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.

Tauranga in 1934: G. Duncan’s City Centre Plans

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

If you’ve ever wondered what Tauranga’s 'CBD' looked like nearly a century ago, G. Duncan’s 1934 survey drawings are a fascinating window into the past. These two maps - accessible in Pae Korokī as Map 21‑001 and Map 21‑002 - capture a city in transition, balancing its small-town roots with the ambitions of modern planning.

Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 1. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 21-001

We don’t know much about G. Duncan himself, but his work speaks volumes. His detailed survey of Tauranga’s CBD shows a bustling hub concentrated along The Strand, especially between Spring Street and Hamilton Street. This was the commercial core, lined with shops, fruiterers, bootmakers, drapers, clothiers, furniture makers, paint shops, loan and mercantile offices, garages—and, of course, hotels, tea rooms, and billiard rooms.  Even noted is the Gasometer on Grey Street and the banks on the corners of streets.

Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 2. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 21-002

Duncan’s plans captured an extraordinary level of detail, showing not only the footprint of every building, but also sheds, garages and outdoor lavatories. It documented each structure’s size, level of completion and storeys, and the materials used for walls and roofs. Even infrastructure like water reticulation, with pipe diameters, pressure levels, and parapet heights, is noted. This level of precision would have made the maps useful planning tools for the city to respond effectively to fires, to prioritise areas for growth and determine how Tauranga could balance practical needs with new planning laws.

Screenshot showing key to Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 2, Map 21-002

Sadly, you have to look very hard to see many of these buildings still standing, although there are a handful, particularly near the lower end of Devonport Road. When used in conjunction with other local resources, we are able to cross-reference and determine where previous owners had their premises.  Following, is an image, outlining names of business owners and their premises in 1934, on the corner of Wharf Street and The Strand:

Screenshot of part Map 21-001

We can only guess why these maps were made, however, the Central Tauranga Heritage Study (April, 2008, p 33-34) mentions that the Town Planning Act 1926 required all boroughs with populations over 1,000 to prepare a planning scheme by 1930. Tauranga’s first operative town plan didn’t arrive until 1969, but Duncan’s 1934 survey was almost certainly part of the groundwork for that process. 

Central Tauranga Heritage Study: part one, April 2008, p16

Next time you need to link a name to a location in central Tauranga, download G. Duncan's maps and you may be surprised at the connections you can make.

Sources

Duncan, G. (1934). Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 21-001 Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 1 | Pae Korokī

Duncan, G. (1934). Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 21-002: Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 2 | Pae Korokī

 

Gainsford, Jennie, Matthews & Matthews Architects Ltd, R. A. Skidmore & Associates, Rorke, Jean Euphemia Finlayson, Trutman, Lisa. (2008, April). Central Tauranga Heritage Study : part one, April 2008 Tauranga City Council & Bay of Plenty Regional Council. https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/109864

Palmer, Kenneth, Waitangi Tribunal: Te Rōpu Whakamana i te Tiriti o Waitangi (2006). Legislation governing town and country planning in Tauranga Moana 1953-1990. Wai 215 - Waitangi Tribunal Tauranga Moana Claims https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/27713

 

New Zealand Legislation: https://www.legislation.govt.nz/

 

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 24-371. (1963). City of Tauranga – District Planning Scheme https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/115677

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Written by Jody Smart, Heritage Specialist at Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries

 

A to Z of Tauranga Museum: B is for Bathing Suits

 

Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum, Robert Gale Collection, 0005/20/539

As the Bay of Plenty summer continues to be hot and locals and visitors alike flock to the coast, it’s hard to miss how deeply beach culture is woven into our identity. From sun-soaked days on Mount Maunganui beaches to the salty breeze off Te Awanui, these experiences have shaped our city’s character for generations. The Tauranga Museum holds a treasure trove of artifacts that tell this story.

Gifted by Tauranga Historical Society, Tauranga Museum, 0230/11

Its collection captures the essence of seaside leisure: beach umbrellas for shade, surf boards for thrill-seekers, picnic baskets for family outings, and even a bottle of Q-tol – the once-popular lotion that soothed sunburn long before we understood the importance of sunscreen.

                                1930s swimsuit, made in England.               Early 1980s Expozay, made in Tauranga.
                                       Tauranga Museum, 0151/16                           Tauranga Museum, 0032/14

But the real stars of the collection might be the bathing suits. With 83 suits spanning more than a century, this collection charts the evolution of beachwear - from modest woollen costumes to sleek Lycra designs. Many of the suits reflect not only innovation in materials and design but also changing attitudes toward fashion and freedom of expression.

For example, the museum holds two Jantzen swimsuits that were manufactured in Wellington by A.J. Coleman Ltd under licence from the American brand.  They were the height of style in their respective decades. During the 1930s and 40s, new fabrics emerged, sleeves vanished, and bold colours became the norm – as seen in a striking bright blue swimsuit:

1930s-1940s Jantzen swimsuit. Tauranga Museum, 0019/00

 Moving forward to the 1970s, and designers were embracing Lycra, a revolutionary fabric that allowed for greater flexibility and comfort. This floral swimsuit illustrates the shift toward vibrant patterns and figure-hugging styles that defined the decade:

1970s Jantzen swimsuit. Tauranga Museum, 0266/11

When I first heard of Papamoa

 Papamoa farmland - typical flat land that the Baylys farmed in the 1920s.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo gca-20628

I can remember my parents talking about Elsie Walker when I was a child.  In fact, it might even have been part of a ‘stranger danger’ conversation with them.  The year before I was born, my father had heard on the radio that Bill Bayly had been hanged.  What does this have to do with Papamoa, my current home, you may well ask?

Elsie Walker, Auckland Weekly News, 28 February 1929, p.50 

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19290228-50-05

Elsie, an Opotiki girl, lived with her aunt and uncle, the Baylys, on their farm in Papamoa in 1928 when she disappeared.  Coincidentally, so did their car.  Some days later, her body was found in Auckland at Panmure, and the car was discovered with an empty petrol tank at Papatoetoe. Elsie did not drive.  The sandshoes she was wearing were worn out as though she had walked the seven miles from Papatoetoe to Panmure. The police and coroner could not establish her cause of death, with opinions varying from exposure to accidental. A witness claimed to have seen the car being driven to Auckland by a man with a woman sitting in the back seat, already dead, but the accuracy of this information was not conclusive. Some suspicion arose about Bill Bayly, Elsie's cousin, but he claimed to have been in Auckland all along, and the police believed him.

Mr F K Hunt, a Stipendiary Magistrate, spoke at the inquest stating that the public were entitled to a better service from the Police than they received in that case.  He referred to mistakes and described the enquiries as inefficient. No person ever faced trial for the murder of Elsie Walker.

William Alfred (Bill) Bayly, NZ Truth, Issue 1246, 17 October 1929, Page 7
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTR19291017.2.33.1.2

Five years later William Alfred Bayly, a married man with two children by then, was farming at Ruawaro near Huntly.  Bill Bayly lived on an adjacent farm to Christobel and Samuel Lakey. Other neighbours noticed one day in October 1934 that the Lakey’s cows had not been milked that morning and set about doing so. The Lakey’s 110-acre farm carried 51 dairy cows. The neighbours were concerned to find no sign of the Lakeys in their house and it was not long before they found the body of Christobel Lakey dead with her face in the duckpond.  As soon as this news spread around the district people assumed Samuel Lakey had murdered his wife.  

The search for Samuel Lakey, Auckland Weekly News, 8 November 1933, p.46 

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19331108-46-02

Police searched for his body, with the help of local people, expecting that it might be a murder/suicide.  Lakey’s shotgun was found in a creek on Bill Bayly’s farm and blood was found on items at his place.  The two farmers had fallen out and argued over a fencing issue when Bayly’s bull got into the paddock with Lakey’s cows, and they did not get on generally.  Mrs Lakey has said she believed he had killed Elsie Walker and could well kill them. Police used chemical tests that revealed that there were charred bone fragments on his shovel, for he had tried to burn Samuel Lakey’s body in a drum.  On 10 January 1934, Bayly was charged with Samuel Lakey's murder and he hanged for it in the following July. Gossip spread around the country and the version that I heard a decade later was that he fed the body to his pigs.  The guilty verdict reinforced the suspicion that he had murdered his cousin in Papamoa.

Burial of Samuel Lakey with his wife
Photo: KELLY HODEL / Waikato Times by kind permission

Christobel was buried in an unmarked grave in Huntly while Samuel's remains became part of the police's investigative and forensic training exhibits collection.  It was not until 2015 that the Police released the remains for burial and arranged to have a name plaque placed on the joint grave. The Lakeys were English and had no family in New Zealand.

Classic Refreshments of a Kiwi Summer

 

Mrs J. T. Trotter left and Mrs S. A. Sefton with three-year old Steven Trotter enjoy fish and chips on the Strand reclamation. Published Bay of Plenty Times 23 March 1971.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo gcc-16664

Who among us has not enjoyed a sunny seaside snack of fish and chips, coupled with a fizzy drink and maybe followed by an ice cream?  How long have Tauranga residents been able to do so?  It took quite a while for the components of this classic meal to come together.

Exactly 152 years and two days ago, at a race day at the Tauranga racecourse on 14 January, 1874, hot and thirsty spectators were offered a fizzy drink – the long-standing classic and ubiquitous ginger beer. Messrs Grant & Co superintended the refreshments tent [1[ and a Mr. Clarke handed out the non-alcoholic beverage, probably in sturdy, re-usable bottles that looked like this:

Tauranga Museum, 3189/85
Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

Ginger beer was enormously popular, not only for the slightly daring implication that it might be intoxicating, but also because it was cheap and easy to make in a bottling plant or at home.  (Ginger was also a well-loved spice and thought to aid digestion.)  Prizes were awarded for the best home-made ginger beer at A & P Shows[2] and by 1923 T.H. Hall was offering it in a commercial quantity[3]:

The other elements of our now-traditional meal trio were less easily adaptable to open-air enjoyment.  The first reference I can find to an offering of fish and chips is in the Bay of Plenty Times of 16 April 1909 [4], where Mr W. H. Beets, one of the firm of Beets Bros. that flourished briefly in Tauranga during the early years of the century, offers a terse invitation:

This is, unfortunately, some months after the same paper had advertised the Beets Bros clearing sale, so maybe it is a last gesture to mark the end of their endeavours from their premises on the Strand? 

I have been unable to trace the location of either the Beets’ “depot” or the “Strand supper room” as such – it may have been a venue so convenient and well-frequented that everyone knew where Mr Beets’ hospitality would be on offer. Supper rooms were to be found as part of larger buildings all over Tauranga, so this one was very likely to be part of another establishment, possibly the Commercial Hotel.  In this, approximately 1908, photo, where the two-storey hotel is the backdrop, fish can be seen hanging on its verandah:

Tauranga Museum 0333/21
Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

One thing is quite clear, however – in early Tauranga, fish and chips were not eaten out of paper on your lap[5], but were served on plates set on tables.  The clearest evidence of this is provided in 1911[6]:

So – mass public consumption of fish and chips occurred much later than ginger beer.  And, still later, came ice cream.

Column header, Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXII, 9 December 1896, Page 3[7]

People knew about ice cream, of course.  But suspicions of the mass-produced stuff were rampant.  The 1909 – 1910 issues of the BP Times carry several stories of high microbe counts, the presence of arsenic, and even ptomaine poisoning.  So the cream had to be reliably sourced (Beets Bros had advertised a milk ordering service during their time here); and, although pasteurisation was well understood as a preservation process, it was complex to accomplish.

The 1896 feature article, underneath  “The Dairy” headline, highlights the way in which an apparently American manufacturer achieves production in sufficient quantity to supply the ice cream parlour in his city for the summer months.  The correspondent, J. Moldenhower, states: “Thus treated you can ship your cream with absolute safety in jacketed [i.e., insulated] cans any reasonable distance.  If the cream on arrival at its destination is cooled again to below 50 degrees, it will keep sweet for 24 hours at least even without freezing.  The pasteurised cream not only keeps from souring, but it keeps its flavour perfectly fresh for several days.”

Well, maybe.  For some time ice cream was to remain a delicacy made in private homes, involving much labour.  

Ice cream maker, Tauranga Museum 2115/85
Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

By 20 January 1913, however – one week less than 113 years ago – we are back at the Tauranga races, where, in the “capable hands of Mrs F. H. Hammond”, a midday dinner was provided, followed by “afternoon tea, ice cream, and cream and fruit, from 2 p.m. till 6 p. m.”[8]

It could be said that Mrs Hammond broke the ice.  In October of that year, an ice cream stall was up and running at a Methodist Church sale of work[9]; and at last, in 1914, ice cream was to be had from a shop on the Strand[10],  Whitehead’s Tea Rooms.  Did Whitehead’s customers get to wander along a sunny street licking a cone?  Almost certainly not.  A thick conical sundae glass kept the confection colder for longer (anyone who has eaten ice cream made from real cream knows how quickly it drips and puddles).

A century ago our 1970's family eating with their fingers al fresco on the Strand may have chosen Whitehead’s for their classic summer meal.  And they might have found it as delicious as the fizz, fish, chips, and ice cream of today.

Ice cream sundae glass, Tauranga Museum 0209/85
Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

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[1] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18740114.2.8
[2] See, for instance, results listed in the Bay of Plenty Times of 24 March 1916, 16 March 1917, and 15 March 1918
[3] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19230111.2.2.6
[4] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19090416.2.7
[5] An early example of such informality, however, is the account of the Peace Celebration in 1919, when, along with ginger beer, participating children (in large numbers) were given paper bags containing a lunch (likely to be a sandwich, a cake and some fruit).  Having eaten its contents, they felt free to blow up and pop! the bag.

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19190723.2.10
[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19110529.2.6
[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18961209.2.19
[8] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19130120.2.8
[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19131020.2.5
[10] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19141118.2.18