Going into the southern winter, the one thing that seemed almost constant was the bad weather: day after day of dismal drizzling skies, or gales that came sweeping across the wastes of the Southern Ocean to funnel between the hills surrounding Laurie Harbour and batter the houses on their exposed new sites, and set the ships rocking and groaning on the water.
In the middle of May there was a brief respite in immediate tasks waiting to be done, and shortly after going to the assistance of the pilot’s whaleboat, which had broken adrift and damaged itself on the southern shores of the harbour, William Mackworth decided to take advantage of the improved weather and spend a few days on Enderby Island. He was an adventurous young man, and probably went sealing during this time. In his letter home he wrote:
There is no sport in England to compare to Sealing – a personal encounter with a huge sea-lion (as ugly a beast as can be) is no joke but grand sport – I have killed many and will send home one or two of the skins to give you a faint idea of the beast. Some of them are 10 ft in length and rear up like a bear, when attacked. Fortunately they have no claws, and being unable to spring, one can keep one’s distance on smooth ground and yet use the club. The legitimate way of killing them, is by stunning them by a blow on the nose, and then striking a long knife into the heart between the fore fins or legs – Of course the aim at the nose sometimes fails, and then ensues a regular battle.44
His visit was cut short by a rising wind and dark clouds piling over the main island, while Sandy Bay remained in winter sunshine, as was so often the case. But he had enjoyed the change, and wrote in his usually restrained diary: ‘Went to Enderby Island for a short change, what a change!’45
It was a break from care that he strongly recommended to the Lieutenant Governor. It took Enderby almost three weeks to follow Mackworth’s advice, but when at last another pause came in the winter’s rain and gales everything was ready, and the staff of Government House were ferried across to Enderby Island. While they were away Mackworth would be moving into his own house – a four-roomed ‘superior officers’ quarters’ cottage.
The party would have made the usual landfall in the narrow rocky gut at the west end of Sandy Bay, scrambling over the swirling kelp onto the safety of the rocks. At this time of year the sea lions’ breeding season was long past, and the beach almost deserted. Tents would have been set up on the grass at the back of the bay in the shelter of the stunted rata forest, and they would have explored the surroundings of the bay – along the top of the columnar basalt cliffs to the west, and over the sand-dune country to the east, towards open land where the Maori had their vegetable gardens.
Stunted rata forest on Enderby Island, near the western end of Sandy Bay.
Eight months after his arrival, with the Samuel Enderby and the Brisk still away whaling, Charles Enderby took the opportunity to leave the colony’s affairs in Mackworth’s hands for six weeks and make business visits to Wellington and Sydney in the colony’s newly launched cutter. His main purpose was to organise supplies of meat and fresh vegetables, and purchase everything from shingle nails and boots to blankets and tea.
On the way up the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, he called in briefly at Port Chalmers in Otago, and at Lyttelton, the port for the Canterbury settlement’s proposed city of Christchurch.
A private passenger on HMS Fly, returning from the British Navy’s visit in February, told the Wellington newspaper the Southern Cross that ‘Mr. Charles Enderby and his colony have been actively employed ever since their arrival. They appear, as sailors say, to have gone to work with a will – Everything evinced energy.’ He did add, though, that the settlers ‘complained of not being able to make an appeal against any decision of Mr. Enderby, who was both law maker and law breaker’.46 More recently, a passenger on the Artemisia, calling at Wellington on the way back to Sydney, had told the Wellington Independent that ‘such is the bleak situation of the islands that we greatly fear the attempt to form a settlement will prove a failure’.47
However, when Enderby reached Wellington, any adverse criticism of him or his governorship was quickly forgotten. His optimism about the colony’s future was reflected in the Wellington newspapers, which reported his arrival in the cutter Auckland, ‘a small decked boat of ten tons, after a passage of twelve days. We understand His Excellency’s principal object in visiting Wellington is to obtain some additional supplies of flour, and a few other necessaries for his rising Settlement, which we are glad to learn is, under his auspices, in a thriving condition.’48 The Wellington Independent went further, enthusing that:
all the settlers were now comfortably located, and in high spirits. The soil is stated to be exceedingly fertile, and vegetables of various kinds had already been grown in great perfection. The winter so far had proved very mild, no snow having even lain upon the ground. The sheep and cattle were doing remarkably well. The whales were just beginning to frequent the bays in great numbers, and sanguine hopes were entertained that the fisheries would prove eminently successful.
His Excellency would be proceeding to Sydney to buy further supplies, but the paper concluded that ‘we are not without hope, that His Excellency will upon enquiring, find that he can procure in this place all the supplies he requires, and that he may thus lay the foundation of a trade between Wellington and the Auckland Isles’.49
The colony appeared to be settling in well.
William Mackworth, Enderby’s young Assistant Commissioner and deputy. Portrait about 1852 or 1853, attributed to his wife Juliet, who was an accomplished artist. He died of typhoid fever in 1855, aged 30.
Courtesy Professor James Mackworth
CHAPTER FOUR
Mackworth and Munce
The Lieutenant Governor had been gone only a few days when a ship was seen outside the harbour, unsuccessfully trying to make the settlement in a heavy gale, which soon carried her out of sight. The vessel, which finally made the shelter of Port Ross early the following morning, proved to be the Company’s new whaling ship the Earl of Hardwicke from London, a three-masted square-rigger of 247 tons. Mackworth, followed by the mate of the Fancy, Mr Harrison, went out in the stiff breeze to meet her and guide her to an anchorage in Erebus Cove. Harrison, concerned at the way she was drifting, asked Mackworth to fetch a kedge anchor from the shore – a kedge being a light anchor for dropping some distance from a vessel to control it by winding in the anchor cable. On his way to the shore Mackworth passed the Brisk’s demoted Captain Tapsell, rowing out to the ship. When Mackworth returned with the anchor, he found that Tapsell had already been on board and had been ‘treated very ill’ by the captain, who appeared to be intoxicated.
There was now a flurry of activity around the ship. Tapsell was the first to regain the deck, and Mackworth, following him, found that ‘a quarrel which seemed to have begun during my absence was now being renewed’. He asked Captain Browne, the ship’s master, to speak to him below ‘thus putting an end to his and Captain Tapsell’s dispute’. They were in the captain’s cabin when there was a grinding shudder as the Earl of Hardwicke’s keel grated on the bottom of the cove.
Hurrying on deck the two men ‘found Gillett [the pilot] at this critical moment doing nothing’. Mackworth records, ‘I did not hesitate to take the ship out of his hands and Captain Browne being ignorant of the ground I had no alternative but to place her in the hands of Captain Tapsell.’ With the help of the kedge the ship was winched free and by half past nine was anchored off the peninsula.1
The following day Mackworth had to intervene to prevent a fresh outbreak of the quarrel between captains Browne and Tapsell. The Earl of Hardwicke was still too far from the shore to be unloaded, and it would be a further four days of frequent squalls, snow and furious gales before it was possible to bring her in to a suitable anchorage and begin work. Captain Tapsell was concerned that any further shifting of her cargo, which included bricks, might cause interior damage, and both he and Captain Phile, who had been promoted from first offic
er to captain of the Fancy the day Tapsell was relieved of his command of the Brisk, were adamant the cargo would have to be completely unloaded before they could assess what damage might have been done already. Captain Browne, now sober, considered it would be unwise to undertake a whaling voyage until the ship was known to be seaworthy. By now he had breakfasted twice in calmer circumstances with Mackworth, and they had got on well; so much so that after the second occasion Mackworth received a request from Browne to mediate with the men, who had gone on strike. Mackworth’s intervention ensured they were back at work by the time he left the ship, which must have given him considerable satisfaction.2
Nine days after the Earl of Hardwicke’s arrival it was ‘blowing furiously with a very heavy sea on’ when the brig Governor from Sydney first sighted the Auckland Islands. It brought James Peek, unexpectedly returning to the colony, and William Munce, the Company’s replacement accountant. The ship had to fight its way around Adams Island and up the east coast, close to the shore for protection, past ‘numerous openings into extensive gullies down which the wind rushes in torrents. The hills are all covered with Snows …’ – and so in to Port Ross. Here, ironically, ‘the breeze dieing away’, the Governor was prevented from reaching an anchorage at the settlement for several hours.3 Mackworth, going out to meet them, was as surprised as Enderby might have been to see James Peek back five months to the day after leaving on the Artemisia.
Mackworth was busier than ever discharging the Governor of its cargo of more prefabricated cottages, weatherboards – some of which proved to be rotten4 – and other stores ordered by the Chief Commissioner, as well as dealing with despatches from Captain Towns, the Sydney agent. The weather was again poor, and he had to tell Munce that he had not yet worked out where to quarter him, with the result that Munce had the frustration of remaining on board all day. The next day he was allocated an office at Government House until Enderby’s return, and temporary accommodation with his assistant accountant, Charles King.
Once the Earl of Hardwicke had been relieved of its bricks and other cargo, Mackworth finally found time to see Captain Tapsell and Captain Phile about its condition. The two captains had inspected the damage to the ship’s interior and hull and, as they had anticipated, it ruled out a long whaling voyage. Repairs would have to be made in Sydney. The ship sailed two days after Munce went ashore, while the Governor’s cargo was still being unloaded.
William Munce, aged 17. At 36, he became the colony’s accountant and, later, a prominent Freemason and leading Brisbane businessman. He died in 1892, aged 78.
Courtesy Harold Munce
Unfortunately, the several letters Mackworth refers to writing and receiving concerning the Earl of Hardwicke affair5 have been lost with the Southern Whale Fishery Company’s records. It is likely he would have commented on Captain Tapsell’s opinion that the ship’s design left a lot to be desired. Although it was of the right tonnage, Tapsell would have been dismayed to find its capacity for stowing blubber so inadequate.
It must have been hard for Tapsell, as a magistrate and experienced whaling master, so recently relieved of his command of the Brisk, to take such a prominent part in confronting the Earl of Hardwicke’s captain and coping with the problems of its arrival. He had in fact complained to Mackworth some four months previously ‘of being greatly disappointed in his Situation’6 – and this disappointment probably contributed to the circumstances leading to his eventual dismissal from the company’s service towards the end of the year.
Munce was a tall, genial man in his mid-thirties, with heavy eyebrows and side-whiskers. The day before the Earl of Hardwicke sailed, he wrote a letter to his ‘dear Liz’, to accompany the many letters and despatches Captain Browne would be taking to Sydney. Liz was his first wife Mary’s younger sister: Munce had become very close to her after Mary’s unfortunate death at the age of 30, and they were now engaged to be married. The following evening, after visiting Enderby Island with Mackworth and Charles King, Munce strung and played his violin, and enjoyed a couple of games of chess with King, the young man who had been the colony’s sole accountant for the five months since Mr Smith’s departure. Understandably there was a lot of catching up to do, which kept them busy for several days.
In his first three or four weeks, Munce was fortunate to have two fine weekends. The first Saturday was even warm. With his former shipmate James Peek, he ‘started for Laurie Harbour under the guidance of Mr Peek who knew as little of a road as I did – returned soon in consequence of not finding a path excepting through thick scrub or by stooping under trees every movement’.7 Scratched but persistent, they tried their luck in the other direction, until they came to the walking track – which would one day be a road – between the settlement and Matioro’s pa. They went as far as Erebus Creek and the ships’ watering place.
The following Saturday Munce was accompanied by Charles King in the same northerly direction, past the watering place, to the collection of whare or dwellings that was Matioro’s pa. From the pa, using the shoreline, they continued on past Terror Cove to the prominent volcanic outcrop of the Whale’s Head, now known as Dea’s Head, with its steep basalt columns rising dramatically from the shoreline. Some 3 kilometres from the settlement by this time, they struggled their way to the top through scrub and tussock for a wide view of Port Ross, with Rose Island and Enderby Island beyond it. But the going had been rough since leaving Matioro’s pa, and on the way home they were glad to call in at Awarru’s pa, which was little more than two or three families living near the base of the Whale’s Head; and it did not take much persuasion on Awarru’s part for them to accept his offer of a boat to row them back to the settlement.8
With the backlog of work cleared, it was decided Charles King should make a brief business trip to Otago in the Governor for ledgers and office supplies needed by Munce and Mr Parkinson the chief clerk. Peek volunteered to go with him, and Munce realised he would miss them both: in fact he stayed on board with them until the ship reached the limits of the harbour. Pilot Jack was among the passengers making the voyage to Otago, and so great was the keening and wailing of the two women seeing him off that Munce, returning to the settlement with them, must have wondered if Pilot Jack was gone for good.9
Munce’s first few weeks gave him a broad introduction to the social life of the colony. Early on, he dined twice with Mackworth. On the first occasion they drank the health of Munce’s fiancée Liz, as it was her birthday. The second time they were joined by Peek, who got into what Munce described as ‘a beastly state of intoxication’.10 Munce was also entertained for tea twice by Dr and Mrs Rodd; he got on particularly well with the surgeon, who was a hearty and convivial man. One Friday morning he went with Rodd and George Bond, the surveyor, to the mussel and cockle beds at the head of Laurie Harbour. They had excellent sport on the way: they shot at three shags, downing two; lunched on bread and pork; and shot several parson birds (tui). Dr Rodd did well to bag a sea lion – a large one had previously escaped wounded – and the three of them returned for tea at the Rodds where they enjoyed the cockles and mussels, which Munce declared ‘very passable’.11
Mussels, a source of food for the Enderby settlers, on the shore of Figure of Eight Island, Carnley Harbour.
Munce’s health was not particularly good during this time, and on several days he mentioned taking Seidlitz as an aperient (laxative). However, now that the accounts were in order, work was less pressing and he had plenty of time for reading. He had brought a large crate of books with him, and in the first three weeks read, among others, a Life of Napoleon, Tom Burke, The Adventures of a Thug, and Mrs Burton’s novel Self Control – which he hoped had not only amused but profited him.12
On the evening of Saturday 14 September the cutter Auckland returned with the Lieutenant Governor, back from his six weeks away, and Munce went with Mackworth to greet him. Munce sought the Lieutenant Governor’s permission to bring Liz and his family out to join him; he mentioned that there were, in fact, s
ix children by his previous marriage, aged from 16 months to 11 years. He need not have worried – Enderby could see no reason why his family should not join him as soon as possible.
In many ways the two men were very similar, being essentially kindly and good humoured. They shared a love of discussing books; and both were keen collectors of birds and botanical specimens, as was fashionable at the time. Enderby, who had felt very much on his own, could see that here was someone less driven by ambition than Mackworth, someone a bit older in whom he might safely confide – which was more than could be said of Peek, who returned from Otago five days later in the Governor. Enderby had scarcely expected to see him back at all, as the social high life of Sydney – and even Otago – must have had its appeal.
He was pleased to agree to Munce’s request for an increase in salary of £36 per annum. For once things moved quickly, and Munce was able to send money and inform Liz of Enderby’s decision in a letter carried by the Governor when it sailed for Sydney.13
The day King and Peek returned in the Governor, Mackworth had already left with George Cook, George Bond and a seaman on an expedition to the ‘weather Shore’, or west coast of the island.
A bellbird on a branch of Dracophyllum.
After taking a boat to the head of Laurie Harbour, they followed Grey Duck Creek, heading southwest up the steep-sided valley, clambering around boulders and over and under rata trunks and branches. As they gained height, the rata gave way to Myrsine scrub, and higher still, clumps of tussock growing chest-high out of the peat bog. This in turn gave way to a bleak, rocky waste dotted with shallow bogs with liverworts, algae and lichens. Mist, rain, hail and wind frequently battered the area in the prevailing sou’westerly gales that beat against cliffs which, in places, dropped sheer for 1000 feet or more, with not even a ledge for a seabird to cling to. At times waterfalls were cut short by the updraught and sent whirling back across the stark land.
The Enderby Settlement Page 7