The Enderby Settlement

by The Enderby Settlement (epub)

  20 ESD, 28 March 1852.

  21 Parliamentary Papers No. 122, 14 February 1853, p. 10.

  22 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 11.

  23 Parliamentary Papers No. 122, 14 February 1853, p. 10.

  24 Ibid., pp. 10–11.

  25 Ibid.

  26 Munce, letter from Sydney, 27 December 1852. In Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 20. Dundas did in fact deny having made such threats, saying they had been ‘mere conversations’, but Munce could and would swear that the threat was ‘held out’ and that ‘they distinctly stated what they proposed to do’.

  27 Ibid., Enderby to Grey, 13 July 1853, p. 28.

  28 ESD, 31 March 1852.

  29 Parliamentary Papers, 1853, p. 20.

  30 Ibid., pp. 20–21.

  31 ESD, 9 March 1852.

  32 ESD, 31 March 1852. The nine other Company servants were: George Bond the surveyor, Andrew Monro, William Cook, James Lovet, Walter Weybrew, William Putt, James Wright, Thomas Granger and James McClennan. Mackworth may have overlooked Isaac Brown and wife in his list of those who left on the Samuel Enderby: his total of 18 settlers may have been 20.

  33 B.I. Fotheringham, ‘The Southern Whale Fishery Company, Auckland Islands’, MPhil thesis, Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, June 1995, pp. 106–07.

  34 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 37.

  35 ESD, 31 March 1852. A copy of the record of the five baptisms, signed by Chaplain G.E. Carwithen of HMS Calliope, was sent to me by Hazel Lane, of Taradale, on 24 May 1998; the James Hindsley Bromley baptised was her grandfather. The information is also in the Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, at Auckland Islands, held by the Registrar General, NZ. See also McLaren, The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, p. 109.

  36 The ‘collecting’ of bird, animal and botanical specimens for museums, sale or private possession was a fashionable pursuit of the time. Munce also buys a handsome sea leopard skin from George Crane for 5 shillings on 24 November 1851 (ESD). Earlier, there was Samuel Enderby’s offer to collect for Sir Joseph Banks before the Emilia’s voyage (ch. 2, n. 19).

  37 Auckland Libraries, Sir George Grey Special Collections. Sir Everard Home, letter to Sir George Grey, 28 June 1852, C-L 42 H32 (15).

  38 ESD, 31 March, 1 April 1852.

  39 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 37.

  40 ESD, 3, 5 April 1852.

  41 ESD, 5 April 1852.

  42 ESD, 9 April 1852.

  43 ESD, 13 April 1852.

  44 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 12.

  45 ESD, 14–17 April 1852.

  46 Ibid., 20 April 1852.

  47 New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Strait Guardian, 26 May 1852, p. 2.

  48 Years later, the horse’s skull was found a few hundred yards from the settlement (information from Thomas Younger, at the time surveyor for the Nelson Board of Works, quoted in the Otago Daily Times of 8 April 1870, and the Tasmanian Mercury of 26 April 1870).

  49 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 37.

  50 ESD, 24 April 1852.

  Chapter Fourteen: A Hollow Victory

  1 Wellington Independent, 19 May 1852, ‘Shipping Intelligence’, p. 2.

  2 House of Commons Parliamentary Papers No. 122, London, 14 February 1853, pp. 12–15.

  3 Parliamentary Papers No. 369, 6 July 1855, p. 12.

  4 Parliamentary Papers, 1853, p. 11.

  5 Parliamentary Papers No. 369, 6 July 1855, p. 12.

  6 Wellington Independent, 19 May 1852.

  7 Parliamentary Papers No. 369, 6 July 1855, p. 12.

  8 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, pp. 12–13.

  9 Wellington Independent, 20 May 1852.

  10 Fergus B. McLaren, The Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1948, p. 63; R.E. Malone, Three Years’ Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, Bentley, London, 1854, p. 73.

  11 Wellington Independent, 29 May 1852.

  12 The spelling of Maori chiefs’ names was often confused: see ch. 1, n. 11. Meteteri was almost certainly Ngatere, who with Matioro wrote to Grey on a single sheet of paper, dated 24 May 1852, the Monday of Queen’s birthday, asking Grey to help them leave the Auckland Islands. Buddy Mikaere quotes Ngatere’s letter to Sir George Grey in ‘Maungahuka: The nearest Maori settlement to the South Pole’, in Tu Tangata 32. The letter is in the Auckland Libraries Sir George Grey Special Collections.

  13 Wellington Independent, 20 May 1852.

  14 Parliamentary Papers, 1853, p. 15; or Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 25.

  15 Parliamentary Papers, 1853, pp. 16–17.

  16 Parliamentary Papers, 1853, p. 17 refers to Enderby’s letter as dated 18 May 1852, and Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 21 dates it 13 May 1852, although neither Parliamentary Paper actually reproduces the letter.

  17 Ibid., 1853, p. 17.

  18 Parliamentary Papers No. 369, 6 July 1855, p. 12.

  19 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 Bros, London, 1854, pp. 10–17. With regard to Enderby’s discovery that Dundas and Preston intended to use the Black Dog to quit New Zealand and so avoid ‘a notice of action for damages to the amount of £5000, which they had been served’ (p. 11), he stated his overriding purpose ‘was to obtain sworn affidavits as to certain transactions which took place at the Auckland Islands, which would in a great measure preclude the necessity for my summoning witnesses, at an enormous expense …’ (p. 17).

  20 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, enclosures 10–12, pp. 25–27.

  21 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, pp. 19, 20: Enderby letter to Grey of 23 May 1853; and Munce letter from Sydney, 27 December 1852.

  22 In his Statement of Facts, p. 16, Enderby pointed out that ‘This sum of £400, be it observed, was not as compensation for damages, but, as stated by the Chief Justice at Wellington, to be considered as a set-off in my account against the Company, which, for unpaid salary to the 28th of January, 1853, table money, passage money to England, &c. &c., exceeded £2000.’ A hopeful figure; because he was not referring to 28 January 1852, the day after his resignation as Chief Commissioner, but January 1853, which would have taken him to halfway through his year in Wellington, by which time he might have expected to have left for England. Having been unpaid since his resignation, Enderby must have been hard pressed for money; he pointed out that at the time he had been ‘without any funds’ (Statement of Facts, p. 16). The auction of goods which had taken place at his rooms at Port Ross in March 1852 had netted £13.11.3d (ESD, 13, 18 March), to which was added a payment of £115 on 20 April, four days before he left for Wellington, which meant that he had arrived in Wellington with about £128 – so the £400, a considerable sum in those days, would have been more than welcome.

  23 New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Strait Guardian, 30 June 1852, has a very full report on the trial. It was also reported in the Wellington Independent of 26 June 1852, and Lyttelton Times of 17 July 1852. Enderby also commented on the trial in his manuscript letter to Sir William Molesworth, Secretary of State for the Colonies (PRO CO 209/ 134. 7895 New Zealand, 20 August 1855, pp. 318A–19).

  24 McLaren, Eventful Story of the Auckland Islands, p. 64.

  25 Parliamentary Papers, 1853, pp. 17–18

  26 Sir Everard Home, letter to Sir George Grey, 28 June 1852. Auckland Libraries Sir George Grey Special Collections C-L 42 H32 (15).

  27 Parliamentary Papers, 1853, p. 18.

  28 Ibid., p. 12.

  29 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 28.

  30 Parliamentary Papers, 1853, p. 15; or Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 25.

  31 Parliamentary Papers, 1853, pp. 18–19.

  32 Listed as sailing on the Brisk and Black Dog in addition to the ships’ crews were constable Henry Batten; James Bell the blacksmith with wife and two children; Mrs Cadenhead, wife of the Black Dog’s chief mate; John Chapman, builder and mason, with his wi
fe and three children; Mrs Evans, wife of the second mate of the Brisk, presumably with her child; Company servant Flashborn; Mrs Freeman, wife of the Brisk’s master, with her child; Mr and Mrs Tom Goodger with their children Polly and Mateora; Mrs Hunt and son; farmworker King; Company servant Thomas Lawton; Thomas Lomax, sawyer and shingler with his wife; Constable James Macintosh; Dr Rodd and his wife; and a Mrs Webb: 29 passengers in all (ESD, 13, 17 July 1852).

  33 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Shipping Intelligence’, 13, 15 September 1852.

  34 Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 17.

  35 Ibid., p. 19.

  36 Ibid.

  37 Ibid., pp. 22–23.

  38 Ibid., p. 20.

  39 Ibid., p. 46.

  40 Ibid., p. 23. Enderby’s fears were justified, in that two months previously, the Duke of Newcastle, British Secretary of State, had written to inform him that the Queen had been advised to accept his resignation (Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 15). The Duke of Newcastle had made his decision on the strength of being forwarded copies of the Special Commissioners’ despatches from the Auckland Islands to the Governors of New Zealand, New South Wales and Tasmania, which had presented only Dundas and Preston’s side of events there, and after receiving Enderby’s letter of 4 September 1852, outlining his troubles with Dundas and Preston (Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 14). No notice had apparently been taken of the damning results of the Wellington trial against Dundas and Preston, or of the affidavits Enderby had attached with his letter of 4 September, on the judge’s advice that they would add valuable support to his case (New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Strait Guardian, 30 June 1852). Because of the usual delays Enderby would not know until he arrived in London that the Queen had already accepted his resignation. Instead, he remained reassured by the extracts of earlier despatches from the Duke of Newcastle passed on to him by Sir George Grey (Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 28), which led him to believe that his resignation would not be considered until he had had the opportunity to put all the facts before the British government in person. He was still of this belief when he wrote to the Duke of Newcastle from Sydney in September 1853, while on his way back to London, thanking him for not accepting his resignation ‘until I am afforded the means of bringing the facts of my case fully before the Government’ (Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 28).

  41 Ibid., p. 28.

  42 John R. Spears, The Story of the New England Whalers, Macmillan, New York, 1908, pp. 116–17, 191, 199, 336–39.

  43 Charles Enderby, 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, London, Effingham Wilson, 1847, pp. 10–11.

  44 Paul Hamlyn, New Zealand’s Heritage: The making of a nation, Hamlyn, 1971, p. 356.

  45 Enderby, Proposal, p. 41. B.I. Fotheringham, in ‘The Southern Whale Fishery Company, Auckland Islands’ (pp. 37–39), gives an excellent summary of the Southern Whale Fishery Company’s struggle to raise the necessary capital. Enderby had originally proposed £250,000 be spent on 50 ships, £30,000 on wages and £2000 on buildings, roading etc, before profitable returns could be expected from the whale fisheries – and that this could take up to two and a half years. However, because of the failure to raise more than a third of the required £300,000, a reduction of the fleet to 30 ships became the target; but even this would prove ambitious, as the final fleet numbered just eight vessels.

  46 Enderby, Statement of Facts, pp. 24–25.

  47 Ibid., p. 59.

  48 In his letter to Grey of 13 July 1853, Enderby expected to ‘quit Wellington tomorrow for Sydney’ (Parliamentary Papers, 1855, p. 28).

  Chapter Fifteen: End of the Dream

  1 ESD, 24 April 1852.

  2 Ibid., 28 April 1852.

  3 Ibid., 27 April 1852.

  4 Ibid., 26, 28 April 1852.

  5 Ibid., 29 April 1852.

  6 Ibid., 1 May 1852.

  7 Ibid., 4 May 1852.

  8 Ibid., 4, 5 May 1852.

  9 W.R. O’Byrne, A Naval Biographical Dictionary: Comprising the life and services of every living officer in Her Majesty’s Navy, from the rank of Admiral of the Fleet to that of Lieutenant, inclusive, John Murray, London, 1849.

  10 ESD, 8 July 1852.

  11 Malone, R.E. Three Years’ Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, Richard Bentley, London, 1854. Malone records on p. 78 that there was a total of 306 people on the islands at the time of the Fantome’s visit: 123 were the crew of the Fantome, 44 whaling seamen in port, 92 land-based colonists and 47 Maori. The number of land-based men, women and children settlers – in the proportion of 36 men, 22 women and 34 children and infants – was almost exactly the same as Enderby had recorded a year earlier on 1 July 1851 (Parliamentary Papers, 1853, pp. 2–3).

  12 ESD, 11–13 May 1852.

  13 Ibid., 17 May 1852.

  14 Ibid., 31 May 1852.

  15 Ibid., 3 June 1852.

  16 Ibid., 10 June 1852.

  17 Ibid., 12 June 1852.

  18 Ibid.

  19 Malone, Three Years’ Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, pp. 70–72.

  20 It is interesting that on this occasion a harpoon gun was being used, instead of the more widely used hand-held harpoon.

  21 ESD, 23 June–2 July 1852.

  22 Malone, Three Years’ Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, pp. 72–73.

  23 ESD, 11–12 July 1852.

  24 Barbara Ludlow, Greenwich historian. Letter to author, 18 January 2001: information from Norman Bishop, great-great-nephew of Reuben Bishop.

  25 ESD, 17 July 1852.

  26 Ibid., 20 July 1852.

  27 Ibid., 5 April 1852.

  28 Michael King, Moriori: A people rediscovered, Viking, Penguin Books, Auckland, 1989, p. 86.

  29 ESD, 26–30 July 1852.

  30 Malone, Three Years’ Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, p. 68.

  31 ESD, 17 March 1852.

  32 Ibid., 13 July 1852; Malone, Three Years’ Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, p. 78.

  33 Ibid., 2 August 1852.

  34 Ibid., 3 August 1852.

  35 King, Moriori, p. 86.

  36 Buddy Mikaere, ‘Maungahuka: the nearest Maori settlement to the South Pole’, in Tu Tangata 32, pp. 60–61; quoting Ngatere’s letter to Sir George Grey (Auckland Libraries Sir George Grey Special Collections).

  37 Malone, Three Years’ Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, p. 78.

  38 Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, ‘Shipping Intelligence’, 18 September 1852. From the Auckland Islands on 4 August, the Fancy left Otago on 24 August and arrived Sydney (reportedly as the Fanny) on 12 September. As well as Mr Dundas, with Captain Stove were his wife and two children, Mrs G. Cook [Matilda Cook, who would be returning to New Zealand] and child, a Miss E. Cook [?], Mrs Brown, and 10 in steerage. The Fancy finally left Sydney for London in November 1852 (B.I. Fotheringham, ‘The Southern Whale Fishery Company, Auckland Islands’, MPhil thesis, Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, 1995, pp. 104–05).

  39 Fotheringham, ‘The Southern Whale Fishery Company’, p. 104.

  40 ESD, 4 August 1852.

  Epilogue

  1 Melbourne Argus, 10 November 1852.

  2 Otago Witness, 21 August 1852.

  3 Sydney Morning Herald, 6, 8 October 1852.

  4 Letter, Towns to Newton, 5 October 1852. From C.J.R. Robertson’s Preface to ESD, and his research of Towns Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney.

  5 Melbourne Argus, 10 November 1852, and Melbourne Auction Mart, 21 February 1853. Information from Dr Miles Lewis, ‘Prefabrication for the Gold Rushes’, Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning, Melbourne University, in fax of 8 October 1999 to Paul Dingwall, Department of Conservation, Wellington; and Miles Lewis, Prefabrication in the Gold Rush Era: California, Australia, and the Pacific, APT Bulletin XXXVI, no. 1, pp. 7–16.

  6 C.H.E. Fulton, unpublishe
d autobiography of Mrs James Fulton (née Catherine Valpy), 1915, Hocken Library, Dunedin, MS 846, p. 13.

  7 Ibid., p. 2. James became a successful landowner and MP for Taieri, and his brother Robert’s grandson, Jules Fulton, was co-founder of the New Zealand-wide contracting firm of Fulton Hogan in the 1930s.

  8 Ibid., pp. 14–15.

  9 Mackworth had joined a newly established branch of the Bristol firm of Miles and Kingston, involved in general shipping and trade, but with wool in particular, from the colonies of Australia and New Zealand to Britain. On 20 April 1855 he wrote to Cargill enclosing his senior partner’s proposal for trade opportunities, with a brief note of his own hoping that Cargill had not forgotten him. National Archives, Wellington, Ref CP6, Box 1, 1855/ 47, Letter.

  10 Fulton, unpublished autobiography of Mrs James Fulton, p. 20.

  11 Ibid., p. 31.

  12 Births, Deaths and Marriages, Central Registry, Dunedin, Folio No: 2600 / 1917, Ref No: 0207 97. 18.

  13 Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, ‘Shipping Intelligence’, 18 September 1852.

  14 Kaye Williams, Munce Mystery – Unrivalled! Ireland 1690 Van Diemen’s Land 1832, privately published, 1999, ISBN 0 7246 2385; personal communication and letters to the author: the late Harold Munce of Wyunna, Queensland.

  15 Captain Frederick Bracegirdle, Master Mariner, Unpublished MS, Sydney Public Library. With further information from Julie Tadman, the Captain’s great-granddaughter, Wamuran, Queensland.

  16 Information supplied by Mrs Janet Denne of Lindfield, NSW, wife of the Cranes’ great-grandson.

  17 Gareth Winter, Archivist, Masterton District Council (letter of 31 July 2008).

  18 Miriam Macgregor, Petticoat Pioneers, Book 1, A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1973.

  19 Transcribed from a Radio New Zealand Women’s Hour programme and supplied by descendant Sarah Howell of Dannevirke. Radio Archives have no record of the talk or when it went to air. However, it was almost certainly written by Celia and Cecil Manson, as it closely resembles an article of theirs: ‘Wairarapa Worthies – No 3. Granny Cripps, A Famous Hostess of the Nineties’, Wellington Dominion, 3 April 1954.

  20 Material from descendant Sarah Howell of Dannevirke.

  21 Robert Carrick, ‘Auckland Islands’, MS qMS0397, Alexander Turnbull Library, p. 18, quoting Thomas Younger.