin, 2001). Saunders, in his History of New Zealand (Whitcombe & Tombs, 1896) must have known Grey was on his way to the Auckland Islands after Otago, but also makes no mention of Grey continuing on south. Rutherford, in Sir George Grey (p. 661), notes Grey’s visit to Otago and the Auckland Islands in November 1850, in a single line at the back of the book in the ‘Chronology of Principal Events in Sir George Grey’s Career’. However, the ambiguous situation of the Auc
kland Islands with regard to New Zealand was well known to Fergus McLaren (The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, p. 73).
28 House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 6 July 1855, p. 46, enclosure no. 10, 13 June 1854.
29 ESD, 14 November, 11 December 1850.
30 Ibid., 11 December 1850.
31 Ch. 3.
32 B.I. Fotheringham, ‘The Southern Whale Fishery Company, Auckland Islands’, MPhil thesis, Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, England, 12 June 1995, p. 105.
33 ESD, 23–25 October 1850.
34 Ibid., 12, 18 December 1850. The ESD entry of 18 December is the last mention of Thomas Tapsell, and he probably left as a passenger on the Fancy for Sydney on 16 January 1851 along with the suspended ‘Dr and Miss Hallett and several Seamen passengers’.
35 Ibid., 5 November 1850.
36 Ibid., 26, 28 September 1850.
37 Ibid., 17–19 November 1850.
38 Conon Fraser, Beyond the Roaring Forties: New Zealand’s subantarctic islands, Government Printer, Wellington, 1986, p. 35.
39 ESD, 20 November 1850.
40 Ibid., 25 November, 2 December 1850.
41 Ibid., 30 November 1850.
42 Charles Enderby, A Statement of Facts Connected with the Failure of the Southern Whale Fishery Company at the Auckland Island: A vindication of the measures proposed to be adopted for its success, Richardson Brothers, London, 1854, p. 27; ESD, 11 November 1851.
43 ESD, 17 December 1850.
44 Ibid., 17 December 1850.
45 Ibid., p. 219, quoting Enderby’s Proposal for re-establishing the British Southern Whale Fishery, through the medium of a Chartered Company – in which on p. 29 he gave his estimate of barrels per month for a British ship of 362 tons (actually lighter than the Samuel Enderby’s 422 tons) for an 8-month journey.
46 ESD, 23–25 December 1850.
47 Ibid., 31 December 1850; 17, 22 January 1851.
48 Ibid., 7–10 January 1851.
49 John R. Spears, The Story of the New England Whalers, Macmillan, New York, 1908, p. 252. The flesh of the pilot whale ‘is very good eating, and fresh meat is a treat at sea’.
50 ESD, 14 January 1851.
51 William A. Mackworth, Letter of 3 March 1850, copied in a letter from Arabella Jeffreys Valpy of 28 July 1897, Hocken Library, Dunedin, MS-0451-011/ 011.
52 Archives, Westminster School, London, Old Westminsters, pp. 607–08.
53 ESD, 16 January 1851.
54 Ibid., 20 January 1851.
55 ‘Spoke’ means communicated and exchanged news with another ship.
56 Ibid., 20–22 January 1851.
57 Enderby, Statement of Facts pp. 28–31.
58 ESD, 27 January 1851.
59 Ibid., p. 231; Fergus B. McLaren, The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1948, on p. 58 has 8 whalers, but the eighth ship, the Lord Duncan, did not arrive until 7 April 1851, well after the ‘three new ships’.
60 This was the end of January 1851. The Californian goldrush had begun in 1848, and alluvial mining, which drew the greatest numbers of men, was at its peak from 1850 to 1853.
Chapter Seven: Difficult Times
1 ESD, 22 January, 1 February 1851. For comparison of tuns and tons, see ch. 2, n. 12.
2 Ibid., 4 February 1851.
3 Ibid., 7 February 1851.
4 Fergus B. McLaren, The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1948, p. 56. The gaol is now a small hut.
5 ESD, 12 February 1851.
6 Ibid., 6, 7 March 1851.
7 Ibid., 19 February 1851.
8 Ibid., 25 February 1851.
9 Conon Fraser, Beyond the Roaring Forties: New Zealand’s subantarctic islands, Government Printer, 1986, ch. 10. Although the Grafton was wrecked in 1864, regular rounds of New Zealand’s subantarctic islands in search of castaways and for the servicing of depots during the shipwreck era did not begin until 1877, but continued after the wreck of the Dundonald in 1907, until 1927. The purpose of the government steamers was to service the castaway depots and to look for marooned sailors during the shipwreck era that followed the Enderby Settlement.
10 This lake, named after Graham Turbott, one of the Cape Expeditioners of World War II, is similar in its formation to Lake Hinemoa at the head of Musgrave Inlet on the main island. From the sea, its sides clearly show the successive strata of lava flows from the Carnley volcano.
11 Fraser, Beyond the Roaring Forties, p. 27.
12 The Times, 26 February 1851. McLaren comments on the Southern Whale Fishery Company’s meetings in The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands (pp. 58, 59) but gives no references. The meetings are well summarised by Brett Fotheringham in ‘The Southern Whale Fishery Company, Auckland Islands’, MPhil thesis, Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, England, 12 June 1995, p. 53.
13 Abstract of Reports from the Commissioner of the Southern Whale Fishery Company to The Directors, Pelham Richardson, London, 1850, p. 3.
14 Ibid., p. 5.
15 Ibid., p. 10.
16 Ibid., p. 12.
17 Ibid., p. 21.
18 ESD, 1 March 1851.
19 Ibid., 22 February 1851.
20 Ibid., 4 March 1851.
21 Fraser, Beyond the Roaring Forties, p. 71. Quoting Aston: Report to Secretary of Agriculture, 7 December 1907, published by E.J. Godley in The 1907 Expedition to the Auckland and Campbell Islands, Botany Division, DSIR, Christchurch.
22 ESD, 7–9 March 1851.
23 Ibid., 12 March1851.
24 Ibid., 19 March 1851.
25 Ibid., 31 March, 2 April 1851.
26 Robert Carrick, Auckland Islands, MS qMS0397, Alexander Turnbull Library, quoting Thomas Younger, pp. 17–18.
27 ESD, 26 March 1851.
28 Ibid., 29, 31 March 1851.
29 Fotheringham, The Southern Whale Fishery Company, p. 105.
30 ESD, 6–10 April 1851.
31 House of Commons, Parliamentary Papers No. 122, London, 14 February 1853, p. 2, no. 3. Enderby in despatch to Earl Grey from Wellington, 18 August 1850.
32 Ibid., pp. 2–3, No 4. Enderby in letter to Secretary of State for the Colonies from Port Ross, 1 July 1851.
33 ESD, 11, 25 April 1851.
34 Letter, Towns to Preston, 12 March 1851. Towns Papers, MSS 307/ 4, 18. Mitchell Library, Sydney.
35 ESD, 18 April 1851.
36 Ibid., 25–26 April 1851.
37 Ibid., 28 April, 3 May 1851.
38 Ibid., 12 May 1851.
39 Ibid., 20 May 1851.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., 25 May 1851.
42 Ibid., 30 May 1851.
43 Ibid., 30, 31 May 1851.
44 Ibid., 4 July 1851.
45 The settlement was reasonably well supplied with books. Besides Enderby’s personal library, which had over 400 books on a wide range of subjects (Catalogue of Books, the Property of his Excellency Lieutenant-Governor Enderby, Messrs Bethune & Hunter, printed by the Wellington Independent, November 1852), Munce had brought a considerable number, and the Company’s directors had been ‘careful to furnish, for the use of the settlers, a supply of religious and other suitable books’. (First Report of Directors of Southern Whale Fishery Company, presented at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, 21 February 1850, Pelham Richardson, London, p. 12.)
46 ESD, 22 June 1851.
Chapter Eight: Rumours and Rumblings
1 Fergus McLaren, The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1948, app. III, p. 109; or ‘Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, at Auckland Islands’, held by Registrar General, New Zealand.
2 ESD, 4 July 1851.
3 The Times, 1 July 1851. The Times notice of the meeting was repeated in the Sydney Morning Herald of 24 October 1851.
4 Rev. H.W. Tucker, Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of George Augustus Selwyn, William Wells Gardner, London, 1879, pp. 391–92.
5 Letter dated 24 July 1851, from Charles
Enderby in Wellington to Capt. Robert Towns in Sydney. Held at the Mitchell Library, Sydney, ML ref C7 2950.
6 Tucker, Memoir, p. 356.
7 Alfred Saunders, History of New Zealand, Whitcombe & Tombs, Wellington, 1896, p. 264.
8 Tucker, Memoir, p. 356.
9 Wellington Independent, 23 July 1851.
10 The Times, 26 February 1851; Wellington Independent, 30 July 1851.
11 The Times, 1 July 1851, repeated in the Sydney Morning Herald of 24 October 1851.
12 Encyclopaedia Britannica: ‘Steamships’.
13 Encyclopaedia Britannica: ‘Suez and Panama Canals’. The feasibility of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, to cut out the need to round the tempestuous Cape Horn, had been in the planning stages for several years. A complementary railroad was already being built, though construction of the canal itself was still many years off. Then the French planned to build a canal to link the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, which would mean a huge saving in time, as ships would no longer have to round the Cape of Good Hope. Argument was still going on about the route the Suez Canal should take. A direct line had been proposed for about 50 years, but others still preferred the old Pharaohs’ trading route.
14 Barbara Ludlow, ‘Whaling for oil’, Journal of the Greenwich Historical Society, vol. 3, no. 4, 2007, p. 186.
15 Sir George Grey, Letter from Government House, Wellington, 15 August 1851, Sir George Grey Special Collections, NZMS 478/4, Auckland City Libraries.
16 Sydney Morning Herald, 1 October 1851.
17 Dundas and Preston’s second charge against Enderby would be ‘absence from the settlement without sufficient cause’.
18 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. 44.
19 ESD, 5 July 1851.
20 Ibid., 21 May 1850.
21 Ibid., 7 July 1851.
22 R. McCormick, Voyages of Discovery in Arctic and Antarctic Seas and Around the World, Sampson Low, London, 1884, vol. 1, p. 135.
23 Paul R. Dingwall, Kevin L. Jones & Rachael Egerton (eds), In Care of the Southern Ocean: An archaeological and historical survey of the Auckland Islands, New Zealand Archaeological Association Monograph 27, Auckland, 2009, pp. 81–82. In later years, the Auckland Islands’ first castaway supply depot, the Stella hut, which still stands as a historic building, was built at the edge of the rata forest, about 30 metres nearer to the beach. The area between the depot and small farmhouse, now gone, was also the site of the thatched circular huts, also gone, built by the survivors of the Derry Castle – an iron barque bound from Geelong to Falmouth, wrecked in 1887 on a shallow reef off the low-lying northeast coast of Enderby Island. Had the ship been 100 metres further north, it would have passed the island in safety. The charts of the Auckland Islands at the time were inaccurate and led to several shipwrecks.