Plaque Will Mark Whaling Station

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 20

Plaque Will Mark Whaling Station

(from Our Own Reporter) TIMARU, April 22.

A bronze plaque to mark the Weller brothers* whaling station on Caroline Bay has been approved by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. Nevertheless, the South Canterbury regional committee will not proceed with its installation adjacent to the try pot until the Timani City Council reserves department has made a decision as to new landscaping in the area. A few try pots, in which the blubber was boiled, are all that remain in South Canterbury today of the whaling era. One of them, used for many vears as a watering trough at Patiti Point, stands below the railway viaduct near the foot of the bay hill. George and Edward Weller, of Sydney, established a shore station at the north end of Caroline Bay about 1835. In September, 1839. oil from Timaru was still being shipped to Otago: and. on July 1, 1840, a boat's crew from Timaru arrived at Banks Peninsula. Shore whalers were working at Weller brothers’ north station at Timaru before the season of 1840 was over, but no records exist of the names of the men (in a great manycases runaway sailors) at the Timaru station, apart from that of Sam Williams, who was the first permanent resident of Timaru.

Try pots were fixed at the head of Caroline Bay, which possibly received its name from the barque Caroline, which was used on whaling cruises.

Caroline Bay was a fav-

ourite haunt of whales. One of the well-burnt fireplaces in the gully beyond the second viaduct was exposed and washed away by heavy seas in May. 1882, and ribs and bones of the skull were plentiful along the Ninety-Mile beach, and many were used for gateposts and archways in Timaru homes, the vertebrae often be- ■ ing converted into stools for; children. A look-out was kept on the cliffs, but later the shore, party worked at Patiti Point, * where huts remained for sev-’ eral years as a reminder of. the whalers. * In their heyday, the whalers; towed the carcases in for stripping at part of the beads - which became known as, Whales creek. • The men were paid at the • end of the season, the take of ; which might be worth £lOOO, including oil and bone.