‘An infamous scoundrel’ and the riddle of Goughs Bay

Press, 12 July 1980, Page 16

‘An infamous scoundrel’ and the riddle of Goughs Bay

By

GORDON OGILVIE

There are few Banks Peninsula place names that have not been convincingly accounted for: Goughs Bay is one of them.

James Hay in his “Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury" says the original Gough (no Christian name given) was an old whaler who lived at the bay with the Maoris for a time. H. C. Jacobson mentions in his “Tales of Banks Peninsula” that a man named Gough “lived there for many' years among the natives” and was “an old whaling hand, almost a pakeha Maori.” Johannes Andersen’s “Place Names of Banks Peninsula” refers to the whaler as one possibility. He also notes that the bay may have been named after the Hon. F. Gough, who was chairman of the first public meeting, held at Birmingham in January 1850, to make known the details of the Canterbury Settlement scheme.

Either option is feasible, but my view is that Gough the whaler is our man. Moreover, I have a nominee who fits the bill: Ordinary Seaman Walter Gough, formerly of the whaling barque Australian.

The connection cannot be proved conclusively, but to anyone who reads Carl Straubel’s “Whaling Journal of Captain W. B.

Rhodes” with any attention, this identification is difficult to resist. Whaling began in Peninsula waters in 1835, several whaling ships basing their activities in that year on Port Cooper (Lyt-

telton Harbour). The 1836 season saw even more business, including the first appearance of two of Canterbury’s most enterprising pre-Adamites, Captain George Hempieman of the Bee and Captain William Barnard Rhodes of the Australian, both of whom fished initially from Port Cooper. Rhodes was employed by the Sydney firm of Cooper Holt and Roberts, and the 265-ton barque Australian was, at its launching in 1829, the largest ship built in the colony of New South Wales. He was 29 years old. After leaving his home in Yorkshire as a boy he had spent most of his time at sea. Rhodes had been on trading voyages to China, India, Java, South America, and Africa; and since 1831 had been regarded as a very successful merchant captain.

Yet it was a surprise when Rhodes was made captain of the Australian because he had had no experience in the very specialised craft of whaling. The fact that Rhodes was prepared to invest $l5O in the venture might well have influenced his

employers in their decision. Rhodes got off to a bad start, with a two-month delay in Sydney while the ship was in the hands of carpenters for necessary repairs. So the black (or “right”) whaling season was half over by the time the Australian reached Port Cooper on July 16, 1836. There, Rhodes found six ships at anchor, including Hempieman’s Bee. Next day, he shifted round

to Port Levy to avoid the congestion and based his whaling activities there for three weeks.

These were not happy days for Rhodes and his party. Though whales were plentiful they secured very few, and generally well off-shore. Heavy rowing was involved; the weather was squally and cold, one whaleboat was stove in, and Rhodes’s crew — which had been troublesome since the voyage started —- now became mutinous, refusing to work. The officers, too, were unco-operative, believing Rhodes to be incompetent. The crisis came when Rhodes gave his cook a beating for being abusive and the crew refused to work further until a committee of captains from Port Cooper had investigated the incidents. The captains found in Rhodes’s favour. On their recommendation the third mate who had “made use of a great deal of insolent language” was sent ashore, along with 17 of the crew, “an infamous, lazy set of scoundrels.” With only half his men left, Rhodes could not man the whaling boats adequately so he set off north for Cloudy Bay on September 14 to recruit enough men for sperm whaling. Despite these misfortunes, however, Captain Rhodes was able to see enough of Banks Peninsula to gain a very favourable impression of its farming potential. He returned in November, 1839, and established a cattle station at Akaroa, the first such to be started in the South Island. The men who were left behind at Port Cooper in September, 1836, with the

third mate included four boat steerers, six able seamen, and six ordinary seamen — one of whom was Walter Gough. Most of these would have found employment on other whaling vessels calling at Port Cooper. But it is likely that some were tempted, like Captain Rhodes himself, by the prospects of living on the Peninsula. By the late 1840 s there was quite a community of

retired whalers living at Port Levy across the bay from Puari, the Maori settlement, and most had taken Maori wives. Others had moved into other Peninsula bays, espcially Pigeon Bay’ and Okains, making a living from timber felling and boat building.

Walter Gough, at the time of his dismissal, had seen three months service only aboard the Australian. As an ordinary seaman he was entitled on this particular voyage to a

lav (proportionate share) of 180th on all profits up to the time of his departure. This amounted to three pounds twelve shillings and seven pence. When deductions for slops (clothing and provisions bought from the ship’s stores) had been made, Captain Rhodes’s records indicate that Gough left the ship with nothing more to show for his whaling experience than eleven shillings and eleven pence. Many dismissed or runaway seamen in Gough’s circumstances took the easiest alternative and sought the hospitality of the Penisulas Maoris.

The Kahiuanga (“Ea.t Relation”) feud of 18251828, followed by the merciless attentions of Te Rauparaha, 1831-1832, had seriously 1 diminished the Peninsula’s Maori population. Most of the dispirited remnants lived at Port Levy, though occasional pockets of Ngai Tahu were to be found in other Peninsula bays. One of these communities, tradition has it, was established in Goughs Bay at Okaruru by survivors

of the “Eat Relation” contretemps. They fled there in the hope of escaping the visits of their enemies. The bay was isolated from lanl attack by the dense bush which once filled the valley r behind and clothed the steep promontories on both sides, and the beach would have been a dangerous one for strangers to attempt to land on. This interesting pa site has recently been investigated by Barry Brailsford as part of his comprehensive survey of South Island Maori earthworks. The pa is situated on the beach terrace, with

no natural defences. Its frontage is about 150 metres long, and it extends back from the beach about 50 metres. The site was enclosed by a combination of ditch, wall, bank, and pallisade defences, with a cunningly protected entrance between the two segments of the pa. There is still evidence, according to Mr Brailsford, of five or six kumara garden stone lines on the northward facing slopes of the .valley. These slopes once showed signs of cultivation from base to summit. There can also be

seen evidence of at least half a dozen kumara or potato storage pits within the pa. The pa was a large one and Johnson states that some 700 Maoris once lived there. Though this figure is greatly' over-opti-mistic there was certainly quite a large settlement for a short period; and at the turn of this century there were still large heaps of fish, dog and seal bones testifying to the hearty feasts once held there. Barry' Brailsford estimates, from historical and archaelogical evidence, that between 1828-1831 there may have been about 100 Maoris at the bay. When Valentine Masefield first went to Goughs Bay in 1863 (two grandsons, Bob and Dick, still farm there) the poles on which the Maoris had stretched their fish to dry were standing. At every step sharpening stones, pieces ,of greenstone, stones ground mto. implements, and other curiosities could be found in the sand.

There were only, two Maoris then living at the bay, both women. One of them ■ was called Ahielia. Evidently a North Island Maori had wanted to marry' Amelia’s sister, but she did not like him and that was. why they had gone to Goughs and built a hut there. They used to spend their' time on the beach looking for the bones of Maoris to bury. If Walter . Gough had lived at this bay with the Maoris, where did he and they get to? When E. Bouriaud (one of. Akaroa’s original French Nanto-Bor-delaise Company settlers) bought the first section taken up at Goughs Bay in April 1858, there was/ no sign of Gough or

other European, and only a handful of Maoris. Te Rauparaha’s raiders had probably disposed of or scared away most of the Okaruru residents 26 years earlier. It would have been a lonely existence there for Walter Gough, with limited prospects. Trading schooners did not call in at Goughs Bay at this stage and the nearest companionship was at the infant settlement of Akaroa nine miles back over the skyline beyond the head of the valley. Jacobson does mention that Gough, the whaler, had an inseparable friend called Hodge. Records mention only one Hodge who might qualify and he was a whaler with Hempieman at Peraki in 1840. Beyond that there is only one further clue about Gough 0r his movements. When Smith Howard, the first European landowner at Hoon Hay Valley took up his 50 acres there in April 1851, the “Lyttelton Times” referred to . his rural section as being “in the valley known as Goughs. Station.” Gough was believed to be from the Peninsula. " This looks like Walter once more. He had probably moved closer to the proposed site of the new settlement and squatted — hoping, as many another pre-Adamite did, to benefit from the needs of the pilgrim immigrants. But the Canterbury Association agents quickly dashed such hopes of a quick profit. Of Gough the whaler, •Walter or otherwise, there is no further trace' or reference. What, happened to him is anybody’s guess. He most likely left New Zealand altogether, working his passage with a passing whaler or trading vessel.