Another new book from Trevor Bentley

 

Between 1864 and the early 1900s, Tauranga Harbour was not merely a backdrop to the district’s maritime history; it was the engine of it. Every local and visiting waka, schooner, cutter, barque, scow and steamer entering the harbour brought with them people, cargo, news and hope. During Tauranga’s Anglo-Māori War years (1864-1872), British battleship-troop carriers brought military occupation, violence, colonial officials, dispossession and despair.

While Tauranga’s early history is one of ships, it is also a history of the people who built them, sailed them, loaded them, anxiously watched them disappear over the horizon and joyously welcomed their return. This eight-part study casts light on Pākehā and Māori ship builders, their owners and their captains, on British and Māori fighting men, immigrant-settlers, merchants, labourers and visiting travellers, missionaries and officials.

The book restores their stories to the harbour and invites readers to see Tauranga not simply as a place on land but as a place defined by water - by tides, sandbanks, reefs, channels, and the vessels that once threaded among them. It is a reminder that our harbour has always been a gateway, a theatre of cross-cultural encounters, a workplace, a saltwater highway, a hazardous seaway and a home.

Racing from Tauranga to Auckland with cargoes of perishable goods, the Tauranga owned schooners Hope and Fortune arrived within a few hours of each other on 2 February 1866.

As many readers know, Trevor is a member of the society and an active contributor to this blog. His books and blogs explore Tauranga’s as well as New Zealand’s social, maritime and military history with a special focus on the Pākehā and Māori men and women who crossed cultures voluntarily and as captives. Dr. Bentley is the author of ten previous history books.

Book details

Early Maritime Tauranga: A History of Vessels, Visitors, Residents and Events, Volume II, 1864-1900s.

Author: Trevor Bentley

ISBN: 978-0-473-77735-7

Soft cover, 486 pages

RRP $39.99

Publisher: Kererū History Books.
https://www.kereruhistorynz.co.nz/

Image credit

Dawson, Montague. ‘The Orange Schooners,' from Ramsey, L.G.G. Montague Dawson, R.S.M.A., F.R.S.A., The Greatest Sea Painter in the World, F. Lewis, Leigh-on-Sea, England, 1970: 43, no. 179, plate 39.

Tauranga Photographers: Stewart Brothers

Class photograph, Tauranga School, c. 1890-1892
Carte de visite photograph by F.E. Stewart of Stewart Bros., Tauranga
Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-502

In late June 1890 a Mr F.E. Stewart “of the firm of Messrs Stewart Bros., photographers, Thames” arrived in Tauranga on a visit[1] and, after negotiations with resident photographer and chemist Charles Spencer, made an arrangement to “take over Mr Spencer’s photographic business here for a few weeks.”[2] It is unclear why Spencer, who had been very active in the district photographically over the previous decade,[3] seems to have lost interest in the studio aspect of his business in the 1890s, but he had his fingers in many pies, and in 1893 moved with his family to Auckland.[4]

Stewart quickly showed his willingness to take up where Spencer had left off, announcing:

“First-class work at reasonable prices. Enamelling a specialty, also children’s portraits. Views of residences, etc., taken.”

Enamelling referred to the glossy finish that he was able to produce on his card-mounted portraits, while reference to children mostly signified to his customers that he was both equipped with the latest in fast lenses and shutters, and adept in pacifying notoriously fidgety or excitable children. The statement that “views of residences, etc.” would be taken indicates that in addition to welcoming customers to Spencer’s studio premises conveniently situated on the Strand, he was happy to carry out what was commonly referred to as outdoors work.

Class photograph, Tauranga School, c. 1890-1892
Carte de visite photograph by F.E. Stewart of Stewart Bros., Tauranga
Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-327

Two fine class photos taken at the Tauranga School in 1890 or 1891, then situated on the corner of Harington Street and Cameron Road,[5] have survived in the library’s collection, now displayed on Pae Korokī. They demonstrate Stewart’s skill at capturing the detail in the faces of a large group of students using the diminutive carte de visite format.

But who was “F.E.”? Since he was only ever referred to by his initials in the local press during his brief stay here, he’s not been particularly easy to track down, and it didn’t help that he proved to be unrelated to any of several other Stewart families then living in the coastal Bay of Plenty.

Young woman, tentatively identified as Marion Sophia Gilman (née Ferguson), c. 1890-1891
Carte de visite portrait, photographed by F.E. Stewart of Stewart Bros., Tauranga
Collection of The Elms Foundation

Francis Edward Stewart was born in 1865 at Chiselhurst, Kent (England) to carpenter Edwin Stewart and his wife Ellen. The family, including an older brother Herbert Samuel, arrived in New Zealand in January 1875 as assisted immigrants,[6] settling in Hamilton by 1877.[7] By early 1888 they were living in Cambridge, and older brother Herbert, working as a photographer, produced photographic views that were compared favourably with those from “the Auckland fraternity”.[8] By April 1890, probably after encountering stiff competition from well-established Cambridge photographers,[9] both Herbert and his younger brother Francis had moved to Thames, presumably sensing a growing demand there, and opening a studio in Queen Street.[10]The appearance of Francis in Tauranga only two months later suggests that clients in Thames were not as plentiful as expected.

The Tauranga Brass Band (including F. Stewart, front row, 4^th from left), c. mid-1891
Attributed to F.E. Stewart of Stewart Bros., later reprinted on card mount with incorrect date
Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 01-592

Francis, or Frank as he was occasionally known, quickly made friends in the Tauranga community, where his musical skills were an important social asset. He joined a small local orchestra as a cornet player[11] and, with George Arnold Ward, subsequently played a role in the resurrection of the Tauranga Brass Band,[12] which made its first public appearance in March 1891.[13] He was engaged to take photographs of “the Mercury Bay and Tauranga Football teams and the Brass Band [above] … the Fife and Drum Band [below] … [and] the Fire Brigade in full uniform” at the Domain in mid-1891.[14]

The Tauranga Drum & Fife Band, c. mid-1891
F.E. Stewart of Stewart Bros., Thames and Tauranga
Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 12-015

By early September, however, Stewart had decided to move on, and was given a rousing farewell by Ward and his other band mates.[15] Subsequent sightings of him in Waipawa (November 1891)[16] and Dannevirke (February 1892)[17] suggest that he was touring the central North Island. In the mid- to late 1890s Francis Stewart seems to have rather disappeared from view, although his brother Herbert did open a hairdressing saloon in Rotorua in 1895, simultaneously announcing that he hoped to open a photographic studio in due course.[18] In December 1895 there was a report of a “Mr Stewart, photographer” making a trip to the Ureweras and returning with a “portfolio full of interesting views”, which must have been either Herbert or his brother Francis.[19]

Popular Pastimes in New Zealand – Jumping at the A & P Show, Auckland, c. December 1907
Halftone print stereocard, photographed by F.E. Stewart, published by New Zealand Graphic
Collection of Te Papa Tongarewa, Ref. O.005495

In January 1900 a photograph of the Jubilee Swimming Carnival at Auckland’s Caliope Dock, an event which had taken place a decade earlier in 1890, appeared as a halftone print under the byline of F.E. Stewart – almost certainly our Francis Ernest –in the New Zealand Illustrated Magazine.[20] Then between December 1907[21] and January 1912[22] he was an intermittent contributor to the New Zealand Graphic of photographs of sporting events and leisure activities, mostly in the Auckland region, but occasionally further afield in locations such as Thames and Whanganui. In 1907 they also published some of his stereoviews as part of their New Zealand Graphic Series, issued with the weekly newspaper.[23]

Mud Volcano, Waiotapu, Rotorua, N.Z. (Radcliffe & Stewart, #158), c. 1907-1914
Sterephotographic view, photographed by F.E. Stewart, published as postcard by F.G. Radcliffe
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0105/19

A series of his stereophotographic views of the Auckland North, Rotorua and Taupo districts were published as postcards under the “Radcliffe & Stewart” banner, probably between 1909, when F.G. Radcliffe is known to have commenced his operations,[24] and the onset of the Great War in late 1914.

Tour group and guide standing before wharenui, Rotorua, c. 1900-1922
Photographed by F.E. Stewart, Rotorua
The Ngaire Hart Estate Collection, Courtesy of Cordy’s Auctions

In December 1915 advertisements appeared simultaneously in the Auckland[25] and Wellington[26] newspapers, inserted by Stewart and Bennett, photographers of Rotorua, looking for a outdoor photographer and a lady retoucher, “with experience [in] bromide printing and photographic colouring preferred”. Postcard format photographs are known from this era depicting tourist groups with Maori guides at several locations, including Whakarewarewa[27]and Ohinemutu (above), with “F.E. Stewart Photographer Rotorua” either as a blind stamp or in purple ink on the reverse.

Studio portrait of Te Akakura Ru (wife of Rua Kenana) and her son Ruhoni, Rotorua, c. 1910-1920
Silver gelatin postcard print, photographed by F.E. Stewart
Collection of Whakatāne Museum Te Whare Taonga o Taketake, Ref. P96

From the high negative numbers (up to 8648 have been found) it is clear that by this time Francis had a substantial operation in Rotorua, presumably with an outdoor photographer employed to capture the tourists on their peregrinations, while Stewart and possibly a retoucher remained at the studio to take indoor portraits and carry out the developing and printing.

Group of men and women doing a haka of welcome, Rotorua, c. 1907-1922
Photographed by F.E. Stewart
Collection of Alexander Turnbull Library (James Cowan Collection), Ref. 1/2-021059-F

Francis Stewart worked from premises in Pukaki Street, Rotorua until at least 1922, then between 1925 and 1938 moved to Amohau Street, describing himself as an apiarist. Then in 1941, a further move took him to Mount Maunganui where he became a shopkeeper. He remained there until his death in 1953.[28]

References

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[1] “Untitled [F.E. Stewart on a Visit to Tauranga],” Bay of Plenty Times, June 30, 1890, Volume 17 Issue 2530 edition.

[2] Francis Ernest Stewart, “Photography. F.E. Stewart of the Firm of Stewart Bros., of the Thames. Advertisement,” Bay of Plenty Times, July 24, 1890, Volume 17 Issue 2537 edition.

[3] Brett Payne, “Charles Spencer (1854-1933) – Part III – Serving the Community,” Tauranga Historical Society (blog), September 13, 2019, http://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2019/09/charles-spencer-1854-1933-part-iii.html.

[4] Brett Payne, “Visiting Price’s Corner Studio on The Strand,” Blog, Tauranga Historical Society (blog), October 3, 2014, https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2014/10/visiting-prices-corner-studio-on-strand.html.

[5] Alan Charles Bellamy, ed., Tauranga 1882-1982, the Centennial of Gazetting Tauranga as a Borough (Tauranga, New Zealand: Tauranga City Council, 1982).

[6] “New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Passenger Lists, 1839-1973,” Database with images (Wellington, New Zealand: Archives New Zealand, June 14, 2024), 1839–1973, FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org, https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1609792.

[7] “New Zealand, Electoral Rolls, 1853-2010” (Wellington, New Zealand: Parliamentary Library), Ancestry.com, accessed February 25, 2024, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1836/.

[8] “Mr H. Stewart, Photographer, of Cambridge,” Waikato Times, March 30, 1889, Volume 32 Issue 2608 edition.

[9] Herbert Samuel Stewart, “H. Stewart, Photographer, Cambridge. Advertisement,” Waikato Times, November 30, 1889, Volume 33 Issue 2713 edition.

[10] Francis Ernest Stewart, “Photography. F.E. Stewart’s Studio Now Open. Advertisement,” Thames Star, April 26, 1890, Volume 22 Issue 6559 edition.

[11] “Athletic Tournament (Tauranga Gymnastic Club),” Bay of Plenty Times, September 22, 1890, Volume 17 Issue 2561 edition.

[12] “Untitled [The Tauranga Brass Band],” Bay of Plenty Times, December 31, 1890, Volume 17 Issue 2573 edition.

[13] “Untitled [The Tauranga Brass Band’s First Public Appearance],” Bay of Plenty Times, March 16, 1891, Volume 18 Issue 2604 edition.

[14] “Untitled [F.E. Stewart Engaged to Take Photographs at Domain],” Bay of Plenty Times, August 7, 1891, Volume 17 Issue 2715 edition.

[15] “Brass Band. Presentation to Mr F.E. Stewart,” Bay of Plenty Times, September 9, 1891, Volume 20 Issue 2728 edition.

[16] Francis Ernest Stewart, “F.E. Stewart, Photographer. Advertisement,” Waipawa Mail, November 28, 1891, Volume 14 Issue 2692 edition.

[17] “Untitled [Photographer Mr Stewart Now in Dannevirke],” Bush Advocate, February 25, 1892, Volume 7 Issue 590 edition.

[18] “Local News and Notes [Mr H. Stewart Opens Hair-Dressing Saloon],” Hot Lakes Chronicle, July 17, 1895, Volume 2 Issue 128 edition.

[19] “Local News and Notes [Mr Stewart, Photographer, Has Returned from Urewera Country],” Hot Lakes Chronicle, December 18, 1895, Volume 3 Issue 159 edition.

[20] Francis Ernest Stewart, “Calliope Dock Auckland. Scene of the Jubilee Swimming Carnival, 1890,” New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, January 1, 1900, Volume 1 Issue 4 edition.

[21] Francis Ernest Stewart, “Auckland Agricultural Association’s Show [Photographs],” New Zealand Graphic, December 7, 1907, Volume 39 Issue 23 edition.

[22] Francis Ernest Stewart, “Wanganui Celebrates the Anniversary of the Province With a Big Caledonian Gathering. [Photographs],” New Zealand Graphic, January 29, 1913, Volume 49 Issue 5 edition.

[23] Francis Ernest Stewart, “Snapshots Taken During the Jumping and Riding Competitions at the Enormously Successful Auckland Show. [Photographs],” New Zealand Graphic, December 7, 1907, Volume 39 Issue 23 edition.

[24] William Main and Alan Jackson, “Wish You Were Here”: The Story of New Zealand Postcards (New Zealand Postcard Society, 2005).

[25] Stewart and Bennett, “Outdoor Photographer, Youth and Retoucher. Advertisement,” New Zealand Herald, December 2, 1915, Volume 52 Issue 16090 edition.

[26] Stewart and Bennett, “Photographer and Retoucher. Apply Immediate. Advertisement,” Dominion, December 10, 1915, Volume 9 Issue 2640 edition.

[27] Francis Ernest Stewart, Tour Group at Whakarewarewa, c.  -1920 1900, Silver gelatin postcard print, 88mm x 138mm, c.  -1920 1900, Te Papa Tongarewa, https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/1400586.

[28] “New Zealand, Electoral Rolls, 1853-2010.”

The Lady Jocelyn, SS Hinemoa and Adela Blanche Stewart, 1878 -1910

Early Maritime Tauranga: Vessels, Visitors  Settlers and Events,  Part XXV

On 17 August 1878 the clipper ship Lady Jocelyn (Captain Jenkins) arrived at the port of Auckland after a passage of 88 days from Belfast. Aboard the vessel were 451 passengers, including 378 ‘special’ immigrants. Part of George Vesey Stewart’s No. 2 Party of Ulster Scots from County Tyrone, the 378 were bound for Katikati via Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty.¹  In 1878, Lady Jocelyn was the biggest immigrant and trading ship to visit New Zealand. Many of the Vesey Stewart settlers were men and women ‘in prosperous circumstances’, and their arrival was regarded as a distinct forward step in the settlement of Katikati, the Tauranga district, and the colony itself.² 

Lady Jocelyn under full sail, 1852, by W. Gippoer
Collection of National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Ref. PAH0623

The Lady Jocelyn was built by Mare of London in 1852 as a 2,138 ton, iron auxiliary steamer for the East India trade, before being purchased by Shaw Savill & Company for the Australasian immigrant and cargo trade. Refitted and fully rigged as an immigrant clipper and with the engines removed, she was described as ‘a splendid ship; the saloon table alone holds 100 persons; the state-rooms hold but two persons, preventing the crowding suffered by the passengers in the Carisbrooke Castle’.³ Lady Jocelyn made four notably swift voyages to Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton and Port Chalmers between 1860 and 1900.⁴

Aboard the Lady Jocelyn were Mrs Adela Blanche Stewart, her husband Hugh (a Royal Artillery Lieutenant and the brother of George Vesey Stewart) and their son Mervyn aged seven. In her journal later published as My Simple Life in New Zealand (1908), Adela casts light on the voyage to New Zealand and the settlement and progress of  the Katikati  district. Though generally rated  ‘a happy one’ by the immigrants, the voyage was marked by seasickness, being becalmed ‘with six vessels in sight’, an outbreak of small-pox (supressed by the ship’s surgeon), mumps that ran rampant, rain, snow, hailstorms and heavy seas that swamped the cabins and broke almost all crockery. There was ‘great excitement’ when the ship’s newspaper Lady Jocelyn Herald was printed, joy at the birth of a little girl, ‘Jocelyn, of course’, and the satisfaction of ‘greedily devouring’ New Zealand bread and butter on arriving in Auckland.⁵ 

Adela and Hugh Stewart with their son Mervyn (standing far left)
Front cover of My Simple Life in New Zealand, by Adela B. Stewart (London, 1908, reprinted Typographix, Katikati, 1996)

On 19 August, the Auckland Star’s maritime reporter noted:

         A large number of the passengers by the Lady Jocelyn, were on shore this morning, making purchases, and seeing the sights of the place, such as they are. They appear a fine class of people and very, desirable fellow colonists and, as they have all some capital, they will soon be able to bring their land, or the greater portion of it, under cultivation…. This morning they were engaged in packing up and making the necessary arrangements to leave the vessel. They will, we understand, be conveyed to Tauranga in the Hinemoa, the Lady Jocelyn remaining here to discharge her cargo… We understand about 40 of the party who were left behind are following in the ship Halcione, which left London on May 30.⁶

The New Zealand Government Service Steamer Hinemoa off the Kaikoura Mountains
Oil painting on board by Frank Barnes, 1911
Collection of Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa), Ref. 1992-0035-1910

SS Hinemoa conveyed Lady Jocelyn’s No. 2 Katikati Party to Tauranga without charge. Built in 1875 by Robert Scott and Co. at Cartsdyke, Greenock, Scotland for £23,500, it was a three-masted, 551 ton, New Zealand Government Service steamer. Designed for servicing lighthouses and patrolling the coastline, it had a length of 207 feet (63.1 metres), a beam of 25 feet (7.6 metres) and a draught of 15 feet (4.6 metres). Also required to carry out castaway checks on the sub-Antarctic islands and searching for missing ships in the Southern Ocean, it was, of necessity powered by two steam engines generating 150 bhp apiece.⁷ Adela Stewart recorded that after boarding the Hinemoa at Auckland ‘during torrents of rain’, they were conveyed in ‘a good 12 hours passage to Tauranga, arriving there on a sunny morning at 11 o’clock’.⁸  

At Tauranga, the entire European and Maori population turned out to greet the new settlers who ‘were mutely frightened… at the sight of tattooed Maoris smiling Tena koe (‘Welcome’) and anxious to rub noses… the children did howl and tried to hide behind their parents, themselves bewildered by the novelty of the scene’.⁹  Adela Stewart and her family, along with their servants, three children and ‘beds, bedding, provisions, luggage’, were conveyed in three trips from Tauranga’s Town Wharf to Bowentown and Katikati with the help of little coastal steamers Buona Ventura and Katikati.¹⁰

SS Katikati (left) at Pilot Bay, Mount Maunganui, 1910
Photographer unknown
Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī, Ref. 00-338

As well as performing a host of unfamiliar domestic duties, Stewart joined her husband in ‘pulling up fern roots’ and ‘dug with all her might’ to help clear their 300 acres. ‘Homesick and depressed, also hungry’, they were not impressed with the district which was to become their home for the next 28 years.¹¹  The land was covered in fern, tutu, manuka scrub and swamps, the harbour channel between Tauranga and Katikati had not been marked and not a single river had been bridged. While the Stewart’s second house was tolerably comfortable (the first had been a raupo whare), their servants endured a rat-infested cottage, ‘where these voracious rodents boldly eat the crumbs on the floor, and still worse, far worse, the poor baby’s toe nails at night’.¹² While productive, the Stewart’s estate never generated the profits expected, and they came to regret not following advice to sell quickly and buy elsewhere.

Adela and Hugh Stewart were among some of the middle class emigrants to New Zealand, who later returned home to Britain, having made or not having made their fortunes
‘The emigrants' return’, by Edward Noyce, c1852-1860. (Bauerricher & Co, London)
Collection of Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref: E-079-006

The Lady Jocelyn made ten further immigrant runs to New Zealand after 1878, including one which conveyed a large contingent of Vesey Stewart settlers directly to the port of Tauranga in 1881.¹³ The SS Hinemoa had a remarkably long life, operating in New Zealand territorial waters until 1942 when it was purchased by the Royal New Zealand Navy and converted into a sullage (waste oil) barge for use by American ships under repair at Wellington. Decommisioned in 1944, Hinemoa was sunk in Pegasus Bay, 60 miles north-east of Lyttelton.¹⁴

In 1906, Adela and Hugh Stewart sold their home and estate ‘Athenree’ (800 acres) and returned to England. Over the years, their homestead had become the social centre for the surrounding district, which is known as Athenree to this day. Following the death of Hugh in April 1909, Adela Stewart returned to New Zealand on a visit. She died on the night of her arrival in Katikati on 12 February 1910.^15.

Endnotes

¹ Clement, Christine and Ellen McCormack, The Pioneers, Settlers and Families of Katikati and District, Te Puke, Christine Clement, 2012: 25.

² Brett, Henry, White Wings: Fifty Years of Sail in the New Zealand Trade, Vol. I,  Brett Printing, Auckland, 1924: 41.

³ Poverty Bay Herald, 3 March 1883: 2.

 ⁴ Brett, 1924: 41. Lady Jocelyn (Ship) Items, National Library of New Zealand·https://natlib.govt.nz › tap...

⁵ Stewart, Adela B; My Simple Life in New Zealand, Adela Stewart, 1908, Typographix, Katikati, 1996: 16-18.

⁶ Auckland Star, 19 August 1878: 2.

⁷ Hinemoa (Ship: 1876-1944) - National Library of New Zealand, https://natlib.govt.nz › records

⁸ Stewart, 1908: 19.

⁹  Ibid: 19

¹⁰ Ibid: 22 -23

¹¹ Ibid: 30.

¹² Ibid: 26

¹³ Brett, 1924: 43.

¹⁴  Hinemoa (Ship: 1876-1944) - National Library of New Zealand, https://natlib.govt.nz › records

¹⁵ My Simple Life In New Zealand – The Balance House, https://www.theballancehouse.com › adela-stewart