SettlementofWellington

Wellington City and Port Nicholson
The story that began a Nation

The harbour that became Port Nicholson took quite a number of years to be discovered by European explorers. Tasman, D'Urville and Cook, amongst others, failed to locate the narrow entrance and although Cook saw it on his second voyage, he did not enter. It seems that Captain James Herd was the first European navigator to enter the harbour in command of the barque Rosanna. Accompanied by the cutter Lambton under the command of Captain Barnett, Herd arrived in New Zealand in April 1826 under orders to the forerunner of the New Zealand Company. On board he had around 25 immigrants and his orders, as an agent of the New Zealand Company, was to locate a suitable site for a settlement in New Zealand. In searching for this site, Herd visited Stewart Island, Queen Charlotte Sound, Port Nicholson and, having sailed around North Cape, proposed to leave his settlers at Hokianga. So alarmed, however, were the settlers by a Maori war dance that they persuaded Captain Herd to take them across the Tasman to Sydney. So it was that New Zealands first potential settlers became Australians.

Several more visitors were known to have sailed into the harbour between 1826 and 1839. Captain Kent, John Guard, Dicky Barrett and James Heberley were all familiar with the topography and navigation of this natural harbour on Cook's Strait.

Meanwhile, 13,000 miles away, the 380 ton Tory, flagship of the New Zealand Company, was being prepared for the voyage of a lifetime. Indeed the making of this new land of New Zealand was dependent on the success of her voyage.A little over 4 months later the bluff nosed Tory edged her way along what was to become known as Chaffers Passage and into the harbour which had already been named Nicholson by Captain Herd after a friend, Captain John Nicholson, the Harbour Master at Sydney. Two months after Tory set sail, the even smaller ship Cuba with a party of surveyors under the command of Captain William Mein Smith RA followed her into the unknown.

The site of Wellington as we presently know it was "Plan B" for the New Zealand Company. Charts for the new and ambitious city of Britannia had been drawn up in England under erroneous assumptions made about the Hutt River. In the mind of those planning Britannia, the river was likened to a broad, navigable waterway; a Thames, perhaps, of the South Seas.

Having arrived on board the Cuba at Petone Beach (Pito-one "End of the Sand" in Maori) Captain Smith and his party of surveyors began laying off the township. Soon, however, dissatisfaction with its location began to arise. The site for the township was considered to be flood-prone and too open to the elements. Indeed, as these events were unfolding, a heavy flood in the Hutt River occurred to add voice to those seeking a change of location. On April 7th 1840, surveying of the new site at Thorndon on Port Nicholson's southern shores began. The location met with approval (grudgingly from Colonel William Wakefield) from most. A letter written by Samuel Revans (the founder of Wellington's first newspaper) dated April 6th 1840 states "The surveyors go to survey the Lambton site to-morrow, and hope will be enabled to give out the town acres in about three months. I am so enthusiastic about the place that I am almost afraid of being guilty of apparent absurdity in my statements."

The efforts of the New Zealand Company had succeeded in forcing the hand of the British Government. Two months after the departure of the Tory Captain William Hobson R N was sent to New Zealand from Australia with instructions to "treat for British sovereignty". The Tory would therefore arrive in a country already under the protection of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. A flag was erected at the new settlement causing the officials of the New Zealand Company to come into conflict with British Government officials. Hobson sent his officious Deputy, Lieutenant Willoughby Shortland, southward with the Union Jack to set matters straight. Indeed the flag raised by the New Zealand Company was not intended to be their banner of sovereignty. It was, in fact, the flag selected by local Maori Chiefs back in 1834 (an adaptation of the British Naval Ensign and later adopted by Shaw Savill) and thus the more correct one to fly over the new settlement.

Thus established, Wellington City began to grow in population, land area and in prominence as an enchanting city on a harbour of stunning beauty. In 1864 it became the seat of New Zealands Central Government occupying a logical position in the centre of the country and the centre of the country's political life. With pride Wellington took on the meaning of its Latin motto "Suprema a Situ" and remains to this day one of the most beautiful harbour capitals in the world.