Time, gentlemen please, for Barretts!

Press, 16 July 1982, Page 14

Time, gentlemen please, for Barretts!

By

ARTHUR KIDSON

On June 7. Barretts Hotel, popular watering-hole for parched Wellingtonians, served for the last time its beers, brandies, gins and whatnot, then put up its shutters. That closed not only a pub, but a picturesque chapter in New Zealand history. The first Barretts Hotel opened on October 22, 1840. on a site within musket-shot of the present-day Wellington railway station, port installations, and Parliament buildings. On that date “a numerous party of gentlemen sat down to a dinner which was served as advertised, promptly at six. Many and varied were the people toasted and long was the list of speech-makers.” Eighteen, no less, and each guest paid a guinea-and-a-half — a hefty slug in those days — for the privilege of dining and wining and listening to addresses by 18 leading citizens. Mine host was the jovial Richard ("Dicky") Barrett, aged 33, a short, fat, shrewd Cockney from. Rotherhithe; one-time sailor, whaler, and castaway; agent and interpreter for the Wakefields' New Zealand Company; and instrumental in the purchase for that company of large tracts of land in Taranaki and Wellington, including the present site of Wellington City, its suburbs, and the Hutt Valley. For the opening of this first Barretts Hotel, Dicky was immaculately dressed. He was accompanied by his Maori wife, Wakaiwa, chieftainess of the Ngati-te-Whiti, sub-tribe of the Ngatiawa, who towered above him, tall and regal. The two were legally married on March 18, 1841, at the Wesleyan Mission House, Ngamotu, Taranaki. Barretf is registered on i the marriage certificate as a < “Whaling Master,” one of the I

many roles he played during his scant 40 years of life. As a lad he went to sea. In Sydney, he met John Agar Love, master of the brig Tohora (Whale), progenitor of a large and well-known New Zealand family. Tohora was a trading vessel, plying between Sydney and Ngamotu. the present site of New Plymouth’s Port Taranaki. There, in 1829, a cask of pork, slipping from a sling, stove in the vessel and sank it, close enough to land for the crew to get safely ashore and subsequently .salvage many useful things, including four small cannon and some kegs of gunpowder. These proved invaluable two years later when a taua (war party) of Waikato Maoris, numbering about 4000, swept down into Taranaki and, after making mayhem at Waitara, advanced 12 miles or so further and besieged the Moturoa pa at Ngamotu where Barrett and his fellow-castaways lived. • On receiving news of this hostile approach, the handful of Europeans helped the local Maoris to put their Moturoa pa into a strong state of defence, building earthworks, digging trenches, erecting palisades, storing provisions. The four guns were mounted and used to good purpose when the Waikatos attacked. The defenders had no round-shot, so they loaded their primitive artillery with stones, scrap-iron, nails, bolts, and broken bottles, which caused havoc nt close range against a massed enemy. One gun exploded, but caused no casualties

within the pa. The Waikatos used many stratagems and made many fierce attacks in their efforts to take the Moturoa pa, but were repulsed with heavy losses by the garrison, led and directed by Barrett and his shipmates. In “The of Taranaki," published in 1875, B. Wells gives a graphic account of the fighting, and of the last desperate assault by the Waikatos. “By now the siege had lasted for three weeks, and the enemy’s food was getting short, for he had not a single slave or prisoner left to cut up into rations ... “At first dawn of the day the last assault was made by the whole force of the enemy. Amid terrific yells, the fences were cut, and a party was within the pa before some of the besieged were well awake. A brave and faithful little band of the besieged fought with the energy of despair, cutting off the retreat of those who had entered the pa. "The three remaining carronades were served with celerity and precision, the missiles which they belched out inflicting horrible wounds in the bodies of the assailants. “The enemy charged again and again, until at last a panic seized him, and he retreated, dragging his dead chiefs but leaving his wounded. Three hundred and fifty mutilated bodies lay around the pa, some dead and some living. Then the Ngamotus rushed out to wreak vengeance on the wounded ... “The beach in the vicinity of the pa presented a horrible spectacle, portions of

human bodies lay scattered about, and the dogs fed on human entrails. Ngatiawa lost 13 chiefs in this fight; these were buried with barbaric honours ... “The Waikatos never repeated their attack, though they threatened to do so; and the remnant of the Ngatiawa finding themselves too weak to oppose effectually any renewed attack from Waikato, migrated with their women and children, and rejoined their relatives at Otaki, Wellington, Queen Charlotte Sound, and other places.” ■ With them went Barrett

and his shipmates, settling in the. Marlborough Sounds where they engaged in whaling — a profitable if risky occupation then — which ■ they had pursued (along with the whales) when they lived at Ngamotu. By a great stroke of luck for Barrett, the Wakefields' vessel Tory, on August 31, 1839, entered Tory Channel and anchored at Te Awaiti. In his journal, “Adventure In New Zealand,” Edward Jemingham Wakefield records

the occasion: “As soon as we arrived. Mr Richard Barrett, who was at the head of one of the whaling parties, came off in his boat to us ... "Dressed in a white jacket, blue dungaree trousers, and round straw hat, he seemed perfectly round all oven while his jovial ruddy face, twinkling eyes, and goodhumoured smile, could not fail to excite pleasure in all beholders. “And a merry party it was to look upon, as we sat round a bottle of grog on the cabin-

table, listening to the relation of the wild adventures and ‘hairbreadth ’scapes’ of Barrett and his two fellowwhalers.” The upshot was that Barrett shipped aboard the Tory as pilot and interpreter, though some say that his rendering of the Maori language was something akin to pidgin-English. Be that as it may, Barrett had a great empathy with the Maoris, who adored him, especially when, as sometimes happened, he wrestled with their lithe young men and threw them ignominiously to the ground.

The Wakefields paid Barrett well for his services, one reward being a grant of land in the Thorndon area near where Parliament buildings now stand. There. "Dicky" opened a groghouse, in a large raupo whare, frequented by the local settlers, hungry for comfort and companionship; stray seamen, many of them deserters from their ships; and Maoris with their womenfolk and their mongrel dogs. The arrival from England of Dr G. S. Evans with a prefabricated building put Barrett on his feet as a publican. He bought that building for £4OO and had it erected across the road from his primitive groghouse. This first Barretts Hotel comprised the original twostoried Evans edifice plus a two-storied wing or annex with a billiard room on the ground floor and a large meeting-hall above, capable of holding several hundred people. During its 15 years of existence this tavern became “the hotel that was everything.” Almost weekly Wellington citizens gathered there for levees, banquets, stage shows, balls; meetings to discuss defence, banking, social, political, and trade matters. On one occasion they formed a Pickwick Club to which, on November 7, 1840, Charles Dickens sent his compliments. About that time the young Irish composer, Vincent Wallace, stayed at Barretts while working on his opera, "Maritana,” and on his song, “Alas! Those Chimes So Sweetly Stealing." said to have been inspired by the bells of a nearby church.

The first public meeting at - Barretts was held on Decem--1 ber 8. 1840, to consider the r establishment of a library in > Wellington, books having been sent from England for i the purpose.’ Four days later ■ another meeting was held, , resulting in the purchase, for £3O, of Barrett’s former groghouse, which thus became New Zealand’s first public library. Dr Knox was appointed librarian at a salary of £75, and a management committee consisting of Captain Smith. Mr Smith, and Captain Rhodes was set up to put the house in order. Many and various were the matters which bedevilled Wellington’s early settlers, and which they tried to iron out in the course of discussions at Barretts. On Monday, February 15. 1841, for example, a public meeting was held there "to take into consideration nefarious attempts being made by Captain Hobson (then Governor) to seduce away (to Auckland, then the capital) artificers and labourers of this settlement and to petition Her Majesty for his recall." A month or so later the settlers met again, in a "numerous and respectable assemblage,” to consider what could be done to protect the public from the outrages of the police. It seems that in those days Wellington's bobbies were a wild, irresponsible lot, who resorted to “the use of pistols, handcuffs, and ruffianly dragging to the lock-up on unfounded charges by police constables.” Complaints of that kind ceased as a result of steps taken after this meeting.

. For several months, after, a disastrous fire in July, 1842, destroyed Wellington's post-office, police building, and courthouse. Barretts Hotel was used as a court. Nine years later Sir George Grey.* then New Zealand’s Governor, took over the annex, turning the top storey into a council chamber and establishing government offices in the lower part. Alan Fulton writes, in "The Hotel That Was Everything," "The first Wellington provincial government was installed there on the lower part and held its important and somewhat stormy meetings with E. G. Wakefield as' leader of the opposition. The left hand or main building was used about this time as a Supreme Court, Bank of Issue, and Registrar’s Office." The great earthquake of January 23, 1855, put an end. to all that. It wrecked many, Wellington buildings, including Barretts Hotel. The' licence was transferred to' more central premises on Lambton Quay. .And now this last Barretts is, as the first one was, doomed for destruction. That, however, will not be brought about by an "act of God" but by bulldozers and other devilish devices used by the knackers. ■ "Dicky,” of course, will not be around to see it happen. In 1844, he retired to his Moturoa whaling station ’’ where he died on February 23, 1847. There his remains lie buried along with those of his wife, Wakaiwa, and their . two daughters. A headstone marks the spot, a few miles from New Plymouth — close to the scene of many of Barrett's . adventures, and close to. where he first made his entry on to the New Zealand . stage. Barretts’ Reef, at the entrance to Wellington Harbour, perpetuates his name.;