Captain Wing and the schooner Fanny

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga, Part XVI

The first survey of Tauranga Harbour was made in June 1835 by Captain Thomas Wing, an accomplished North Sea sailor with a lifelong interest in hydrography. In 1832, Wing served as first mate on the trading schooner Fortitude during its five month’s voyage from London to the Bay of Islands. Between 1832 and 1834, Wing traded around the northern coast of New Zealand and to Port Jackson in his capacity as mate of the Fortitude, acquiring in the process an excellent knowledge of New Zealand waters. In 1834, the Bay of Islands merchants Clendon and Stephenson appointed him master of their new schooner, Fanny. Wing went on trading voyages to Tauranga, Kaipara, Manukau, Kawhia and Raglan harbours (1835-1836), during which he made what are believed to be the first detailed charts of these harbours. When not at sea, Wing lived at Hokianga with Rautangi, a daughter of the rangatira Waiti. The couple had a daughter, Fanny, who was killed during the 1845 Flagstaff War at the Bay of Islands.

Wing’s 1836 sketch of his trading schooner Fanny

Unfortunately, only a few faded and spotted examples of Captain Wing's historic charts, sketches and notes remain, which have been described as having considerable artistic merit and a wealth of detail ‘written in such a clear hand, that they appear as living pictures of a bygone age.’ On his chart of Tauranga harbour, written concisely and legibly in small characters in one corner, are the following words:

A sketch of the entrance of Tauronga, a small harbour in the Bay of Plenty on the east coast of New Zealand, lat. 37.39 south. High water on the full and change of moon at 7.30 a.m. and rises from 7ft. to 8ft.The soundings were taken at low water, June, 1835.

The Fanny's track into the harbour is shown and to the chart is added:

Maunga Nui, a very remarkable high hill, seen in clear weather nine or ten leagues off shore. The coast at the foot of Maunga Nui is covered with large boulder stones. Vessels ought not to come out of Tauronga in the strength of the ebb tide if the winds are light, as the strong eddy setting round Stony Point would be likely to run them ashore on the north side of it.

Wing provided further information likely to be of service to mariners in this era, including: ‘In 1835 there was a remarkable tree that drooped over the water abreast of Stony Point with good fresh water close to it.’ Fresh water was still flowing there in the 1920s and to the west of the chart is an artistically drawn Maori pa, ‘close to low tableland.’ The fortress, shown in the form of a square, is surrounded by a strongly-built palisade enclosing six whare and two whata or storehouses, which Wing labelled ‘Tumaitai Pa.’ [Otumoetai Pa].

Part of Wing’s chart and notes on Tauranga Harbour

Describing the anchorage before Wing’s survey, the missionary William White had written:

The harbour of Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, and a few leagues South of Mercury Bay, is resorted to by vessels for the purpose of trading in flax, pork, potatoes, and corn. It is a bar harbour, but safe for vessels of 100 tons burthen.

When Thomas Wing charted Tauranga Harbour in June 1835, the only permanent European buildings in the district were the stores and houses of the Pakeha-Maori traders James Farrow at Otumoetai Pa and the chevalier Peter Dillon at Maungatapu Pa, who accumulated cargoes for trading vessels from their hapu in exchange for muskets and munitions. Wing interacted with Farrow and the rangatira of Otumoetai Pa and was fortunate that his hydrographic survey was not interrupted by the intertribal fighting of the Musket Wars. Ngapuhi from the Bay of Islands had only recently ceased their long distance amphibious raids to Tauranga and the bloody storming of Maketu and Te Tumu Pa during the war between the Te Arawa people and the combined forces of Ngai Te Rangi, and Ngati Haua did not occur until the following year.

Thomas Wing about 1860

Captain Wing went on to survey Kawhia, Whaingaroa (Raglan) and Kaipara during 1836, with the Fanny narrowly avoiding a stranding in the latter harbour. In 1837 he went on to chart Port Ahuriri, the Otago coast and Foveaux Strait. In the same year he ceased to skipper the Fanny, captaining instead the trading schooner Trent and, in 1844, the 220 ton New Zealand Company brig Deborah. Thomas Wing was harbour master for the Manakau for thirty years from 1857, before his death at Onehunga in 1888. An accomplished cartographer, sea captain, harbour master and pilot, probably no other mariner of his day had a better knowledge of the New Zealand coast. The fate of the Fanny is unknown.

References
Byrne, T. B;  Wing of the Manukau, T. B. Byrne, Auckland, 1991.
Byrne, T. B; 'Wing, Thomas', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1w33/wing-thomas
New Zealand Herald, 2 September, 1932: 8.
Tuckett, Frederick, The 1844 Expedition and Otago Survey, Gerald Franklin (ed.),  The Frenchay Tucketts, 2005: 18-19, 96.
Webster, John, Reminiscences of an Old Settler in Australia and New Zealand, Whitcombe and Tombs, Christchurch, 1908: 253.
White, William, Important Information Relevant to New Zealand, Thomas Brennand, Sydney, 1839: 19.

Illustrations
Wing, Thomas,  (Capt), 1810-1888. A sketch of the entrance of Tauronga [Tauranga], a small harbour in the Bay of Plenty on the east coast of New Zealand, June 1835. [ms map]. Ref: Map Coll-832.16aj/1835/Acc.423. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.
Wing, Thomas, Chart of the entrance to Kaipara Harbour, January, 1836 with sketch of the vessel Fanny. Map 4613, Old Colonists’ Museum Map Collections, Auckland Council Libraries.
Photographer unknown, Thomas Wing (1810-1888), master mariner, cartographer, harbour master and pilot, ca. 1860, PAColl - 7246. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.