Early during his Wellington stay, Enderby was asked if there was any substance to a rumour in the Independent that the settlement had been broken up, and was this the reason for his visit? It was certainly the first he had heard about it! His arrival had been acknowledged on the shipping page: ‘Schooner Black Dog, 142 tons, from Port Ross, with His Excellency Lieutenant-governor Enderby’. However, on checking at the newspaper office, he found he had missed a brief item on the next page, buried among general news. It read: ‘An absurd rumour has been circulated to the effect that the settlement at the Auckland Islands had been broken up. This is not the case, seven vessels, including the Black Dog, belong to the settlement. Lieutenant-governor Enderby is at present in Wellington.’9 The fact that the paper had called the rumour absurd and had denied it did not altogether remedy the problem: rumours had a way of persisting.
During his stay, despatches for the Auckland Islands arrived from London. Most matters simply needed a covering note to accompany them on the next vessel sailing south. Fortuitously, there was also a copy of The Times of 26 February, with a lengthy review of February’s earlier second annual general meeting of the Southern Whale Fishery Company. In contrast to the later July meeting its overall tone was generally positive. This could not have come at a more propitious moment. The editor of the Wellington Independent agreed to publish it in full, and it came out the following Wednesday, a generous 27 column inches. The review covered the dispatch of the new ships – which had since arrived – and contained Enderby’s description of a mild winter, the promising conditions for crops and animals, and the fact that the prison on Shoe Island had only had to be used once – which of course was now woefully far from the truth; for by the time his Abstract of Reports had made its way to England, and back from the directors to the antipodes, it was getting on for a year old.10
The Times’ more recent account of the company’s special meeting of just a month ago,11 which had agreed to send Dundas and Preston, would have made much more topical and disconcerting reading, but of course it would be some time before news of that meeting reached the colony. Since then they had chartered a ship, the Chieftain, and would have been on the point of leaving England on their long journey.
The greater volume of shipping, both coastal and international, that called in at Wellington only emphasised the isolation of the Auckland Islands, where every visit caused a stir of excitement and involved the whole community. Enderby was aware that changes lay ahead, mostly in the ships themselves – changes that would drastically alter the routes they took and further increase the islands’ isolation. Many people still saw steam as inferior to sail, but steam tugboats had been used for years to start the great sailing ships on their journeys, and steam was growing in importance. The need for bunkering facilities had been the main drawback to steam, but Brunel’s Great Eastern, of 19,000 tons, was about to be launched. It had been designed for trading between Britain and the Orient, and would be large enough to need no coaling or bunkering between England and Calcutta or Colombo.12
The construction of the Panama and the Suez canals would also change the face of the shipping world.13 Distances would be drastically cut. Steamships from Australia would eventually take the great circle routes by way of India and Suez or the Pacific and Panama, instead of braving the storms around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. The latter route, in particular, would put the Auckland Islands well away from the new shipping lanes from Australia to Britain and Europe. Enderby, who was sufficiently interested in steam navigation to have invested in the ill fated British and American Steam Navigation Company,14 must have thought now how inevitable it all seemed.
A letter from Sir George Grey to J.R. Clendon, Resident Magistrate at the Bay of Islands, indicates that the Greys were in Wellington at the time of Enderby’s visit, and no doubt returned the hospitality he had given them while they were at the Auckland Islands. Grey’s letter suggests that Enderby almost certainly sailed north to Auckland and on to the Bay of Islands, in what was to prove a fruitless effort to contact Bishop Selwyn about the colony’s need for a clergyman:15 unfortunately, Selwyn was on his rounds of remote Northland parishes and could not be contacted.
Aerial view over Enderby Island, with Sandy Bay on the right, looking towards Rose Island, with the main Auckland Island beyond – showing the contrast between the sheer western cliffs of Auckland Island, exposed to the prevailing gales off the southern ocean, and the sheltered eastern side. Tiny Shoe Island on the far side of Port Ross can just be seen off the main island to the left. The Enderby Settlement site is between Shoe Island and the headland to its left. Left again is the volcanic knob on top of Mt Eden.
From the Bay of Islands, Enderby crossed the Tasman to Sydney, where he arranged supplies, including the purchase of sheep, and carried out business with the Company’s agent, Captain Towns.16 His absence from the colony was to come in for strong criticism17 – unjustified, because the settlement could not have survived for as long as it did without its trading, recruiting and other contacts with New Zealand and New South Wales. The settlement’s isolation had already proved some protection against the lure of the Californian goldfields; but the recent discovery of gold in New South Wales was a closer and stronger lure – so strong that with ‘the gold mania having seized all classes’, Enderby was ‘quite certain that, had I not been present on the voyage, both mates and men would have quitted the vessel’.18
Mackworth wrote in his diary that Enderby’s departure for Wellington and Sydney had left the settlement ‘very quiet today so many persons having left yesterday …’19 There was a sense of anticlimax. Mackworth – remembering how just over a year earlier he had gone to Enderby Island ‘for a short change, what a change!’20 – decided to ‘send a man [Cripps] to Enderby Island with his family for a change of air and propose allowing all the men with families to spend a week there in turn’.21 They would stay in the pilot’s cottage. Although it was winter, the island enjoyed much sunnier weather than the main island, and had the reputation of being the ‘Riviera of the Auckland Islands’.
Sea lion and two introduced French blue argenté de Champagne rabbits on close-cropped sward of grass and liverwort at the edge of the stunted rata forest, at the west end of Sandy Bay. Rabbits were eliminated 1987, and the sward is now reverting to rough vegetation.
Landfall on Enderby Island was usually made in the kelp-cushioned rocky gut at the west end of Sandy Bay rather than on the beach, as stores and gear were more safely passed ashore there. It was July, and there were only a few sea lions left on the beach as the breeding season was well over. Back in 1840, the land immediately behind the beach was described by Dr McCormick of Ross’s expedition as ‘a hollow, filled with long grass, growing in a rich boggy soil in such rank luxuriance as to be up to the hips, and flanked by a sand-hill clad to the summit by the same kind of grass’.22 The luxuriant grass had become close-cropped sward after being grazed by cattle, sheep and rabbits, which had been introduced as food for visiting mariners, sealers and whalers – the cattle and sheep being frequently supplemented from New South Wales and New Zealand for the Enderby settlers.
Nesting royal albatross and mate on low-lying herbfield of Enderby Island, looking across Port Ross towards the main island. This stunted vegetation of Cassinia, Myrsine scrub, creeping Dracophyllum, cushion mosses, dwarfed southern rata and gentians, growing at below 50 metres, is the equivalent of alpine plants growing at over 900 metres on mainland New Zealand.
An alpine gentian.
Some 400 metres behind the beach, at the west side of the clearing, was the settlement’s farm cottage in which the Cripps family was to stay.23 Continuing west for more than a kilometre, sheer cliffs of vertical basaltic rock led towards the narrow boat passage between the island and the smaller Rose Island. Inland from Sandy Bay, past the narrow belt of low rata forest, lay an open scrubland of waist-high Myrsine, Cassinia and Dracophyllum. Further inland the scrub grew thicker, and the Cripps family had to follow meanderi
ng stock tracks. Continuing north, this scrub gave way to an open herbfield, exposed to the prevailing wind. At the northeast extremity of the island, the land sloped down to a shingle shore and what is now called the Derry Castle Reef.24 Further around, on the island’s rocky eastern coast, were two large colonies of Auckland Island shags; and from there, low-lying land (where the Maori and Moriori cultivated vegetables) led back to Sandy Bay.25 It was an ideal place for a family break. The Cripps family was later followed by other families, whom Mackworth records but does not name.
July and August, apart from the usual abrupt changes of weather, were fairly routine months, with no shipping movements of importance until the Lord Duncan’s return at the end of August. During this time a boat passage was opened in the narrow neck of the peninsula, effectively turning it into an island.26 The Maori continued to be employed in road making and cutting wood.27 The settlers began clearing and cultivating new land in Terror Cove.28 A contract was let to build ‘a large decked boat 28 feet on keel for 15£’; it was duly launched in September and christened the Ariel.29 Provisions, medicines and blankets were sent down to prisoners on Adams Island;30 and considerable time was wasted in trying to locate and retrieve two anchors lost in a storm.31
At the end of August Dr Rodd handed in his letter of resignation, but begged to withdraw it the following day – the day the Lord Duncan returned, having, as Munce recorded, ‘been out since 20th May and taken no oil – 7 Men deserted this ship at Akaroa – Mrs Barton is very ill having been laid up for about 6 Weeks’. The Lord Duncan had called in at Wellington on the way home for mail, despatches and provisions. Three unsuccessful months of whaling had ended off the east coast of the North Island, and the captain brought ‘a very gloomy report of the Whale Fishery on New Zealand this season’.32 The seven deserters, who were very likely headed for the Australian goldfields, had probably been dissuaded from jumping ship in Wellington because Enderby may still have been there at the time.
The day after the Lord Duncan reached the settlement, Thomas Cook, the second mate, was dismissed for making no effort to stop the deserters, and for general incompetence while entering port. The captain’s wife, three and a half months pregnant, was put to bed under the care of Dr Rodd and Sarah Cripps. With typical kindness, the Munces took Jessie to stay with them until her mother was better, even though their house was already full and Liz Munce was herself five months pregnant. It was Munce’s opinion that ‘Captn. B evinces want of resolution to abstain from excessive drinking’.33
Within a few days of being sacked, Thomas Cook was involved in the capsizing of a whaleboat one evening, while returning with three others from Ngatere’s pa at Ocean Point. The accident occurred while he was climbing the mast to reeve a halyard. Mackworth, who had been sailing on the harbour,
pulled instantly to their assistance with two boats – saved three of the men very much exhausted – the fourth Thomas Cook late second Mate of the Lord Duncan had swam for the shore which he never reached – Sent the survivors to the Settlement in one boat and pulled in the other [for the shore], making a careful search but without success – I then sent two boat crews to renew the search I had made … although I am convinced in my own mind after what I have seen and done that the poor fellow never reached the shore.
The final search was unsuccessful, and Mackworth noted: ‘This is the first accident with loss of life we have met with; and it has naturally spread a gloom over our small colony.’34
Within a fortnight the supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables that the Lord Duncan had brought from Wellington were finished, and the settlers were making inroads into the dwindling supplies in the warehouse and store. The money spent on stores had been the target of much criticism from the directors in London, but the colonists would have faced starvation without them. They were getting through their casks of split peas, pearl barley, dried apples and oatmeal with alarming speed, and Tom Goodger had to calculate daily how long the cheeses from New South Wales might last, or the smoked Yarmouth bloaters, bottled fruit, and jam and pickles, before the next shipment from England – and there was no knowing when that would be.
The last potatoes had been eaten and the rice was dwindling fast. Many of Matioro and Ngatere’s men were away on Enderby Island planting seed potatoes and spring crops, and it would be a long time before any of these were ready. At the end of September Mackworth noted: ‘We have been for a long time altogether without vegetables.’
Fresh meat was also a problem. One party on Enderby Island ‘spent 5 days in fruitless endeavours to kill a bullock’.35 Towards the end of the month, ‘In consequence of our very limited supply of fresh meat,’ Mackworth decided to ‘give all the Company’s servants the opportunity of procuring wild pigs from the hills, by causing a cessation from work – but I am sorry to find that those who took advantage of the opportunity were unsuccessful and returned in a miserable state of exhaustion requiring medical assistance.’36
On 10 October, Janet Stove died of convulsions at the age of 14 weeks: she was the daughter of Captain Stove, whom Mackworth had put in command of the Fancy at Port Chalmers in early December 1850.37 Her funeral, conducted by Mackworth, took place four days later: ‘a duty especially melancholy here’.
Auckland Island shags gather on a grassy ledge.
The previous day Mackworth had opened a school for the settlement’s children. It had been on his mind for some time, and he had decided not to wait for the Governor’s return. Four of the children were Munces, aged from six to 12. Davy Hunt (12) was the son of the former mate of the Lord Nelson, who was now on the Brisk. Polly Gill (7) was Mary Goodger’s child by her previous husband. The Cookes’ oldest boy was six; and there were three children under six: Jessie Barton, Mary Ann Cripps and Ellis Bell, the blacksmith’s son.
Mackworth had little idea of what his new project would involve, and must have been dismayed at the time it took up. No further mention is made of the school, and with so much on his mind, it is unlikely Mackworth’s own participation continued much further. But he could hardly have closed the school within days of opening it. Of the women in the colony, the wife of the first mate of the Sir Edward Parry or her (unnamed) female companion, who had arrived in January, would seem the most likely candidates to have taken on the job of schoolmistress.38
Mackworth was increasingly worried by the length of time Enderby had been away in New Zealand and Sydney, and by the colony’s dwindling stocks of food. Should he continue to wait for the Black Dog’s return or send the Lord Duncan back to Wellington, which would mean the ship would be unavailable to go whaling? Whatever he decided, he could not afford to keep it lying idle at Port Ross much longer; so he gave notice to Captain Barton to prepare his ship for sea.
Rare flightless Auckland Island teal, a sitting target for Enderby Settlement ‘collectors’.
A wild pig makes for cover, Terror Cove.
Concerned at the colony’s dependence on outside supplies, Mackworth sent a contingent of men to the farm to break in new ground for cultivation. Another group was sent to the far side of Laurie Harbour to clear land there, but they were overzealous and set fire to a large tract.39 In spite of the waterlogged ground the flames rapidly got out of control and the fire could be seen burning for most of the night. However, by morning heavy rain had quenched the burn-off, leaving a blackened and smouldering hillside.
Finally Mackworth could put off a decision no longer, and arrangements were made for the Lord Duncan’s immediate departure for Wellington. This time Mrs Barton would not be sailing with her husband; fortunately she was much better and had her daughter Jessie back with her.40 The ship, with Gillett aboard, was about to leave when a signal was hoisted from the farm, indicating a sail had been sighted.
To Mackworth’s relief the vessel turned out to be the Black Dog, with the Lieutenant Governor aboard and in good spirits. With him were MacNish’s replacement, Dr William Ewington41 and his wife, and the vegetables and supplies everyone had been so desperately a
waiting. The wind had freshened into a gale from the north, and the Black Dog could do no more than anchor for the night. Next morning, the Lieutenant Governor was given a 13-gun salute as he stepped ashore. Of the 233 sheep on board, 16 were immediately killed for meat.
In briefing the Governor on what had taken place during his absence, Mackworth mentioned a shortage of shingle nails and roofing felt: ‘the felt sent out for the houses is quite useless in this climate … The rain turning a man out of his bed is a sufficient ground for complaint of his lodging – I have many of these complaints.’42 However, an additional room to Captain Barton’s accommodation had been completed in time for the Lord Duncan’s return.43
Enderby decided to send the Lord Duncan to Macquarie Island with a party of 14 men to take advantage of the time of year that elephant seals hauled ashore and could be slaughtered for their blubber. It left at dawn on 8 November.
That afternoon, the Governor, Mackworth, Munce with his family, and the Ewingtons sailed in the Ariel for a picnic at the Waterfall, ‘where there was as usual on such occasions, an abundance of grog’. Two days later the Ewingtons dined with Enderby at Government House with the Munces, Mackworth, and Dr and Mrs Rodd. Mrs Barton, having had a relapse, was unable to go. Drink again flowed liberally, Munce recording that ‘one individual’ – Mrs Ewington – ‘had too much Champaigne and another too much of mixture – Loo in the Evg. won 18/7 – got home at ½ past 12 and had supper of oysters’.44 Of a later occasion Munce wrote: ‘yesterday evening Mrs E came in before tea time to remain, she was so intoxicated I would not stop to tea’.45
The Enderby Settlement Page 13