Epitaph: Frank Garrard 1852-1881

In Christchurch's sadly neglected pioneer cemetery, and close to where the 1863 chapel stood until 1955, lies the second grave of 29 year-old Frank Garrard.

Captain Francis George Garrard
2 March 1852 - 30 April 1881
On his way to Melbourne for his wedding, the youngest captain in the inter-colonial service drowned along with another 130 souls, when his vessel was wrecked on the Otara Reef at Waipapa Point, near Invercargill. The sad tale of their demise is enshrined as one of our nation's most tragic shipping disasters.

A graduate, with distinction, of the Royal Naval School at Greenwich and hero of a subsequent shipwreck, Garrad had been readily promoted from Second Officer of the Hawea to Chief Officer of the steamship Taupo, then Master of Albion and finally to the command of the Union Steamship Company's 17 year-old, trans-Tasman liner Tararua. Third owners of the ill fated 828 ton steamer (below), the Union line employed her on the regular passenger service between Lyttelton, Port Chalmers, Bluff, Hobart and Melbourne.


Found with a pocket watch and a locket containing a portrait of his prospective mother-in-law on his corpse, Frank was intially buried in what would become known as the Tararua Acre, just above the beach where his body had washed ashore. Exhumed on the instruction of his former classmate at the Royal Navy School and brother-in-law, the shipping magnate Sir Joseph Kinsey, Frank Garrard was reburied at Christchurch three weeks after his demise. He lies beneath an imposing monument, the upper part of which is carved to resemble an anchor held fast in rocks.

Special thanks to Sarndra Lees for the grave photo and the inspiration.

An Almost Forgotten Lyttelton Grave

Thomas Rousel Stevenson from Yorkshire had signed on at London in May 1901 as a Greaser aboard the Shaw, Savill & Albion Company's 14 year-old emigrant ship RMS Gothic.

The 7,750 ton steamer (above) had subsequently embarked passengers at Plymouth, before proceeding to Tenerife in the Canary Islands for coal. Well bunkered, the liner headed for Cape Town and then Hobart, before reaching Wellington. She sailed from the Capital on the 6th of June, arriving at Lyttleton on the following morning. Backing into the port's No.5 Wharf (below), she prepared to load chilled meat and butter over the next twelve days for her return to London via Cape Horn, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro.


Granted shore leave, twenty six year-old Thomas was looking forward to visiting friends at Woolston that cold Winter's evening. Taking a train from Lyttelton, he fell from the carriage (in the vicinity below) fracturing his skull. Found later that night, he was taken back to the port, where an operation was performed at the hospital, but he died on the following morning.


In Lyttelton's Anglican cemetery, a Marble tombstone was erected at the expense of the Officers and crew of the Gothic. No longer marking the site of his grave, it's now set into the retaining wall of a path, which passes through the centre of the cemetery.

There is some confusion over Thomas's surname. Rousel, originally meaning a man with red hair, was an Anglo-Norman surname of great distinction and may have been considered somewhat pretentious for a humble engine room Greaser aboard a nondescript emigrant ship.

Lyttelton's Anglican cemetery on upper Canterbury Street was established in 1849, with the earliest burials predating the arrival of the first of the Canterbury Association's chartered emigrant ships.

An Elderly Visitor to Port Lyttelton

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Continuing to enjoy her 83 year working career, the 49 metre floating crane Hikitea arrived in the port at 1.35 am on the 5th of June, 2009.

Departing from her home port of Wellington for the first time since her 82 day delivery voyage from Glasgow in 1926, the Hikitea will spend a week at Lyttelton, undergoing hull plate replacement and tailshaft repairs in the graving dock.


Owned by the Maritime Heritage Trust since 2006, the 746 ton floating crane was built by Sir William Arrol and Company Ltd, whose greatest claim to fame is probably the 1894 construction of London's iconic Tower Bridge.

Photo credit: Second photograph Kiwi Frenzy On Location, third to fifth photographs Cranes Today Magazine

Historic Royal Navy Photograph Identified

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Down here at Canterbury Heritage we're always pleased to be able to identify reader's old New Zealand photographs, but we'll have to admit that maritime history continues to be an equal interest. Accordingly we were delighted to see a mid-Victorian photograph, of great rarity and of potentially significant interest to international maritme historians, in the collection of a renowned Christchurch collector of early photography.

In a northerly aspect of the anchorage off Portland Harbour, Dorset, at some time between 1872 and 1874, the photograph depicts three Royal Navy warships at anchor.

In the foreground is the cadet training ship HMS Boscawen, launched as HMS Trafalgar in 1841, Stationed at Portland from 1872 until 1906, she was broken up in the following year.

The middle ship is the HMS Achilles, launched in 1863, she served as the guardship at Portland from 1868 until 1874. In her time the five-masted ironclad was the largest sailing vessel in the Royal Navy and mounted the greatest area of canvas ever spread by a warship of any nationality. Renamed HMS Hibernia, she became a base ship in 1902, subsequently known as HMS Egmont, then HMS Egremont, her last change of name came in 1919 as HMS Pembroke. A modified design of the extant HMS Warrior, her 63 year career ended with demolition in 1925.

In the distance is HMS Minotaur, commissioned in 1868 as the Flagship for the Channel Squadron at Portsmouth. In 1893 Minotaur was re-named as HMS Boscawen II and used as the cadet training ship at Portland until 1905. Subsequently renamed HMS Ganges, she was broken up 1922.

The date ascribed to the photograph is attributed as a consequence of the stationing of the Boscawen at Portland from 1872 and the removal of two of Achilles's masts in 1875.

Wakatu: first chapter in a family saga of maritime loss

The last of the Lyttelton to Wellington passenger ferries to make the 280 kilometere voyage via Kaikoura ended her eventful 45 year career very close to where she had previously attended the tragic wreck of notable predecessor. Her demise would be the first chapter in a tale of the loss of two inter-island ferries by father and son captains


At the beginning of November 1878 John Currie Moutray and Robert Martin Crosbie of Nelson's Soho Foundry laid the keel of a cargo-passenger vessel for the local shipping enterprise of the Cross brothers and Burchard Franzen. Completed for a contract price of £6,000 and christened with the Maori name for Nelson Bay, the Wakatu was launched on the evening of the 6th of July 1879 from the foundry's Bridge Street slipway, near the Nelson Post Office.

In as much as Moutray and Crosbie had previously built a replacement engine and boiler for Captain G. Cross's paddle steamer Result, it may be surmised that they also constructed the compound steam engines for the propulsion and steam winches of the new vessel. With a boiler pressure of 65 pounds of steam per square inch, her engine developed a nominal 25 horsepower, therby maintaining a service speed of 9 knots.

Built for Cross and Company's Nelson to Wellington and Wanganui service, the 90 ton (78 tons net) steamship, was originally 32.23 metres in length, with a beam of 5.5 metres and a draft of only 1.8 metres. Up to a hundred tons of freight could be carried in her 6 metre deep hold. Fitted out at the Corporation Wharf as gaff rigged schooner, she could initially accommodate about 40 first class passengers. With the main saloon aft, there was also a seperate ladies' cabin amidships on the main deck. Further accommodation for second-class passengers was forward on the lower deck.

In the second week of November 1879, under the command of Captain Charles Evans, the Wakatu commenced her maiden voyage to Wanganui, returning to her port of registry via the capital a week later. But her first career would come to an abrupt end little more than two years later when she was stranded while crossing the Patea bar. An attempt to get her off with the evening tide failed, and she crashed violently against the cliff, a portion of which fell upon the ship. The hull therby being stove in, the Wakatu filled with water and became a total loss.


Sold to Levin & Company of Wellington, the vessel underwent a major reconstruction. With the hull extended by 4.25 metres and the gross displacement increased to 157 tons, the main deck passenger accommodation was significantly enlarged (above). Transferring her registry to the capital, William Levin put the rebuilt steamer on the Wellington to Lyttelton run, a service that the Wakatu would perform with reliability for longer than any other vessel.


Wakatu at her usual Lyttelton berth on the Ferry wharf.
In an omen of what would be her own and adjacent fate, Wakatu attended the wreck of the Lyttelton bound 228 ton coastal steamer Taiaroa, which went ashore just to the north of Waipapa Point on the Kaikoura coast in April 1886. With only 14 saved, 34 lives were lost and the Wakatu returned to Lyttelton with an awful cargo of coffins.

Apart from a night time collision with the steamer Storm off Motunau Island in March 1909, which left a gaping hole in her bow, the next two decades were fairly uneventful for the Wakatu. The highlight being when the Australian Poet Henry Lawson and his wife took passage aboard her in May 1897. Excitement returned in the early days of the First World War when she was was fired upon by the guns in the fortress on Ripapa Island in Lyttelton Harbour for failing to observe the War Regulations.


In the later ownership of the Wellington based Wakatu Shipping Company, she encountered her final mishap in thick fog at 5.00 am on the 6th of September 1924, while sailing from Wellington to Kaikoura and Lyttelton. An unusually strong current threw her high onto the beach on the northern side of Waipapa Point, very close to the wreck of the Taiaroa (below).


The remains of the Taiaroa as seen from the stranded Wakatu
The Wakatu was under the command of her regular master, Captain David Robertson, who was exonerated by the Court of Inquiry, which found that when the weather came up thick, with fine rain, a south-east wind, and a heavy swell, the vessel was at least four miles off shore, which was a safe position; that in altering the course at 2:30 a.m., and 2:40 a.m., the master adopted a safe and prudent course which, under ordinary circumstances, would have carried the Wakatu well clear of Waipapa Point, and that the casualty was caused by an unusually strong set owing to the action of the wind and tide, and to the fact that the vessel was lightly laden.


The crew of the Wakatu still aboard the stranded vessel.
Four years later Captain Robertson would be dismissed for trying to conceal another mishap, when his next command went ashore on Banks Peninsula. In a curious quirk of fate, David Robertson's son Captain Gordon Robertson would be in command of the inter-island ferry Wahine, when she sank in April 1968, with a loss of 51 lives.


Holed and buckled near the stern, the ships' resting place was so far up on the beach as to make salvage impossible, but her location greatly simplified the recovery of the cargo. Several attempts were made to refloat the ship, but were unsuccessful, and she was abandoned as a total loss on September the 12th.

Only a few hundred yards from the road, the Wakatu was still a photographic opportunity in March 1927.

Subsequently cut up for scrap where she lay, only her keel now remains to be seen on the beach.


Long supplanted by larger and faster vessels in the Lyttelton-Wellington service and the development of road and rail transport along the South Island's north-eastern coast, the loss of the Wakatu marked the end of Kaikoura as any more than a fishing harbour, but the long lost vessel is still commemorated in the name of that township's Wakatu Quay.

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Many thanks to Steven McLachlan of the Shades Stamp Shop, the late Frederick William Weidner (Kaikoura Star photographer), Graham Stewart, the Nelson Examiner newspaper, the National Library of New Zealand, et al.

Podcast: Migrant Passenger Lists

With specific reference to New Zealand and the lack of lists of migrants arriving via Australia, this 53 minute talk from the UK's National Archives, will be of particular interest to family historians.

In Every journey has two ends: using passenger lists, Chris Watts reveals the benefits of using both arrival and departure records when searching for details of our migrant ancestors, as well as demonstrating how the shortcomings of content, indexing and accessibility can be minimised.

Download the 37 Mb audio file (every-journey-has-two-ends.mp3)

Photo: attended by the extant 1907 tug Lyttelton, RMS Rangitiki (1928-1962) docks at Lyttelton's Gladstone pier after a five week maiden voyage from London via Curacao and the Panama Canal.

U.S. Navy at Lyttelton 1925

The period following the First World War was conspicuous for the number of warships visiting the port of Lyttelton; state visits, showing the flag exercises, good-will cruises, massed deployments and demonstrations of strategic reach saw extravagant numbers of naval vessels in the harbour during the years after the Great War ended.

One of the more impressive visits occured when a fleet fourteen vessels, including Clemson class destroyers and an Omaha class light cruiser of U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet, visited the port between the 11th and the 21st of August 1925.


After annual manoeuvers near Hawaii and accompanied by eight movie and still photographers aboard the flag ship Seattle, Admiral Robert E. Coontz, Commander in Chief of the United States Navy, led a battle fleet of more than 50 warships and 23,000 men on a cruise via Samoa to Australia and New Zealand. The battleship West Virginia acted as the radio control vessel for the tour and several broadcasts directed to Australasia were relayed to listeners by local stations.

Departing from Melbourne on the 30th of July, the battleships accompanied by divisions of cruisers from the Scouting Fleet and squadrons of destroyers headed for New Zealand, where four sections of the fleet entered the harbours of Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton and Port Chalmers simultaneously. The officers and men were extensively entertained in our cities and the visit did much to further cement the friendly feeling existing between the United States and New Zealand.


Last of the flush deck, four funnelled Destroyers, the 88 Clemson class vessels were built between 1919 and 1922. With a length of 96.4 metres, a maximum speed of 35 knots and a complement of 122, they were armed with four 4 inch (100 mm) guns and twelve torpedo tubes. The Robert Smith, Yarborough and Stoddert are known to have been among the fourteen to visit Lyttelton. Another fourteen would be sunk in the Second World War.


Also with four funnels, the eleven Omaha class light cruisers looked remarkably similar to the Clemson class destroyers. They were built between 1923 and 1925 to scout for battleships and featured a maximim speed of 35 knots for coöperation with the destroyers. Displacing 7,050 tons, they were 171 metres in length and armed with twelve 6 inch (152 mm) guns. Of this class, the U.S.S. Trenton (1923-1946) is seen moored at Lyttelton's No.3 Wharf in the second photograph.

Footnote

Inspired by this post is a comprehensively illustrated New Zealand Journal article about the US Navy's Pacific Fleet visit to Wellington in 1925 (which opens in a new tab or window).

A Most Unlucky Ship

Of all the ships to have served Lyttelton Harbour the luckiest would have to be the extant steam tug Lyttelton of 1907, but at the other end of the scale was the unfortunate Manchester.

Launched for the Manchester Ship Canal Company by William Simons & Company at Renfrew, near Glasgow on Tuesday, the 15th of July, 1890, the Hopper Dredger was named Manchester. With a length of length: 55.3 metres (180.2 feet) and a beam of 12 metres (39.1 feet), Yard No 279 displaced 881 gross registered tons. Capable of dredging 700 tons per hour to a depth of 10.75 metres (35 feet) and fitted with electric lighting, she cost her owners £20,000.

The canal was completed in 1894 and four years later the twin screw vessel was offered for sale at £15,000. In June 1898 the Lyttelton Harbour Board offered £12,750  for the dredge and by September the sale had been completed.

Subsequent to undergoing repairs, the Manchester left Liverpool for Lyttelton on the 7th of February 1899.  Aboard was the brindle Bull Terrier of Andrew Anderson, son of the 1850 pioneer blacksmith and Mayor of Christchurch, who was visiting his parent's former homeland at the time. In what was probably the longest ever voyage to New Zealand, it would be another fourteen months before the Civil Engineer would see his dog again. In the meantime the Anderson's Lyttelton shipbuilding yard constructed a hopper barge to act in consort with the new dredge.

The Manchester made it as far as Ireland, where she put into Waterford for machinery repairs. Next stop was Gibraltar where she incurred further repair costs amounting to £700 during her month long stay. Crossing the Mediterranean, the dredge traversed the Suez Canal before sailing on to Singapore via Colombo in Sri Lanka.

Eagerly awaited in Lyttelton, where few of the larger ocean steamers were now making the township their final port of departure, owing to the risk when they were fully loaded, Captain John William Clark, the Lyttelton Harbour Master left by the Monowai for Brisbane in late January 1900 in order to meet and take charge of the Harbour Board's dredge.

Under Clark's command the Manchester sighted Cape Maria at 10.50 p.m. on the 9th of March 1900, and the North Cape next morning, when the gale abated. Owing to bad weather she called in at Whangamumu on the evening of the 10th, where it was discovered that the feed-pipe in her engine room was cracked. Repairs were effected at Auckland and on the 14th she sailed for Lyttelton, which she reached on the 22nd of that month.

Andrew Anderson was on the wharf to meet her arrival, but long before he could see anything he heard the joyous barks as his dog careered around the deck in a geat state of excitement. But the dredge had experienced a terrible voyage, most of which was spent undergoing repairs in ports along the way, and there was a great deal of discontent among the crew, as they had signed on for a fixed amount for the duration of what turned out to be a 408 day voyage.

On the 5th of April 1900, at a meeting of the Lyttelton Harbour Board, the chairman stated that the Board had suffered great loss in connection with bringing out the dredge from England. He reported that the persons who had been paid to protect the Board's interests had grossly abused their trust, and the expenses of the dredge, instead of being £24,000, had been £30,000. A special committee was set up to report on the expenses and delay incurred.

By the end of the following month the Manchester was deemed ready for service and a trial of the dredging machinery was undertaken while the vessel was moored between No. 7 wharf and the graving dock. In half an hour from fifty to sixty tons of highly tenacious, cement-like mud were raised from the harbour floor.

The Manchester's most significant contribution to the development of the port was the reclamation to the southern side of the graving dock, where the oil wharf and tank farm now stands, but during this time crew members succumbed to fatal accidents on two occaisions. In March 1912 she was replaced by the 1,117 ton suction hopper dredger Canterbury (1911-1968) and the Manchester was offered for sale at £20,000.

Sold to the Sydney Harbour Trust in 1912, Manchester departed from Lyttelton in the command Captain James Downie on the 3rd of April. Aboard were three of the original crew who had brought the vessel to New Zealand in 1900, one of whom had also served his apprenticeship with the builders of the dredge at Renfrew. The balance of the crew were local seamen. Sailing from Wellington for Sydney on the following day, after passing through Cook Strait the Manchester was never heard of again.

By the end of April the cruisers Challenger, Encounter and Pioneer were searching for the dredge, but beyond the discovery of three lifebuoys bearing the name Manchester, Lyttelton in the vicinity of the Manukau Heads and Hellensville between June and November, no trace of the vessel was found. Thus ended what is perhaps one of the most poignant of all Lyttelton's tales.

Photo Credit: Photograph of the Manchester moored on the Manchester Canal courtesy of the Manchester Ship Canal Society.

Lyttelton: May, 1924

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As part of the 1923-4 world cruise of the Royal Navy's Special Service Squadron, the D Class Battle Cruisers Danae, Dragon and Dauntless visited Lyttelton from the 1st until the 8th of May 1924. With a combined complement of nearly 1,400 sailors, HMS Danae is moored opposite the inter-island ferry Wahine at the No.2 Wharf, with her sister ships at the No.3 Wharf.

Tales of Banks Peninsula

Canterbury Heritage is pleased to announce the Internet publication of a new edition of Tales of Banks Peninsula.

Compiled by 1883 and published the following year by Howard Charles Jacobson (1841-1910), the Editor and owner of the Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, the book is a compilation from various sources about old identities and early historic events, and also small pieces written by Jacobson for his newspaper.

Written by the Maori historian the Reverend James West Stack (1835 -1919), the first part covers the legends and folklore of the Maori, from the warfare between the Ngati Mamoe, Ngai Tahu, Ngatiawa and Ngapuhi tribes until the advent of European settlement in the mid 1830s. Stack's contribution is followed by the anecdotal reminisces of many of the earliest European pioneers in the district.

The book's historical significance may be appreciated by the knowledge that it was republished in 1894, 1917, 1976 and continues to be cited in the adjudications of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Where the subject matter deviates, the chapters have been re-paragraphed for this edition. In the interests of historians and genealogical researchers, etc., the proper nouns or names have been amended to their current usage. Punctuation, abbreviations and Dickensian-era grammar have also been slightly amended in accordance with current conventions, but beyond that, this revised edition remains faithful to the original text.

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The links to the parts of the book (in blue) open in new tabs or windows.

TALES OF BANKS PENINSULA

Frontis and prefaces to the earlier editions.

FOLKLORE OF THE MAORI

Pa of Nga-Toko-Ono (The Pah of the Six)
Parakakariki
Tu Te Kawa
Waikakahi (Wascoe's)
Ngai Tahu Taking Possession
Te Mai Hara Nui
Kai Huanga (Eat Relation)
Raid on Panau (Long Look-Out)
Capture of Te Mai Hara Nui
Onawe
Maoris Reorganising
Death of Tu Te Hou Nuku
Conclusion

PART 1

European Account of the Massacre in Akaroa Harbour
George Hempleman and his Purchase of Akaroa
George Hempleman's Diary
"Headed Up" (The imprisonment of Puaka at Peraki)
The French Settlement of Akaroa
Early Days
Arrival of the First English Ship
Reminiscences of the First Five Years
A Lady Colonist's Experiences
Billy Simpson
Jimmy Robinson
Jimmy Walker
"Chips" (Adolph Friedrich Henrici)
Thomas Richard Moore, M.D
French Farm and the Survey
John Henry Caton
The Chief Paora Taki's Story
Story of a Snake Hunt in Akaroa Harbour by Mrs. Tikao
The Mysterious Disappearance of Mr. Dicken
Harry Head
The Loss of the Crest

PART 2

LeBon's Bay
Okain's Bay
Little Akaloa
German Bay
Robinson's Bay
Duvauchelle'a Bay South
Pigeon Bay
Head of the Bay
Island Bay
Little River
Charteris Bay
Gough's Bay
Peraki

MORE STORIES OF OLD SETTLERS

Mr. Philip Ryan
Mr. Thomas White
Mr. William Isaac Haberfield

PENINSULA STORIES IN VERSE

Akaroa
Our Jubilee
The Legend of Onawe
The Legend of Gough's Bay

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Image credit: Akaroa, April 1840 (an engraving entitled Baie d'Akaroa, from Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans l'Océanie sur les corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zélée, 1837-1840, by J. Dumont d'Urville.)

Lyttelton 1855

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This is a restoration of the earliest known photograph of Lyttelton. Dated 1855, it is view down Canterbury Street from the north-east corner of the intersection at London Street. Taken from the immediate vicinity of what is now the site of the Volcano Cafe, it shows what was then the main shopping street of the early port. The conflaguration of 1870 cleared the way for the horizontal London Street to replace Canterbury Street in that respect.

Viewed from the south-west corner of London Street are:

Armitage Brothers's Butchery

William Pratt's Drapery and General store. Pratt subsequently sold out to the Baker and Confectioner Thomas Gee (this photograph comes from the collection of Gee's Grandson, Alfred Selwyn Bruce). William Pratt went on to found the Christchurch store that became Ballantynes.

The front fence of the house of Henry William Reid. A Dr. McCheyne lost his life by falling down the (extant) entrance steps behind the gate.

Unknown shop.

Samuel Gundry's hardware store

Mrs Coe's Drapery shop

The Livery Stables of Thomas Bruce and Coe (the aforementioned Alfred Selwyn Bruce (1866-1936) was the son of Thomas Bruce (1826-1887) and his wife Ellen, formerly Gee (1833-1928).

The first Mitre hotel on the corner of Norwich Quay, opened by Major Hornbrook in 1849 and destroyed by fire in 1870.

s s Gazelle 1852-1889

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There are no known specific photographs of the Lyttelton coastal passenger steamer Gazelle. However, she appears in the distance in five photographs of the port taken between 1861 and 1879, and it's therefore been possible to recreate her original appearance with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Screw driven steam ships were still something of a rarity in 1852 when the 78.85 ton vessel was launched by John Horn (1815-1895) from Malcomson's Neptune Iron Works at Waterford, Ireland. Early propellor designs were plagued with vibration and the paddle wheel driven steam ship remained more popular into the 1860s.

With a length of 25.17 metres, 4.95 metres in the beam and a draft of 2.35 metres, she was clinker built of overlapping iron plates, affixed with clench bolts. In the 6.75 metre engine room two diagonal direct acting 30 horsepower steam engines were geared to a single shaft. Built by Wilton & Company of Deptford, England, the engine cylinders were 36 centimetres in diameter, with a stroke of 46 centimetres.

The eventful career of the Schooner rigged vessel began in the ownership of Anthony G. Robinson of London, where she was registered in 1853. Sailed to Australia, she was sold in March, 1854 to Frederick Evelyn Liardet of Ballam Park at Sandridge, who used her for carrying the Royal Mail and overseas passengers from Port Melbourne to the city.

In April, 1857 ownership was transferred to Captain William Lushington Goodwin (~1798 -1862) of Launceston, who employed the Gazelle in the passenger trade between Launceston and Georgetown. On the 28th of August 1860 she was sold to a James Nichols, passing three days later Charles V. Robinson of Launceston and James Lilly of Melbourne for service between the coastal ports of south-west Victoria and Melbourne until September 1861. She then passed briefly to James Tobin Cockshott (1831-1867), a merchant of Melbourne.

But the longest chapter in Gazelle's career began with her arrival in the command of a Captain James at Lyttelton in October, 1861. Her new owner was Frederick Banks (1825-1894), of Heathcote, Christchurch. A partner with Murray Aynsley in the shipping agency of Miles & Co. on Norwich Quay, Banks had arrived from Melbourne in 1857.

In the service of Miles & Co., from November, 1861 Gazelle carried passengers, in two classes, from Lyttelton's Peacock's Wharf to the South Island coastal ports of Kaiapoi, Kaikoura, Akaroa, Timaru and Port Chalmers. Until 1863 she appeared in the command of Captain Thomas Gay, whose previous vessel, the whaling brigantine Corsair, had been wrecked at Lyttelton in April, 1861.

In March of 1863 the Gazelle stranded at Saltwater Creek in the Kaiapoi River estuary. By the Autumn of 1864 she was carrying miners to the gold fields at the head of Pelorous Sound in the Marlborough district.

By the later 1860s, economic depression and the development of the provincial railways precipitated a decline in the demand for coastal passenger services and Gazelle was plying Lyttelton Harbour carrying Immigration and Health Officers to overseas vessels entering the port and also acting as a tug and passenger tender.

Serving the port of Christchurch on the Heathcote River at Woolston by 1862, on Saturday, the 2nd of November, 1867 Gazelle ran ashore on the north spit when towing two ketches across the bar at Sumner. Expected to become a total loss, the wreck was sold to new owners (probably Talbot, McClatchie & Co.), recovered over a specially built way and rebuilt by Anderson & Grubb at Corsair Bay for £1,000 (the engine being rebuilt by John Anderson's Lyttelton foundry).

In 1868 the Port of Melbourne registry (40931) was tranferred to Lyttelton. In July of that year she salvaged cargo from the 163 ton brig Daniel Watson, which had been wrecked on the Shag Reef in Lyttelton harbour. On the 15th of August a Tsunami originating off the seaboard of Peru caused the Gazelle to break her moorings when a tidal surge swept up the Kaiapoi river. The steamer smashed into the wooden schooner Challenge as a consequence. But her greatest claim to fame came on the 22nd of April, 1869 when she conveyed Queen Victoria's second son from the 4,686 ton steam frigate Galatea anchored off Little Port Cooper into the township.

On Tuesday, the 27th of September, 1870 Gazelle's captain; the dour, black-bearded, Scotsman Hugh McLellan, was seriously hurt when he fell into the hold while the vessel was moored at a Kaiapoi wharf. McLellan (1836-1905) resided at Lyttelton's extant Islay Cottage and would subsequently become the Harbour Master, but a forceful personality and fierce Highland pride made him enemies in the port and he was forced to resign in 1885.

By January, 1874 she was listed as being either commanded or owned by Captain Thomas McClatchie (1833-1903) of Brittan Terrace, Lyttelton. Two years later, in the command of Henry Zachary Nichols, with seven crew and one passenger aboard, a member of the crew was lost overboard 15 miles off Lyttelton Harbour's Godley Head.

Although by the later 1870s she was still a sound sea-going vessel, Gazelle was facing stiff competition from newer and more powerful vessels in the Lyttelton service. In 1877 she undertook a five month salvage expedition to the General Grant, which had been wrecked on the Auckland Islands in 1866. Her master Captain Giles was able to locate the wreck, but no gold was recovered.

Six months later the little ship was inolved in a more successful salvage, recovering cargo from the wreck of the Ann Gambles in Bluff Harbour. But there was insufficient work for her in the South Island coastal trade and she was sold in April, 1879 to Reginald Bright of Melbourne. Re-registered there, a month later she was sold on to W. H. Wischer and Company, Superphosphate and Fertiliser merchants.

By March, 1884 Gazelle was owned by William F. Walker of the Waratah Bay Lime, Marble and Cement Company. Captained by John Brown, she plied in the Lime trade to Waratah Bay, Victoria and also called at other Gippsland ports to load general cargo. Subsequently cut down to a Lighter and with her engines removed, she was used by the Barham River Timber Company to carry timber to vessels loading in the crescent shaped Apollo Bay (located between Lorne and Cape Otway, 187 km southwest from Melbourne).

Succumbing to an easterly gale of the notorious Bass Strait weather, the Gazelle was swamped at her mooring and blown ashore in Apollo Bay on the 25th of February, 1889. Laden with railway sleepers, she would become one of the 16 known shipwrecks in the bay (of which only three have been identified).

Not quite forgotten across the Tasman Sea, her New Zealand sojourn is commemorated by the naming of Gazelle Lane in the Christchurch suburb of Redcliffs.

Corrections and amendments, etc. would be appreciated.

The Port Lytteltons

Two passenger carrying refrigerated cargo vessels have carried the name of the Port to which they were both regular vsitors.

The first Port Lyttelton was built at Belfast in 1902 as the twin screw Niwaru. With a length of 135 metres and a beam of 17 metres, she was delivered to the Tyser Line in March of that year.

At a service speed of 12 knots, she regularly carried frozen meat from New Zealand to Britain, but her 22 year career was not uneventful. On her second voyage, the 6,444 ton cargo liner, took on water in a heavy sea and charcoal from the insulation of the refrigerating chambers clogged her bilge pumps. 26,000 carcases had to be jettisoned overboard.


In August of 1903 the Niwaru was holed when she grounded off Napier. A mat covering the hole was carried away and the net inflow increased to twelve inches per hour, but the vessel managed to return to Napier under her own steam.

But her place in history was assured when she departed from Wellington on the 29th January 1903 with Katherine Mansfield as a passenger. The entire passenger accommodation was occupied by nine members of the Beauchamp family. Niwaru sailed via Cape Horn and the Canary Islands, where a photograph was taken of the family with the ship’s officers.

In verses that she wrote during the voyage, Mansfield mentioned a Tiger cub, which the Chief Officer kept in the No. 2 hold during the day and exercised on deck at night, to the alarm of the women passengers. But of that incident apparently little memory remained nearly twenty years after, when she wrote to her father: “... I still I have a very soft corner in my heart for the Niwaru. Do you remember how Mother used to enjoy the triangular shaped pieces of toast for tea? Awfully good they were, too, on a cold afternoon in the vicinity of the Horn. How I should love to make a long sea voyage again one of these days! But I always connect such experiences with a vision of Mother in her little Sealskin jacket with the collar turned up. I can see her as I write.”

Most of the family returned to Wellington, but for the next three years Katherine remained in London as a pupil at the Queen’s College in Harley Street.

In 1914 Niwaru's owners were instrumental in bringing about the formation of the Commonwealth & Dominion Line, later to become the Port Line, contributing eight ships and their houseflag, which never changed. Although not a huge fleet, Tyser and Company's ships were considered to be the finest on the Australasian run and set the standard for the first thirteen ships built by the new Commonwealth & Dominion Line.


Renamed Port Lyttelton in April 1916, the vessel was subsequently seconded by the Royal Navy and converted to a troop ship as His Majesty's Auxillary Transport Port Lyttelton.

Returned to her owners in 1919, her career ended on the 23rd January 1924, when she ran on to the rocks at Beauty Point near the entrance to Tasmania's Tamar River. Salvaged the following month, the Port Lyttelton was sold for scrap at the time when there was a worldwide surplus of tonnage. She arrived in Italy in September where the ship was broken up.

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By comparison the second Port Lyttelton enjoyed a somewhat less eventful 25 year career. Her greatest claim upon posterity appears to have been her role in New Zealand's waterfront strike of 1951. Local Wharfies (Stevedores) were charged with conspiracy relating to the loading of the vessel at Wellington in that year.


Launched at Newcastle in 1947 by R & W Hawthorn, Leslie & Company, the 10,780 ton ship was only slightly larger than her ill fated predecessor at a length 148.47 metres and a beam of 18.95 metres.


The emergence of container shipping sealed her fate and she was sold to Shipbreakers in 1972. The second Port Lyttelton was broken up the following year at Faslane in Scotland.

New Ship for Lyttelton

Soon to be a frequent visitor to the port of Lyttelton, the largest New Zealand operated cargo ship Spirit of Endurance will arrive at Auckland on Sunday, the 9th of November, 2008 on her maiden voyage from China. 

With a service speed of 17 knots and a gross tonnage of 7,464 tonnes, the 130 metre vessel will load about a thousand containers for Lyttelton and Port Chalmers.

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Photographs by courtesy of Pacifica Shipping (1985) Limited

Britannia at Lyttelton 1977

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Mid-afternoon, Friday, 4th of March, 1977.

An elevated southerly view of HMY Britannia at Lyttelton's No. 6 Wharf. To the Left is the Leander Frigate HMNZS Waikato (1966-2002). Across the end of the wharf can be seen the Fisheries Protection and Survey vessel HMNZS Kuparu (1943-1989).

The Royal Yacht sailed in the late evening for a secluded Banks Peninsula bay, where the Queen and Prince Phillip enjoyed a quiet weekend.

Lyttelton Royal Visit 1957

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From Melbourne, with the Duke of Edinburgh aboard, Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia berthed at Lyttelton's Oil Wharf on Saturday the 15th of December, 1957.

At 7.00 a.m. on the following morning Britannia shifted berth across to the north side of the harbour where the New Zealand frigate escorts Hawea and Pukaki were already lying.

Above: Prince Phillip went ashore at 10 a.m. and was presented with a yacht by the New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation. This boat, called White Heron, was made of fibre glass, and was subsequently embarked on the boat deck for carriage home. After inspecting the Antarctic supply ship HMNZS Endeavour (below) and her crew, the Duke of Edinburgh left by car for Christchurch to carry out the remainder of the day's programme.

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Britannia departed for the Chatham Islands at 11 p.m. on Monday the 17th December. The Endeavour, which later followed Britannia out had the misfortune to be caught in a heavy gust in the harbour. The reconnaissance aircraft, which was secured to her aft deck, was damaged, but the vessel herself escaped damage.

HMNZS Endeavour had been commissioned into the Royal New Zealand Navy on the 15th August, 1956. The wooden hulled Antarctic supply vessel was built in the United States in 1944 as the net layer USS Satinwood and served in the British Home Fleet as HMS Pretext from 1944. 

In 1947 she was bought by the Falkland Islands Government and renamed John Biscoe. She was subsequently refitted for polar conditions and for three years serviced stations and parties of the Falkland Island Dependencies.

In June 1962 she was sold again, renamed the Arctic Endeavour and fitted out for sealing work in the Arctic. The vessel foundered off Newfoundland on the 11th of November, 1982.

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Acknowledgement: the enlargable images are from the Canterbury Public Libraries' flickr web site.

Last Photo of the Wahine

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This is quite possibly the last photograph of the inter-island ferry Wahine at Lyttelton on the 9th of April, 1968.

Andrew Clark writes "Taken by my Dad at the ferry terminal while waiting to go to Wellington for their honeymoon. Mum freaked out at the approaching storm clouds and convinced Dad to re-book for the next sailing..."

Photograph by Andrew Clark of Dunedin.

Lyttelton Tall Ships Race

The topsail schooner Tradewind leading the brigantine Søren Larsen up Lyttelton Harbour on the 23rd of December, 1990. Also taking part in the race was the barquentine Spirit of New Zealand.

The race was one by the 37 metre (121 ft) steel hulled Tradewind (below). She was built in the Netherlands in 1911 as the herring lugger Sophie Theresia.