A Maritime Heritage Out of Auckland: A history of NZ shipbuilding

Fast-forward 60 years and Robert Hawkins received a call “out of the blue” from INC Productions’ publisher Stuart Shepherd, who’d come across a second-hand copy of Out of Auckland and wondered whether it was time for a re-print – after all, he thought, there’s still very little documenting the fledgling shipbuilding industry of the mid 19th century.

Robert J Hawkins has published A Maritime Heritage Out of Auckland, which is a reprint of an original book – Out of Auckland – that was first published by his late father Clifford W Hawkins in 1960 as an archive of early New Zealand shipbuilding.

Robert knew there was interest in both the subject matter and his father’s book – people had been approaching him to say how interested they were in both that original 1960 book and a 1978 version renamed A Maritime Heritage Out of Auckland that had been put out with updated illustrations. And so a plan was hatched to create a new version for 2024.

Robert says he hopes the book will resonate with New Zealanders as well as honour his father’s legacy.

“There are so many connections throughout New Zealand and so many out-of-the-way places where boats used to be built,“ he says.

“I felt like I didn’t want to tread on my father’s toes and in his footsteps too greatly but I do think I’ve done him a good turn by getting the book out there again in its present form – so hopefully, it means a lot.”

A Maritime Heritage Out of Auckland – Revisited has been published by Robert J Hawkins, the son of the original author Clifford W Hawkins, who first penned what is considered an invaluable archive of New Zealand’s early shipbuilding. Pictured are father and son.

The following is an extract from A Maritime Heritage Out of Auckland – Revisited.

The I Don’t Know and Others

Many colonial vessels went to San Francisco during the Californian gold rush and shortly after the Kiwi was there, on 30 September 1850, ten from New Zealand were in ‘Frisco Bay. Eight of these were Auckland craft. Others hailed from Sydney and Hobart. Altogether some 550 vessels crowded the berths or lay idle at moorings.

In 1849 the Deborah, in which William Bambridge travelled to Sydney and visited Nagle Cove in 1847, made the voyage to San Francisco. There the whole crew, with the exception of one man, deserted for the gold diggings, and that man remained with his ship only because he was immobilised with a bad foot. He returned to Auckland as mate of the Deborah and probably fared better than his shipmates ashore in California.

The extensive voyaging and exploits of early New Zealand craft have long been forgotten. Take the 68 ton schooner I Don’t Know for example. She was built in 1843 at what was then known as the Pa and, as old records state, situated in the Bay of Islands, New Ulster; that is, the North Island of today. The schooner made some long ocean voyages for a vessel of her size to Sydney in 1845, the Fegees (Fiji) in 1846, Hobart Town to the Bay of Islands and on to San Francisco in 1850.

The Mary, typical of the trading craft in New Zealand waters during the early years of European settlement.

In 1845 the I Don’t Know ran foul of the United States steam corvette St Louis whose commander, Captain Isaac McKeever, had instructions from Governor FitzRoy to intercept the schooner as she was suspected of having taken aboard, in Sydney, arms and gunpowder consigned to the Maori.

Arriving at the Bay of Islands the I Don’t Know was seized and taken, under the charge of HMS Hazard, to Auckland, where the schooner’s owner, Charles Waitford, was thrown into prison and hastily charged with high treason. It appears Governor FitzRoy had acted on false information. No barrels of gunpowder could be found in the hold of the I Don’t Know and finally the charge against Waitford was reduced to one of felonious possession of a picture and two books. These had been picked up on the beach at Russell after Heke’s people had ransacked the township, and which Waitford had endeavoured to restore to their rightful owner – or so he said.

In the meantime, the master of the schooner, Captain Thompson, and his crew, had been instructed not to approach The I Don’t Know, now under a strong guard. As no contraband had been found Thompson was given the legal opinion that he had the right to take his vessel by force if necessary, so, hiring a waterman, off he went. Alongside the schooner stiff opposition was encountered from the Chief Constable and militia guards. Captain Thompson was savagely battered with rifle butts until, forced to release his hold on the vessel’s chain plates, he fell into the fast-flowing tide. Luckily a harbour master’s boat picked him up, much to the displeasure of the guards who, during the fray, vociferously encouraged the throwing overboard and drowning of the captain.

After all this Waitford’s case came up and the owner and his schooner were freed, with not so much as a pardon from the most unpopular Governor. But perhaps Waitford was fortunate in escaping so easily from the hands of the law. It is almost certain that he was a menace to the well-being of the community and had illicit dealings with Maori. It appears that the I Don’t Know incident was an attempt to get rid of an undesirable immoral ruffian who could be looked upon as nothing more than an unfortunate Bay of Islands’ inheritance.

Henry Niccol’s shipyard at Mechanics Bay, Auckland, about 1857. Robertson’s rope works on Parnell Rise to right. 

It is interesting to note that no word concerning the interception of the I Don’t Know appears in the log of the St Louis, but there is mention of another native-owned schooner that was observed flying the United States ensign. Perhaps Captain McKeever was justified in lecturing the Maori on the impropriety of a vessel using the flag of another power and demanding its hauling clown. But those Maori were at war and, in flying that ensign, were doing no more than what is practised in modern times. The author well remembers when, in 1939, the New Zealand Shipping Company’s passenger liner Rangitata slipped down the English Channel flying the stars and stripes in an endeavour to camouflage her true identity.

Henry Smith, in 1844, when writing from Whangarei to his friend Gilbert Mail at the Bay of Islands, mentioned the I Don’t Know and other vessels then in the New Zealand-New South Wales trade. On 28 September Smith wrote that:

… “the only excitement we have had just now is in catching thiefs [sic] which are very numerous. My trip to Sydney was a very pleasant one. The schooner I Don’t Know has her name up for making passages. Her passage up to Sydney was made in thirteen days from Monganui [Mangonui], from Sydney to the Bay [Bay of Islands] eight days. The Thos. Lord was sold for £400, Brown has the Shamrock belonging to Campbell & Co. They paid £ 500 for her. The Thos. Lord passage to Sydney was twenty days. The brig Tryphena thirty-two days from the Barrier [Great Barrier Island] to Sydney. The Shamrock twenty-five days from Sydney to Bay.”

It is said that the I Don’t Know received her peculiar name when her builders, in answer to the question put to them as to what they intended to call their new vessel, replied ‘I don’t know’ and decided there and then that what they had spoken would be the name.

Try Again was another odd name given to a New Zealand vessel. Then there was the Old Man, built in 1849 by Joseph Toms at Te Awaiti in Queen Charlotte Sound. At Wanganui, in 1842, Richard Smith built the schooner Imp and in 1844 the Sisters came from the Banks Peninsula and, in 1848, the Twins from Mana Island.

Although 1957 should be remembered as the year when the first satellite was launched into space, almost a hundred years before, in 1860, George Beddoes launched a Satellite cutter on the Waitemata Harbour. But perhaps the vessel which possessed the most arresting name, because of its combination with the port of registry, was the schooner Terror of Auckland. This name, however, was soon abbreviated to plain Terror.

Peter Abercrombie had this vessel built for himself at Coromandel during 1843 for launching early in 1844. In March that year she arrived at Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf to load manganese for Brown and Campbell who were also acting as the vessel’s agents in Auckland. They advertised for freight and passengers for “The New Brigantine Terror of Auckland” and, after spending some days in the Waitemata, she cleared for Sydney on 3 May.

William Paine Brown, shipbuilder at Wahapu, Bay of Islands.

Some New Zealand-built commercial sailing craft were named after British and American clippers although the local vessels did not necessarily possess the lines associated with a clipper or achieve any fame for establishing record passages.

There was a Cutty Sark built at Auckland and a Flying Cloud at Little Omaha while from Mangawhai came an Abeona – seven years before the famous clipper of that name cleaved her way across the Atlantic.

The Black Joke, a Maori-owned cutter, was probably named after the British slave-ship chaser that in earlier years had operated against the slavers on the west coast of Africa. Baltimore-built as the Henriquetta, she had been a slaver herself but, on being captured and because of her superb sailing qualities, the Royal Navy commissioned her to assist in the suppression of the slave traffic across the Atlantic. Although the Ngatitematera’s Black Joke traded after the Maori had ceased to take slaves from defeated tribes, the name suggests that the cutter’s owner revelled in a certain amount of adventure on the Coromandel coast.

New Zealand craft often derived their names from the Maori language. William Brown’s Wahapu was called after ‘the Wahapu’ in the Bay of Islands where her builder’s yard was situated. In 1866 George Beddoes built at Devonport the cutter Kirikiri, named after the Bay of Islands settlement and now known as Kerikeri. It must be remembered that the pakeha found it a difficult task to set down the Maori language in writing and consequently we find many differences in the spelling of New Zealand place-names and changes are not unknown today. Waiheki has become Waiheke; Wangapou, Whangapoua; Wakatani, Whakatane and Tehmaki, Tamaki.

Waiwera, once known as Wai Wera Wera, also went by the European interpretation of Hot Springs. Perhaps the prize for unorthodox spelling goes to the Sydney Gazette for its rendering of Maketu. On 26 June 1834 that newspaper reported the arrival of the brig New Zealander at Port Jackson and her trading on the New Zealand coast. The vessel had discharged her cargo from Sydney at the Bay of Islands and, after taking in potatoes and other produce, proceeded to “Muckatoo” for flax.

A Maritime Heritage Out of Auckland – Revisited has been published by Robert J Hawkins – carrying on the legacy of the book’s original author, his father Clifford W Hawkins in 1960.

A Maritime Heritage Out of Auckland was first published as Out of Auckland in 1960. It was revised with many new illustrations, William Collins 1978; and reprinted with acknowledgements in 2024 by R J Hawkins. This limited edition is available at www.incproductions.co.nz, the Maritime Museum Shop and Boat Books in Auckland.

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