An Architour of some of Tauranga’s older homes

 Recently, and in conjunction with Gerry Hodgson, a retired local architect, Tauranga Historical took a group of fifteen people on a most interesting trip around the northern end of Te Papa peninsula. We viewed houses from the roadside and learnt about the differing styles of home building in New Zealand from earliest European settlement to modern times.

The Elms Te Papa.  Image: Julie Green

Our first stop was of course the Georgian/Regency/Colonial example in Mission Street.  The Elms Te Papa was built predominantly by hand with local materials. Gerry pointed out its symmetrical design with a well-lit central foyer, matching twin dormer windows and the absence of a verandah —unusual for this style of house, so it may have been the personal preference of its first occupants, the Brown family. It was completed in 1847 by missionary carpenters, with doors and windows made on site, and hand- polished glass imported from Moravia for the many small window panes. The roof originally had kauri shakes but early in the 20th century they were covered with corrugated iron.

Gerry Hodgson on the front veranda at Brain Watkins House.  Image: Julie Green

Next we arrived at the front of Brain Watkins House at 233 Cameron Road — a Victorian Square Villa. This is still somewhat symmetrical in style with a central corridor and a wide verandah trimmed with ornate fretwork. Probably built to a standard plan from a sale catalogue, it was constructed by local shipwright and civic contractor Joseph Brain in 1881 for his wife and four daughters. The kauri used in its construction was transported here from Coromandel in one of his small scows.  The house was extended around 1900 as Joseph’s family had grown: a fifth girl was born in 1891. 

Edwardian house, Arundel Street.  Image: Julie Green

Gerry confessed to knowing little about the history of the next home we visited, in Arundel Street.  He called it an Edwardian house: the earlier fashion for symmetry having lessened in favour of a bay window on one side and a verandah extending around two sides or more. It was interesting, however, to note that the fretwork decorating the facade is almost identical to the 1880s Brain Watkins House, even though this one dates to 1910. It also features finials on the gable ends and little overlapping tiles above the bay window. 

“The Old White House” in Second Avenue. Image: Julie Green

Very close by in Second Avenue is the location of a Californian Bungalow or Ranch home, built in 1906 using large posts and beams. It has almost a Japanese flavour, and Gerry pointed out the presence of great ventilation features in the ceiling spaces included in the design. The present owners have chosen to replace the corrugated iron with textured malthoid tiles when reroofing.

The two aspects of 186 Devonport Road.  Images: Julie Green

A short walk around the corner and down a hedge-lined drive brought us to this 1932 English Revival stucco home off Devonport Road. The front and back facades are quite different.  The street side of the house features large Tudor-style beams. On the other side, facing the harbour and a large front lawn, a vestibular verandah is constructed within the main frame.

The street entrance, 186 Devonport Road.  Image: Julie Green

After a short break for a snack next to the WWII memorial at Memorial Park, we had to retreat to our vehicles due to heavy rain. Driving to the other end of the reserve, we parked next to the QEII sports pavilion and looked across to the rise where Fraser Street and Eleventh Avenue meet. There, in 1972, a Gerry Hodgson-designed-home, featuring a cantilevered verandah, was built with cedar and brick. It is presently owned by another architect who invited its designer over for a cup of tea not long after purchasing this truly NZ-style home.

Exterior and interior, 40 Fraser Street.  Images: Gerry Hodgson

A very independent woman

Yatton Park from above, 2026.  Mansel Street is at extreme top-left corner.  The site of the original homestead, above the bend of the Waimapu Stream, is entirely covered by trees. Image: Google Maps

During the Victorian era, intrepid female explorers defied strict societal expectations of domesticity, travelling the globe for adventure, scientific discovery, and personal freedom. Mary Kingsley explored west African jungles and swamps, Isabella Bird the explorer and travel writer rode 800 miles over the Rocky Mountains, while the artist Marianne North ventured to all of the continents and her collection of botanical art is housed at Kew Gardens in London. Another woman, this one Irish-born, Lucy Mansel travelled to New Zealand prepared to break in the land and farm, accompanied by six of her nephews.

As well as her sense of adventure, the family background may also have led to a desire to leave England as her brother and later her sister did, for their father Robert Mansel, who was the Lieutenant Colonel of the 6^th Inneskilling Dragoons, was the first of several illegitimate children fathered by General Robert Manners and his common-law wife Mary Ann Goodchild. Mary was the daughter of a coachman so not of the same class as her partner. Manners never married and died aged 65 in 1823 in London but had lived at Bloxham Hall in Lincolnshire.

Lucy Mansel heard of George Vesey Stewart’s Katikati settlement in New Zealand from a friend and decided to take a big step and emigrate. She was unmarried and, on the Northumberland in 1884, brought with her six nephews: Charles, Herbert, William and Harold Mansel, sons of her brother Robert, and Clement and Robert Dowell, sons of her sister Mary Dowell [1].  She had been caring for Herbert since he was five years old. On arrival in New Zealand, she decided against settling in Katikati with the other Stewart people and instead bought an established farm on the outskirts of Tauranga. It was Yatton, the 320-acre property formerly owned by John Chadwick [2].

Miss Lucy Mansel (centre, holding a dog) and her young relatives, October 1899. Herbert sits in front.

Image: Te Ao Marama Tauranga City Libraries 09-003

Miss Mansel, as she was known in those more formal days, extended the existing house at Yatton to one with eight bedrooms and also built a large barn that was used for balls and other social occasions.  The domestic buildings were built on a high point overlooking the estuary. She was a very strong supporter of the Anglican Church, helping to fund-raise for the new church of St George’s at Gate Pa, and was the only woman on the building committee. She donated the font for the new church. Lucy made the Methodist Sunday School children welcome each year for their annual picnic at her farm after their short voyage up the estuary from Tauranga to the landing at Yatton.  The barn provided shelter if there was poor weather. 

 Miss Lucy Mantel and her boating party on the Waimapu, October 1889.

Image: Te Ao Marama Tauranga City Libraries Photo 09-004

Lucy Mansel was also a committee member of a group of Tauranga women who organised the gift of a photograph album for Mary, Duchess of Cornwall, later George V’s Queen, on the occasion of the Royal Visit in 1905.  It was an album of Tauranga and district photographs by Tauranga’s leading photographer Mary Humphries.

As well as having her nephews working on the farm, she also accommodated farm cadets from England as G.V. Stewart and some of his Katikati settlers did. She never married and left the farm to her nephew Herbert Benbow Mansel, the five-year-old whom she had brought up. It was this legacy to Herbert that prompted Lucy’s niece, Mary Constance Dowell, to contest the will that Lucy had signed in 1910.  Her claims of her aunt’s fading mental facilities and encroaching blindness were disputed by George Maltby, lawyer; Reverend Eric Rice, vicar; Dr Budenell her doctor; Walter Baigent, accountant; and nephew Herbert Mansel.  In light of the information from these men Mary Constance withdrew her objection to the granting of probate.

It is from Herbert’s submission that the family stories are revealed. Robert Mansel and his wife, parents of Herbert and his brothers, retired from the Royal Navy where his rank was Commander, to farm in Africa where he died in 1872. When he married in Tauranga, Herbert built another house on Yatton for his future family, adjacent to Lucy’s. His parents had taken four of his siblings to Africa. Herbert was 17 when he arrived in Tauranga and totally dependent on his aunt. During her lifetime Lucy gave Herbert part of Yatton in trust for his children and helped him financially, including help with the education of his children. Lucy also told him she would leave him the remainder of the Yatton estate. By 1914 she had sold any remaining property in England and brought the money to New Zealand. Lucy’s eyesight did get worse but she lived until 1916. She died in Auckland and is buried in Tauranga’s Anglican cemetery [3].

Subdivisional map of Yatton, May 1919.  Image: Te Ao Marama Tauranga City Libraries Map 20-230

Lucy’s sister Mary Mansel married George Dare Dowell of the Royal Marines.  He won the Victoria Cross during the Crimean War. It was his sons who had travelled to Tauranga in 1884 with their Aunt Lucy. Following Dowell’s retirement, the couple moved to New Zealand until his death in August 1910. His wife died 6 weeks later.

Family military tradition emerged again when the First World War broke out and three sons of Robert Charles Mansel and his wife Beatrix enlisted.  George Victor and Robert Charles Mansel returned home after the war but Herbert Pengelly Mansel died in Palestine from malaria.  Although he is buried in the Jerusalem War Cemetery [4], his memorial can be found in St George’s Church, Gate Pa.

Both images: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.  
At right: AWNS-19160727-45-25; at left, photo by Janes Bruce Ringer, 3003-2914

References

[1] Rorke, Jinty, entry in Dictionary of NZ Biography 1993: Lucy Mansel

[2] Bay of Plenty Times, 4 April 1941: see Papers Past, National Library. Viewed 16/05/2026.

[3] Will of Lucy Mansel, Archives NZ. Auckland Probates IE48341583. Viewed 17/05/2026.

[4] Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database.

 

The Wreck of the Cutter Oi on Panepane Beach, 1890

 

Panepane Point and Beach from Mount Maunganui, showing part of the narrow main shipping channel and the Tauranga harbour.

Populated for centuries by Māori iwi, and today mostly associated with Ngāi te Rangi hapū, Matakana Island is a long, flat barrier island 20km in length and about 3km wide. The island forms a sand barrier between Tauranga Harbour and the vast South Pacific Ocean. Since time immemorial Matakana’s dune-backed beach has been a landing and wrecking site for waka Māori, and before and following the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, a diverse range of Māori and Pākehā owned sailing vessels.

The name Panepane in 19^th century European sources referred to a specific southern section of Matakana Island close to Panepane Purakau or Panepane Point, not the entire ocean beach [1]. It was in fact a name for the southernmost three kilometres located across the channel from Mauao | Mount Maunganui.

Sailing craft, driven eastward during gales, were thrown bodily onto the beach where their crews attempted to leap clear into the surf, before their vessels began a deadly mast-shattering roll. Again, when sailing vessels of all sizes attempting to enter or leave the harbour during marginal conditions missed the channel by even a little, they, depending on conditions, either grounded temporarily or were rolled and wrecked among the breakers.

A Tauranga-owned and -based cutter, the Oi became a common sight on Tauranga Moana during its three-year working career - likely named, in part, after the common nautical haloo in use at the time, “Oi, ahoy!” Kauri-built cutters were much favoured by Tauranga’s small maritime entrepreneurs though they never outnumbered schooners. Interestingly, their single owner-operators also styled themselves master mariners though their crews might number only one or two.

On 16 January 1890, the Oi left the little Bay of Plenty port of Maketū. Crossing the Kaituna River outlet through heavy surf, it began the short 27km (14.6 nautical sea mile) voyage up the coast to Tauranga with a cargo of flax. Information on the cutter’s tonnage is not available, probably because it was unregistered. Regardless, the provisions and coastal timber trade on the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty coasts between the 1870s and 90’s was often handled by sailing cutters of 8-30 tons.

A gale had sprung up a day before the Oi’s departure from Maketū, but the captain and crew, later identified as ‘Messrs W. Turner and W. Cinnamon’ undertook the voyage regardless. The Oi cutter was last seen on the same day by people near Mount Maunganui around midday. It was then battling heavy seas just off Motuotau | Rabbit Island and Moturiki | Leisure Island and heading towards the Tauranga Harbour entrance [2].

 There were soon grave fears at Tauranga for the safety of the Oi and its crew, and two days later, despite the gale which was to last for a week, an intrepid search party comprising ‘Messrs Moss, C. Faulkner, C. Spencer, Allely, Maxwell, and Cotter’, was organised. First crossing by boat to Pilot Bay below the Mount, they were informed by the crew of another cutter that had just safely passed through the Mount Maunganui Channel, that they had seen wreckage of another vessel on Matakana Island’s Panepane beach.

The old Auckland-based, gaff-rigged cutter Jesse Logan. Note the long bowsprit which, without making their masts taller, increased the sail area of cutters while allowing the sail plan to be broken down into smaller, more manageable headsails.

Crossing the channel to Matakana Island and Panepane Beach, the search party found the remains of the Oi lying literally smashed to pieces above the high-water mark.

The mast was broken off to a stump, the bowsprit was completely wrenched out, and the timbers had all parted at the stern, leaving a great gap. Her hatches were off, and the hold was swept of everything. Her rudder was found broken in two places, and her sails were found on the beach double reefed. No trace of the crew was discovered, and there is little doubt that these unfortunate young men have found a watery grave. It is difficult to say what caused the catastrophe [3].

The following day, the same party began another search along the full length of Matakana Island’s ocean beach on horses hired from the Island’s Māori residents. Half way towards Tauranga Harbour’s northern Katikati entrance ‘they found broken oars, part of a hat belonging to Cinnamon, and parts of an accordion’[4].  Footprints on the beach initially gave some hope and the cutter Eleanor and several other local boats continued the search as the gale abated. The police also searched Mount Maunganui’s forested slopes but the Oi’s crew were never found [5].

 The loss of well-captained, shallow-draught, local vessels like the Oi had disruptive as well as tragic outcomes for the Bay of Plenty’s coastal communities. From December 1887, for instance, the Oi had transported much needed cargoes of provisions and sundries twice per month from Tauranga to the settlements of Katikati and Te Puke on the Uretara and Kaituna Rivers respectively, ‘cash on delivery’. In one instance, the cutter had sailed the inner harbour route from Tauranga to deliver, to the Uretara River bridge at Katikati, sacks of potatoes, flour, sugar, oatmeal, seed, ‘maize by the bushel’, and boxes of tea, soap, candles, jam and golden syrup for the new settlers there [6]. 

A beach-wrecked ketch or sloop at the high-water mark.

The Oi was by no means the last Pākehā or Māori owned sailing craft to be wrecked or temporarily stranded in the wrecking zone on Panepane Beach. In May 1893, just three years after the Oi’s loss, the wreckage of an unidentified ketch was found on Panepane Beach following a gale. The violence of the wrecking had broken off the 25-foot mast at deck level. Again, the bodies of the crew were never found [7].

References

[1] Panepane Purakau, Western Bay of Plenty District Council,https://www.westernbay.govt.nz ›community› projects

[2] Te Aroha News, 23 April 1890: 4.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Bay of Plenty Times, 9 December 1887: 3.

[7] Grey River Argus, 9 May 1893: 2.

Image credits

Panepane Point, Matakana Island, photo/file. Kiri Gillespie, ‘Matakana Island proposal: Panepane Point plan prompts encouraging level of interest’. Bay of Plenty Times, 27 August 2020.

 ‘Jessie Logan, circa. 1880s. Restoration of NZ’s Oldest Surviving Yacht’. Image courtesy of Keith Pine, New Zealand Prosthetic Eye Service, info@prosthetic eye service.

 Abandoned maritime wreckage. Stocktake royalty free images https://www.freepik.com › free-photos-vectors  

The Stranding of the SS Penguin

Matakana Island’s 20 km-long, ocean-facing Panepane Beach - notorious among 19^th century Māori and  Pākehā seafarers - posed a serious risk to paddle, sail and steam powered vessels. The beach formed a featureless, deadly, surf-pounded lee shore. Some vessels that hove‑to offshore during northeasterly gales often dragged their anchors on the sandy bottom and were driven ashore there. Others, particularly smaller sailing vessels under 20 tons that missed the channel entrance, even by small margins during such gales, were swept sideways onto the beach, rolled and wrecked.

The 5km beach section extending north from Panepane Point opposite Mauao | Mount Maunganui continued to claim shipping well into the 1900s. Had their skeletons remained they would have stood as a stark warning to careless or drunken skippers and those new to the Bay of Plenty. However, the many vessels wrecked there soon disappeared from sight, as the beach sands quickly absorbed their hulls.

Matakana Island’s Panepane Point and beach from Mount Maunganui across the channel

Built and launched in Glasgow, Scotland in January 1864, the steamship Penguin was sold to the New Zealand Steamship Company in 1879. Some 220 feet in length, with a gross registered tonnage of 749, the steamer became a familiar sight in Tauranga Moana during 1879 and 1880, as it delivered passengers, freight and mail to and from the North and South Islands’ east coast ports [1].

On 16 January 1880, New Zealand newspapers reported that the SS Penguin (Captain Malcolm), had gone ashore while entering Tauranga Harbour close to where the SS Taupo had been wrecked in February the previous year. Ironically, the Penguin had been purchased specifically to replace that unfortunate vessel on the return coastal route from Auckland to Tauranga, Gisborne, Napier, Wellington, Lyttleton and Port Chalmers [2].

The SS Penguin at Port Chalmers

The SS Taupo had gone ashore on Stony Point Reef at the base of Mount Maunganui where the channel opened into the harbour (marked today by the statue of Tangaroa, the Polynesian sea god). It sustained significant damage to the hull in the process and although salvaged, later sank off Tūhua | Mayor Island. The Penguin, on the other hand, was driven to starboard while attempting to negotiate the channel during ‘a terrific gale’. It went aground on a sandbank close to Panepane Spit at the southern end of Matakana Island’s Panepane Beach [3].

The little SS Staffa (Captain Baker), was at once dispatched from the town to the Penguin's assistance. The mail and passengers were taken off and landed at the town. On 14 January the Auckland Star reported: 

The SS Penguin came off the sand hillock at eleven o'clock this morning, with the assistance of the steamer Staffa under the command of worthy Captain Baker. No damage was done. She had not even moved a pound of cargo or coal. Her light kedge came home, or else she would have got off when she first touched [the Penguin’s light kedge or emergency anchor had failed to hold and had been dragged across the channel with the ship] [4].

After reloading her passengers and mail at the town, the Penguin immediately resumed her voyage to the southern ports on her itinerary, one editor noting, ‘as the steamer is built of the best Lowmoor iron it would be almost impossible to injure her’ [5]. Despite again running aground during dense fog at Nelson in November 1895, and being refloated without damage, the SS Penguin was to prove as vulnerable to shipwreck as any other New Zealand coastal steamer. 

The SS Penguin ashore at Nelson in November 1895

On February 12, 1909, the SS Penguin (Captain Francis Naylor), struck Thoms Rock in Cook Strait while navigating during a severe storm. The women and children were loaded into the lifeboats, which were swamped by the heavy seas. Only one woman and a boy survived. All the other children drowned. Other survivors came ashore on rafts. As the Penguin sank, seawater flooded the engine room and, on reaching the boilers, caused a massive steam explosion. It was New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century: 75 people lost their lives while only 30 survived [6].

A court of inquiry found that Captain Naylor did everything possible to save the lives of his passengers and crew once the disaster occurred. Ultimately blaming Naylor’s navigational errors for the disaster, the court suspended his certificate for 12 months. 

References

[1] Ingram, C.W.N. New Zealand Shipwrecks,1795-1975, A.H. and A.W. Reid, Wellington, 1977: 308.

[2] Bay of Plenty Times, 4 March 1880: 1.

[3] Evening Star, 13 January 1880: 2.

[4] Auckland Star, 14 January 1880: 2.

[5] Manawatu Herald, 16 January 1880: 2.

[6] Ingram, 1977: 308.

Images

Cousins, John, senior reporter, ‘Panepane Point to be Returned to Hapu’, in Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Post. 26 January, NZ Herald,https://www.nzherald.co.nz › Rotorua Daily Post.

De Maus, David Alexander, 1847-1925: ‘Steamship Penguin at Port Chalmers’. Ref: 1/1-003381-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22384677.

Auckland Weekly News, ‘The Grounding of the SS Penguin: The Vessel on the Rocks outside Nelson Harbour, April 28,1904’. Record ID AWNS-19040512-12-02. Auckland City Libraries Heritage Collection.

The Mount Maunganui Channel and the Wrecking of the Cutter Waterlily, 1873

 

Tauranga Harbour, its main entrance and outer waters witnessed the wreckings of many waka Māori, sailing ships and steamers, both large and small during the course of the 1800s.

The narrow Maunganui Channel particularly, with its outer southern reef, shifting winds, strong currents, rocky southern shore (under Mauao) and Stony Point Reef continued to claim vessels well into the 1900s.

In 1829, the Mount’s channel rocks almost wrecked the Australian whaling ship Vittoria. Fortunately, the whalers Guide and Prince of Denmark were also in the harbour seeking provisions from local iwi. The combined tools and efforts of all three crews repaired the Vittoria sufficiently for it to sail clear before the weather turned.[1]

Marked today by the statue of the sea god Tangaroa, the Maunganui Channel’s Stony Point Reef nearly claimed immigrant visionary George Vesey Stuart’s newly arrived Te Puke and Katikati settlers. Clearing the channel and emerging into the harbour under full sail in January and December 1881 respectively, the 2000-ton Lady Jocelyn and 733-ton May Queen lost way and began drifting back towards the reef. Fortunately, there were steamships at the Town and Victoria wharves, whose skippers steamed to the rescue and towed both vessels to the safety of the old Man O’ War Anchorage.[2], [3]

In January 1881, the 2000-ton immigrant clipper Lady Jocelyn narrowly avoided going aground at Stony Point.

Maurice Forester, ‘Painting of the ship Lady Jocelyn’, Pae Koroki, Tauranga City Libraries Photo 06-197

While the two great ocean-going immigrant ships escaped the reef, a variety of smaller European-built sailing vessels under 20 tons were wrecked from the 1840s, particularly when their Māori and Pākehā skippers sailed too close to the Mount while entering and exiting Pilot Bay. Among them was the Waterlily.

Described as ‘a fine little cutter’ the Auckland based ten-ton Waterlily (not to be confused with the 17-ton schooner Waterlily which was also active at the time), was wrecked at Stony Point in June 1873. A versatile, single masted, fore-and-aft rigged sailboat with two gaff mainsails and a long bowsprit, the Waterlily had previously traded between Auckland and the Bay of Plenty ports for several years without mishap.[4]     

Having left Port Charles at the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula and bound for Tauranga, Captain Eggerton and his crew of three experienced strong northerlies and ‘thickening weather’ off Tauranga Harbour’s Katikati entrance around 9 p.m. Entering the Maunganui Channel and driven through by the wind and tide ‘at full force’, the Waterlily crashed onto Stony Point reef around 11 p.m. where ‘the sea commenced to break over her immediately’.

Tangaroa statue, Frank Szirmay ‘Tangaroa’ (1976), Port of Tauranga 

Photo: Bronwyn Holloway Smith, Public Art Heritage, Aotearoa New Zealand, Tauranga City Council Art Collection.

Stony Point Reef extends from the beach below Mount Maunganui to the plinth and statue of the Māori sea god Tangaroa. The Waterlily struck the reef to the statue’s right (i.e., on the left of this picture).

The concussion unshipped the rudder, which drifted away and was lost, depriving the crew of all control over the cutter. Prior to the wrecking, the captain, who could barely distinguish the nearby Mount in the deteriorating conditions, reported later that no channel buoys were to be seen.[5]

An anchor was dropped in an attempt to keep the cutter off the rocks, but it would not hold. The captain and crew were forced to abandon the Waterlily, but not before saving most of their personal effects and the jibsail which they got aboard the vessel’s dinghy. Managing, with difficulty, to clear the point they rowed into the shelter of Pilot Bay where they passed a miserable night on the beach.

The following morning Captain Eggerton, who was the son of the Waterlily’s owner, and the three sailors were collected and taken across the harbour and into town by a boat dispatched from the Tauranga ketch Isabella. Captain Eggerton immediately telegraphed Auckland to inform his father of the wrecking. The Waterlily, which was insured, had been loaded with 45 tons of firewood (uninsured), intended for Mr. Piercy, a Tauranga merchant.[6], [7]

A small sailing vessel on the rocks in heavy seas. The crew are attempting to salvage what they can 

from the wreck.

Image: Johan Christian Dohl, ‘Stranded Ship’- Strandet Skip - KODE Art Museums and Composer Homes, BB.B  Public domain.

Later that morning, local identities Captain Thomas Moller and Charles Hopkins returned to the wreck with the Waterlily’s crew on the lifeboat of the steamer Southern Cross. Landing on the beach below the Mount at low tide, they made their way along the reef through heavy surf to retrieve the cutter’s remaining sails and tackle. The following day Mr. Fullerton, another Tauranga resident, twice took his cutter down to the Mount, where he and his crew took away the Waterlily’s cargo of firewood for Mr. Piercy.[8]     

Evaluating the cause of the Waterlily wreck, the New Zealand Herald reported on I July 1873:

The casualty is entirely attributable to the neglected condition of the harbour, the channel of which some eight years ago was properly buoyed out and marked with beacons, and a harbourmaster appointed to see that these were kept in repair. Three years ago the harbourmaster, who was also the pilot, was removed at the suggestion of the sitting member of the Provincial Council for Tauranga… The removal of the pilot station acts prejudicially on the district because it prevents the entry into the harbour of men-o'-war, of which there have been not a few in Tauranga.[9]   

Tauranga remained a high-risk port for all types and sizes of vessels in the 1870s, due to its poorly marked and charted channels and ever-shifting sandbars. The harbour beacon that Captain Eggerton and the crew of the Waterlily had so desperately hoped to sight when passing through the channel had been swept away some weeks previously. To this day, knowledgeable mariners, aware of the risks of the Maunganui Channel and hoping for safe passage, make small offerings as they pass the statue of Tangaroa and the Te Kuia and Kurī Rocks further around the rock-strewn base of Mauao-Mount Maunganui.

Twice the tonnage of the 10-ton Waterlily, the cutter Lee was built at Henry Nicol’s shipyard in Auckland’s Mechanic’s Bay in 1864. The Lee also undertook trading voyages to Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty 

trading ports.

Image: Auckland Weekly News, ‘The cutter Lee, winner of the trading cutters’ race’. 4 February 1909. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collection Record ID AWNS-19090204-07-04.

References

[1] Collin, David R.; Kirkudbright’s Prince of Denmark and Her Voyages in the South Seas, Whittles, Dunedin, 2013: p 4.

[2] Brett, Henry, White Wings Vol. 1: Fifty Years of Sail in the New Zealand Trade, 1850-1900, Brett, Auckland, 1924: 42.

[3] Bay of Plenty Times, 4 January 1881: 2. Also see Bay of Plenty Times, 
13 January 1881: 2.

[4] Bay of Plenty Times, 25 June 1873: 3.

[5] New Zealand Herald, 1 July 1873: 2.                    

[6] Daily Southern Cross, 28 June 1873: 2.

[7] Bay of Plenty Times, 25 June 1873: 3.

[8] New Zealand Herald, 1 July 1873: 2

[9] ibid.

The Pilot House on Mauao

 
Pilot House on the slopes of Mauao, Mount Maunganui, c. 1950s
Collection of Te Ao Mārama  - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 99-243

Access by sea has always been important to Tauranga since the first European ship, the Herald, entered the harbour in 1826. The barriers of the Kaimai Range and a swampy strip of land between hills and sea prohibited any form of transport except on foot for many years.

By the time the Land Wars ceased, there had been an increase in the number and size of ships entering the harbour, and several had been wrecked or grounded on sand banks. In December 1864 the Auckland Provincial Government appointed Thomas Sparrow Carmichael as pilot for Tauranga and provided him with a tent to live in on Maunganui, as Mauao was generally referred to in those days. He had two boatmen to row him out to the ships as they waited offshore.

By 1866 the Provincial Government built a house for the pilot and another for the boatmen. Little is known about these buildings and their exact locations. One theory is that it might have been uphill above the Pilot Wharf, where they would have access to their boat, and the more likely theory, nearer to the location of the second pilot house built above the present camping ground, with a view out to sea. Ships needing a pilot would fire off a gun to signal their presence. The pilot then raised a flag to notify the townspeople that the entry of a ship was imminent.

With the end of the Land Wars, the decline in provisions and other goods needed for the military noticeably reduced the volume of ships into Tauranga and, after six years, Carmichael’s position was terminated. The money saved from upkeep was spent on building wharves on The Strand. However, after a few years, and growth in population of the town, an official decision was made to re-establish the position of pilot and in 1873 an experienced master, Captain Hannibal Marks, took over. By then, the original pilot house was in a state of “rack and ruin”.^[i]

Pilot House, Mauao, Mount Maunganui, April 1955
Collection of Te Ao Mārama  - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 04-625

The Auckland Provincial Council approved payment of £200 for a new Pilot House in June 1874 and a second house for the son and family.^[ii] Captain Marks and his son, also called Hannibal, were drowned when the pilot boat capsized in the harbour in August 1879. Following the death of Hannibal Marks the Marine Department appointed Captain Best, formerly of Thames, to the position of Harbour Master and Pilot.^[iii] He appeared to have occupied the Pilot House in the Domain, as the newspaper recorded the Presbyterian Picnic as gathering on the beach behind Captain Best’s house. During all of this excitement, the pilot himself was watching for the arrival of the Lady Jocelyn, the first immigrant ship to arrive directly at Tauranga.^[iv] Stormy weather caused the loss of the “iron chimney” on the Pilot House in 1881. This was probably a chimney made of two facing sheets of corrugated iron inside a timber frame, a style common in early buildings.

Grace Earle & Violet Petheridge seated on a cow, Mauao, Mount Maunganui, 1920
Collection of Te Ao Mārama  - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 05-456

With the cessation of the pilot service, the house fell empty, and it was suggested that it be handed over from the Marine Department to the Tauranga Improvement Society to use as holiday accommodation for visitors to the beach. The idea was even floated that Mount Maunganui become a destination for invalids like the sanatoriums at Te Puke and Rotorua.^[v] Although there was some enthusiasm for transferring ownership of the Pilot House reserve to the Borough Council, it eventually became the property of the Harbour Board like the nearby Mount Drury (Hopukiore). The Harbour Board repaired the roof and part of the house several times, and the Pilot House reserve was fenced, with some camp sites made available. Various people leased the Pilot House and reserve for raising poultry, solely for the accommodation or, as occurred in March 1933, for a returned soldier from the First World War and his family with their four donkeys.^[vi] The cottage had been described as kauri, having five rooms with electricity and a tank water supply with a four-roomed second cottage alongside. The whole property totaled one and a half acres.^[vii]

Pilot House and Mount Drury (Hopukiore), c. 1950s
Collection of Te Ao Mārama  - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 99-244

The new tenant Fred Davies, with his family, and the donkeys called Smithy, Murphy, Brownie and Snowy, were to be a drawcard for the Mount Main Beach for the next twenty years. Fred named the donkeys after his mates who died at Gallipoli. He also built a corrugated iron shop opposite the Oceanside Hotel selling ice cream and soft drinks. The Davies sons supervised the donkey rides and when they left school their mother took over, until 1952 when she moved out of the Pilot House to her new home in Marine Parade.^[viii] The visit of the young Sel Neal in 1951 shows a building with a rusting roof and deteriorating cladding. Thus ended occupation of the Tauranga Pilot House. The house stood for a few more years but is missing from images taken in the 1960s, and the second house is recorded as being demolished in 1964.^[ix]

Sel Neal, age 9 with a donkey, at the Pilot House, Mauao, Mount Maunganui, 1951
Collection of Justine Neal

References

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^[i] Bay of Plenty Times (BOPT), 9 May 1874

^[ii] Daily Southern Cross, 13 Jun 1874

^[iii] BOPT, 4 Sep 1879

^[iv] BOPT, 4 Jan 1881

^[v] BOPT, 25 Jul 1887

^[vi] BOPT, 5 Mar 1933

^[vii] BOPT , 9 Sep 1930

^[viii] Neal, Justine, The Donkeys of Ocean Beach, Historical Review, Bay of Plenty Journal of History, Vol 64, No.1, May 2016, p19

^[ix] Cunningham, B. & Musgrave, K., A History of Mount Maunganui, Commissioned by Mount Maunganui Borough Council, 1989, p. 18