OLD RUSSELL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 172, 22 July 1940, Page 5

OLD RUSSELL.

HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

HO&SON SELECTS A CAPITAL.

FRENCH NAVAL COMMANDER.

One hundred years ego,, on July 19, 1840, that able French naval commander, Captain Charles Francois Lavaud, was writing home to his Government about the situation that he had found in New Zealand. He had arrived with the Aube at the Bay of Islands on July 10, and had at once entered into cordial relations with Lieutenant-Governor Hobson, although the establishment of British rule in New Zealand had taken the French by surprise.

"The English flag," wrote Lavaud, "floats at the place two miles away from the harbour of Kororareka, on the river Kawakawa, where is the rising port of Russell town, the name by which the town to be built there is to be called."

Kororareka was on the site of the) modern town of Russell, but this was not the town which Hobson named Russell. This was situated at Okiato, 3£ J miles south-west of the modern Russell, and opposite Waitangi. Here it was; that Lavaud called on Hobson, refused ' to call him "Excellency," but every day ; sent Mrs. Hobson the French rolls' turned out by the deft hands of the Aube's cook. Clendon's Estate Purchased. For reasons that cannot be brushed aside as slight and insufficient, Hobson desired to get away from Kororareka, the chief centre of European settlement in the north of the New Zealand of 1840. The area of land on this tiny peninsula was very restricted. Then, although the community had got rid of its worst characters, the many grogshops made it ■uyi unsuitable residence for the families I of the officials—not to mention that it was much patronised by roistering sailors. Felton Mathew, Hobson's SurveyorGeneral, looked around the bay for a spot with suitable land and a good

anchorage alongsida. He hit on Okiato, the property of James R. Clendon, a British trader, who acted as American Consul.. Clendon had been at the bay since 1830, and he had made himself comfortable. He. owned one of the few houses in Xew Zealand that were at all approaching the dignity necessary for a Governor. In fact, the greater part of the price a*ked by Clendon for his property of only about 380 acres was for the buildings on it. An Expensive Deal. Hobson has sometimes been blamed for purchasing the Okiato estate and laying out the plan of a township on it when he was to decide a few months later that Auckland was to be the site of his permanent capital. It is easy to understand Hobson's choice of Okiato, of one remembers that the greater part of the European population of New Zealand was located in the north. Certainly he paid a high price for Clendon's property, but speculative values had already begun to rule, and it is doubtful whether Clendon would'have sold for less than ■ the £15,000 finally agreed upon in March, 1840. The land was worth only \ £2000, but the buildings—a house, a store, two cottages, blacksmith's forjre 1 and a carpenter's workshop—were valued at £13,000.

Clendon, however, was paid only £1000 cash down. Governor Gipps, of Xew South Wales, refused to sanction the purchase, and though Hobson, when New Zealand was separated from New South Wales, tried to honour his bargain, he no longer had behind him the ample resources of the British Treasury, but only the already embarrassed public purse of New Zealand. In 1841 Clendon received another sum in cash and 10,000 acres at Papakura. This land quickly slumped in value. Clendon bitterly regretted his bargain.

The Government, for its part, made no attempt to develop its township at Russell, once the decision had been made to move to Auckland. It disappeared so completely that its very name was transferred to another settlement, and to-day, though it is still possible to make out dimly where the lines of the projected streets once lay, one can hardly imagine that here Mrs. Hobson entertained Captain Lavaud to dinner, and a small but brilliant company gathered to discuss the prospects of the new colony and its new capital.