100 YEARS AGO

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 303, 20 September 1939, Page 11

100 YEARS AGO

Arrival Of The Tory At Petone CENTENNIAL TODAY Pioneers Of The New Zealand Company Today is the hundredth anniversary of the arrival at Port Nicholson of the sailing ship Tory; tomorrow that of the landing on Petone beach of the New Zealand Company’s officers to negotiate the purchase of the site of Wellington.

The Tory, an eight-gun, 400-ton wooden sailing vessel, had left England a few months ahead of the first emigrant ships; she arrived off the New Zealand coast in August,. 1839, and called at the whaling station at Te Awaiti, then the most important European settlement in this part of New Zealand. Tory Channel was so named to commemorate her visit there. There were on board the Tory Colonel William Wakefield, the New Zealand Company’s agent, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, son of the founder of the company, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Dr. Ernest Dieffenbach, naturalist, Mr. Charles Heaphy, draughtsman, and Dr. John Dorset. The Tory was commanded by Captain Edmund Chaffers. At Te Awaiti the ship picked up the whaler Dicky Barrett, who was to act as pilot, and his Maori wife Rangi, a close relative of the Port Nicholson chiefs. She took on board also a trader named Smith, who was to be left in charge at Port Nicholson, if the negotiations for the land were successful, pending the arrival of the immigrant ships. The Tory Arrives. On September 20, then, the Tory entered Wellington Heads. She was by no means the first vessel to have done so; Captain Herd is reported to have called in the Rosanna, on the illfated attempt at settlement some dozen years before, when the prospective settlers were discouraged by the grotesque savagery of a Maori haka. Captain Barnett is said to have called in the Lambton about the same time. As she beat in, the Tory was met by two canoes, containing the Ngatiawa chiefs, Honiana te Puni and Wharepouri. They expressed complete willingness to fall in with Colonel Wakefield's proposals. More than anything else, this friendly attitude of the Port Nicholson Maoris made easy, and indeed possible, the settlement of the New Zealand Company’s migrants on this part of the North Island. The dominant Cook Strait tribe of Ngatitoa, led by the famous Te Rauparaha and his nephew Rangihaeata, was bitterly opposed to European settlement of any kind more permanent than the camps of the shore whalers. Te Puni, in particular, played an outstanding part in the early colonization of the Hutt Valley. Landing at Petone. The Tory anchored off Te Puni’s village of Pito-One, “the End of the Sand,” at the western end of the beach, where the Korokoro stream fell into the sea. The Maori chiefs slept on board that night. The next morning Colonel Wakefield and Barrett explored the Hutt River in a native canoe, while Jerningham Wakefield went ashore at Petone and shot pigeonsin the bush which covered the hills and ran down the .valley to within a mile and a 'half of the sea. Behind the village were sand dunes and swampy flats. They found in the village at the other end of the beach, where the Heretaunga or Hutt River entered the harbour, a Scots sailor, Joe Robinson, living among the Maoris. He had a native wife and was engaged in building a seaworthy boat from planks labouriously shaped with a. hand, saw and nails beaten out of hoop iron. He was Wellington’s first settler. September 22 was a Sunday, and Church service was held on board the Tory. On Monday began a series of discussions with the local 'chiefs on the question of the sale of the land to the white men. Te Puni and .Wharepouri, staunch allies of the whites both then and afterward, strongly advocated the sale: it was bitterly opposed by Puwhakaawe and Taringakuri, but they were overruled. Deed of Sale Signed. On September 26 the natives were allowed on board the Toly to inspect the trade goods. Afterward the sale was concluded by the signing of a formal document by 15 chiefs, including . Wi Tako Ngatata, who led the Ngatiawa against Rauparaha and Rangihaeata in the Hutt War, and, 30 years after, was made a Member of the Legislative Council.

The heap of curiously assorted trifles

for which Wellington changed hands included weapons and tools, clothing, pipes and tobacco, looking-glasses, umbrellas, beads, ribbons, and sealingwax. To it were afterward added a substantial monetary payment and native reserves, but these things were not included in the original deed. The Tory lay under Korokoro till November 4. On September 30 the Europeans hoisted the New Zealand Flag at Pito-One, and fired a 21-gun salute from the Tory. The Maoris entertained them with a feast and hakas, the missionary Richard Davis in Maori regalia taking a lead in one, to the astonishment of the Tory’s company.

So Wellington changed hands a century ago, and the foundation was laid for whatever progress and development the subsequent years have brought.