Death Knell Of Cromarty, Small Sounds Settlement

Press, Volume C, Issue 29604, 29 August 1961, Page 17

Death Knell Of Cromarty, Small Sounds Settlement

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL August 28. The death knell of the small settlement of Cromarty, in Preservation Inlet, has been sounded by a notice in the latest Gazette. Cromarty is about five miles up Preservation Inlet from Puysegur Point. The township, once a scene of bustling activity in the gold boom of the 1890’s, will now revert to the Crown, and become part' of the Fiordland National Park, under the control of the park board. The Lands and Survey Department has resumed ownership of about 25 sections. some owned by descendants of people famous in Southland and New Zealand history. Among them are Cyril Rupert Joseph and Vincent Aubrey Ward, sons of Sir Joseph Ward, a former Prime Minister of New Zealand. These sections have been given up to the Crown by agreement with the descendants. About five others will still remain the property of descendants of the original owners. Government Project Cromarty was laid out by the Government in the 1890’s in the course of a project to establish a fishing industry at the- sounds, partly to relieve the distress of crofters in Scotland, who were brought out to Otago by New Zealand finance.

The small township was named Cromarty after the Scottish shire from which most of the settlers came. The settlers were helped with grants of land and with subsidies for the provision of fishing gear—but the venture was not a success. The remoteness of Cromarty from the main centres of civilisation, and the difficulties of getting the fishing catches to the markets were factors which contributed to the collapse of the scheme. After the discovery of gold, Cromarty boomed for a time, but when the gold petered out, the township became derelict. Its last resident was Jules Borg, a hermit, who died in the Riverton Hospital about eight years ago.