The schooner Columbine and the Anglican Missionaries

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga - Part VII
The schooner Columbine and the Anglican Missionaries

The 70 ton Columbine was a regular and welcome visitor to Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty. Built in Sydney and purchased by Church Missionary officials at the Bay of Islands in 1835, it was described as a ‘handsome’ schooner; one of a succession of vessels acquired to help establish and service New Zealand’s increasing number of coastal mission stations. [1]

In the hands of veteran skippers like Captains Mair (snr) and Stratton, the Columbine safely transported missionaries and their families, property, and stores from Sydney to the Pacific Islands, the Bay of Islands and around New Zealand’s coasts from the mid-1830s to mid-1840s. Impressed with the Columbine’s speed and seaworthiness, the trader Joel Polack described the schooner as ‘a beautiful model’ of its type, ‘admirably adapted for the coast [and] working off a lee shore.' [2]

Figure 1. Ship arriving and schooner departing the Church Mission station at Rangihoua, Bay of Islands

In March 1836, when the Western Bay of Plenty was wracked by intertribal warfare, the leading Ngati Haua rangatira Te Waharoa sent a messenger to Tauranga, warning the missionaries not to unload stores from the Columbine. Te Waharoa feared that his victorious warriors would plunder the vessel during their triumphal return home to Matamata. The Tauranga missionaries promptly sent their families aboard the vessel for safety, but the attack never eventuated, as Te Waharoa and his personal retinue were able to get to Tauranga first. By symbolically lying across the doorway of one of the houses, Te Waharoa rendered the whole missionary settlement tapu and the taua (military expedition) passed by without incident. [3]

Figure 2. William Fairburn was among the Tauranga missionaries who placed their families aboard the Columbine for safety in March 1836

In October 1839, the Rev Henry Williams and four missionary companions sailed through squally weather from the Bay of Islands to Tauranga, intending to visit Alfred Brown, James Stack and John Wilson who had re-established the mission at Te Papa the previous year. Unable to enter the harbour, the Columbine anchored off ‘Maunganui’, obliging the missionaries to row through ‘pounding surf’ at the entrance. The captain and mixed Maori and Pakeha crew endured five days of ‘violent winds’ before Williams was able to return to the vessel. [4]

The Rev Alfred Brown’s journal entries for 1842 indicate the importance of the Columbine to the Tauranga missionaries and early New Zealand mission stations elsewhere.
- 20th January: the schooner arrived in the harbour with ‘a large shipment of stores’ which took two days to unload.
- 10th February: the vessel arrived with a cargo of timber for the Tauranga station.
- 14th February: the Columbine took missionaries Brown and Wilson to Tuhua (Mayor Island), to remonstrate with resident Maori who had shown interest in Catholicism which Brown referred to as ‘Popery.’
- 29th March 1842: the vessel transported Rev Stack from Tauranga to the Turanga (Gisborne) station with cattle and stores. [5]

Figure 3. The Columbine was similar in tonnage and sail configuration to the schooners Rifleman and Eclipse, which later also plied Bay of Plenty and East Coast waters

Tauranga was also the last port of call for John Wilson, William Williams and John Colenso who were transported southwards by the Columbine to establish new mission stations at Opotiki, Turanga (Gisborne) and Hawke’s Bay. Colenso who had been aboard the schooner when it was nearly wrecked on Matakana Island during a visit to Tauranga in 1843, recalled his visit in 1844:

On 1st January we left the Bay in the Mission Schooner “Columbine”; on the 4th we anchored inside of Tauranga Harbour under Maunganui, and remained onshore till the 12th, visiting the various pas there – Maunatapu, Otumoetai &c; in which were a great number of Maoris, some of whom I had formally seen at Paihia. Here I gained some curious information from old priests. [6]

The names of the many interesting missionary men and women who sailed aboard the Columbine are too numerous to list here. It is likely however, that every missionary based in New Zealand between 1835 and 1846 sailed aboard the vessel at some time, as did their families.

Figure 4. In this sketch by Joseph Merrett, Ngai Te Rangi greet visitors outside Otumoetai Pa

Despite its seaworthiness and ability to work off lee shores, the Columbine had several close calls. In October 1842 it was driven ashore in Tauranga harbour during a gale. It was refloated with difficulty, with relays of Ngai Te Rangi warriors manpowering it back into deeper water, over the course of four days. [7] Again in May 1843 the Columbine went aground and was badly damaged while crossing the Wanganui River bar. After two months, and with the assistance of the Rev Richard Taylor at the Putiki station and Whanganui Maori, the schooner was repaired and refloated. Safely recrossing the bar, it sailed for Port Nicholson (Wellington) with a cargo of potatoes, pigs and passengers. [8]

References in the literature to the Columbine decline sharply between 1842 and 1846 as the missionaries built, purchased or hired vessels to service their own stations. In 1847, the schooner was acquired by Sydney owners, for the Pacific Islands and Australian coastal trade. Among the last references to the missionary maritime workhorse was a letter sent from Sydney by Leonard Williams to Rev William Williams at the Gisborne station in December 1847. ‘As we came in this morning we had a beautiful view of the harbour and brought up alongside the old Columbine. [9] During the Californian gold rush of 1849, the Columbine (Captain Sargeant) was among the 200 Australian and New Zealand vessels that carried passengers to California’s Pacific Coast by way of Tahiti and Hawaii. [10]

Posted by Trevor Bentley

References
[1] J. W. Stack, Early Maoriland Adventures, A. H. and A. W. Reed, Dunedin, 1935:16.
[2] Joel Polack, New Zealand: Being A Narrative of Travels and Adventures, Vol. II. Capper Press Christchurch, 1974: 151.
[3] L. W. Melon, ‘Te Waharoa of Ngati Haua’, in The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 71, 1962: 373.
[4] Paul Moon, The Voyagers: European Explorations of New Zealand, Penguin, Random House. 2014:  98.
[5] Alfred Brown, The Journals of A. N. Brown, The Elms Trust, Tauranga, 1990: 44-56.
[6] William Colenso, Fifty Years Ago in New Zealand, R. C. Hardy, Hastings, 1888: 43.
[7] Brown, ibid, 1990: 69-70.
[8] William Williams, The Turanga Journals, 1840-1850, Frances Porter (ed.), Price Milburn,   Wellington, 1974: 313.
[9] Stack, ibid, 1935: 464.
[10] Australia and New Zealand Mining Companies, 1848-1890, www.maritimeheritage.org

Illustrations
Figure 1. James Richardson, ‘Church Missionary Settlement at Rangihoua, in New Zealand [circa 1830], Missionary Register, Church Missionary Society, The Missionary Register for 1832.’ Seely and Sons, London, 1832: 279.
Figure 2. A. H. Messenger, ‘The Schooner “Rifleman’’, in James Cowan, The New Zealand Wars, A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period, Vol. II, R.E. Owen, Wellington, 1956, 228. enzb.auckland.ac.nz
Figure 3. Artist unknown, ‘William Thomas Fairburn’, [1850-1869], 2018 332.01. Image courtesy of Howick Historical Village.
Figure 4. Joseph Merrett, ‘A meeting of visitors Mounganui. Tauraga in the distance’, [1843?], E-212-F-119. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.