Hardwicke, New Zealand

Hardwicke was the name of an an agricultural and whaling community set up at Port Ross, a natural harbour on Auckland Island in the Auckland Islands Group in the Southern Ocean south of New Zealand. However, although a short-lived settlement was established, it was abandoned within three years.

History

This colonial settlement was first proposed in 1846. The Southern Whale Fishery Company was formed in Britain and granted a Royal Charter with its founder, Charles Enderby, as the resident Chief Commissioner and Lieutenant Governor of the new colony. The Enderby Settlement was the start of the establishment of Hardwicke, the intended ship provisioning and whaling station in Erebus Cove, Port Ross, at the north-eastern end of Auckland Island, close to Enderby Island.Dingwall, Paul; & Jones, Kevin. "Archaeological reconstruction of a mid-19th century colonial settlement at the Auckland Islands". Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai: Wellington. [http://www.rsnz.org/events/akl-isl/symposium/DingwallJones.pdf] ]

Settlement began in December 1849. [http://www.murihiku.com/TimeLine.htm Murihiku timeline] ] Three ships, the "Samuel Enderby", "Fancy" and "Brisk" from Britain arrived at Port Ross with the intending colonists, prefabricated houses and bricks with which to build chimneys. The settlers were carefully chosen to establish the new colony. They included women and children as well as farm workers, shipwrights, a surgeon, a civil engineer and other people with appropriate skills.

When the colonists arrived at Port Ross they found a group of Ngāti Mutunga Maori settlers, with their Moriori slaves from the Chatham Islands, already there, having arrived in 1841-42. The new colonists employed the Maori to help clear the forest, build roads and crew the ships, with their leaders appointed as constables to maintain law and order.

In January 1850 the settlement was officially named "Hardwicke" after the Earl of Hardwicke, the governor of the company. Two farm sites were chosen, one on Auckland Island and the other on Enderby Island. However crops were difficult to grow because of poor soils, harsh climate and high rainfall. Livestock were hard to muster in the thick scrub. Whaling was also unproductive. Within three years special commissioners from the whaling company decided to close the settlement as it was too expensive to maintain. It was abandoned in August 1852 after a period of two years and nine months during which five weddings, sixteen births and two infant deaths had taken place. Most buildings were disassembled and removed leaving little evidence that settlement had occurred, except for a cemetery containing the graves of the infants and some subsequent castaways. A few years later the island was also abandoned by the Maori settlers and their slaves.

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