(1843–1927).

Journalist and newspaper owner.

A new biography of Brett, Henry appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Brett was born on 25 February 1843 and educated at St. Leonards, Hastings, Sussex. After leaving school he worked in the establishment of an uncle who owned the Hastings and St. Leonards Gazette, together with a stationery business, and had some reputation as a local historian. Brett sang in a church choir from the age of 10, served in a volunteer corps, and was successful as an oarsman, winning the pair-oar championship of the South Coast. At 19 Brett was attracted by the prospectus of the Albertland Special Settlement in New Zealand, and signed an undertaking to buy 40 acres of land from the Auckland Provincial Council under an arrangement whereby he was to be employed three days a week on the settlement's newspaper. He left in the ship Hanover and reached Auckland on 12 September 1862.

Before going ashore he was offered work at £1 a day on the Southern Cross, a daily newspaper, and this ended all his visions of life on the land. He became a shipping reporter, and in 1865 transferred in that capacity to the New Zealand Herald. Before the days of cables, shipping coverage was of prime importance to New Zealand papers. There was the keenest competition in boarding inward-bound vessels and ransacking them for mails, newspapers, and all other sources of information about recent events in the outer world. Young Brett's experience of boat handling gave him an advantage, and he made a high reputation for enterprise and resource in his work. He had many adventures in bad weather by day and night, and twice narrowly escaped drowning.

After five years with the Herald he seized an opportunity to buy an interest in the Evening Star, later the Auckland Star, which had just been launched by G. M. Reed and a partner named Farrar. It was a sheet of four pages, each measuring 19 in. by 15 in. “For many years,” Brett wrote at the Diamond Jubilee in 1920, “I shared in the mechanical production of the paper, setting type, folding and giving out papers to the runners, and for some months taking my spell in turning the handle of the machine, which in the early days had to be run by hand and occupied from three to four hours in working off two pages of a very small sheet.”

On the departure of Reed in 1873, Brett became sole owner of the paper, and remained so until he took the editor, T. W. Leys, into partnership, forming an association which lasted nearly 40 years. He showed much enterprise in the journalistic management of the Star. During the mining boom he regularly used pigeons to carry important news from the Thames goldfield to Auckland, and even forestalled the modern photostat process by having election speeches in the Thames papers photographed on a reduced scale and sent away piecemeal by pigeon.

In nine years the Star reached a circulation of 6,000, and a rotary press was installed in 1887. A little later Brett set up one of the first photo-engraving plants in the colony, and in 1891 brought out the New Zealand Graphic, an illustrated weekly which appeared until 1913. He also founded the New Zealand Farmer and published Brett's Auckland Almanac from 1873 until well into the present century. After the Brett Printing and Publishing Co. was formed, he became managing director and held office until his death.

One of Brett's notable achievements was in the field of book publishing. In the 1880s he was moved to a serious attempt at meeting the need for local literature of a practical kind. In the face of many difficulties, including small supplies of type and barely adequate printing plant, he produced a number of large quarto volumes, including Brett's Colonist's Guide, of 1,200 pages, The Early History of New Zealand, Defenders of New Zealand, and The Life and Times of Sir George Grey. His South Pacific Pilot was a standard work for many years. These books were freely illustrated with woodcuts. All were of course hand set, and it was necessary to distribute the type for reuse after each sheet had been printed. Late in his life Brett published White Wings (two volumes), an invaluable work on early shipping, and a work of local history, The Albert-landers.

As a young man Brett served on the Auckland Harbour Board and City Council, and he was Mayor of Auckland in 1878. His main interests after his business was firmly established were music and gardening, but he found time for 40 years' work as a director of the United Press Association, which he had helped to establish. He was also president of the Mechanics' Institute, precursor of the Auckland Public Library. He was a generous patron of music in the city, helping societies with gifts of sheet music. He presented an organ to the Industrial and Mining Exhibition of 1898, and later had it installed in the Choral Hall and finally in the Institute for the Blind. In 1912 he provided a magnificent instrument costing £7,000 for the new Town Hall and secured the appointment of a city organist. He himself had a fine natural bass voice and sang in church and other choirs for fully 70 years.

At Takapuna, Auckland, Brett maintained one of the finest flower gardens in New Zealand, and gave much assistance and encouragement to horticultural societies and their members. A Liberal in politics, he consistently supported the Seddon and Ward Governments. He declined appointment to the Legislative Council and was three times offered a knighthood, finally accepting one a year before his death at Rotorua on 29 January 1927.

In 1864 at Auckland, Brett married Mary Moon, by whom he had two sons and three daughters. In 1928 his widow and family presented his Takapuna residence to the Anglican Church as a home for orphaned and needy children and as a memorial to him.

Brett was a man who in early life showed an unusual degree of practical enterprise within a limited field. His ambitions, however, appeared to be satisfied as soon as he found himself at the head of a prosperous newspaper business. He made little apparent effort to enter the wider field of finance and industry, but devoted himself mainly to advancing his two hobbies in the Auckland community. A kindly man of simple tastes, he nevertheless took his own line in most matters and was not easily diverted by attempts at persuasion. He can be summed up as one who carried over the virtues and limitations of the early colonists into a century which had left them some way behind.

by Alfred Fearon Grace, Journalist, Auckland.

• The Albertlanders, Brett, H., and Hook, H. (1927)
• A History of Printing in New Zealand, Mackay, R. A. (1940)
• White Wings, Vol. I, Brett, H. (1924).

(1810–65).

Artist, engineer, and surveyor.

A new biography of Brees, Samuel Charles appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Brees was born in England in 1810 and was practising as an engineer and surveyor in Gray's Inn, London, when he was appointed in 1841 as successor to Captain W. Mein Smith as the second Surveyor-General to the New Zealand Company for a period of three years.

He came to New Zealand on the Brougham's second voyage to the colony, arriving in Wellington on 9 February 1842 accompanied by a “suite” of young gentlemen engaged by the company as surveying cadets for the three-year period. Brees resided in the vicinity of the present Hawkestone Crescent, Wellington, at that time a rural area. On 22 February 1843 Brees returned from a surveying trip to the Wairarapa by way of the Hutt Valley, taking this direction for the purpose of ascertaining the practicability of carrying a road inland up the Hutt Valley to connect the Wairarapa with Wellington as an alternative to the then existing coast road round Pencarrow Head. Brees made some of the best-known maps of Wellington in 1843 and a map of the city reserves in 1844. He left New Zealand with reluctance at the conclusion of his contract, and resumed the practice of his profession in London, this time at 43 Lincoln's Inn Fields. He later lived at Croydon and Brighton. During his life he published several books on engineering and surveying – namely, Railway Practice, Glossary of Terms in Civil Engineering, and Present Practice of Surveying and Levelling. He died at sea on 5 May 1865.

Brees is best known for the book he compiled from sketches he made while in New Zealand. Many of these were published in England in 1847 by John Williams and Co., London, as a portfolio of engravings, and entitled Pictorial Illustrations of New Zealand. The set contained 64 engravings on 20 plates, and three panorama plates. The introduction and descriptive matter was written by Brees, who considered that so many conflicting reports of the country had appeared that he regarded it his duty to lay the results of his experience before the English public. The publication soon became popular and the large panoramas of the Port Nicholson and Hutt district in particular did much to attract emigrants from Britain. On 27 November 1849 an exhibition of his panoramic painting of the Port Nicholson, Wellington, and Hutt districts was opened in the Town Hall, Brighton. In December of the same year his panoramic views were exhibited at No. 6 Leicester Square, London.

Brees must be considered as more than a topographical artist of town and bush, for some of his views, such as the “Hutt Road Taken at the Gorge, Looking Towards Wellington”, or his “Kai Warra Warra Saw Mill” have considerable artistic merit; but the real value of his work lies in its unique historical interest. For Brees has given us an accurate pictorial record of the colonists of his day, their dwellings, farms, and clearings, as well as glimpses of the customs of the Maoris, their pas, habitations, canoes, and dress.

by Thomas Esplin, D.A.(EDIN.), Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Home Science, University of Otago.

• Guide and Description of the Panoramas of N.Z., Brees, S. C. (1849)
• Catalogue of the Centennial Exhibition of N.Z. Art, 1940
• Early Wellington, Ward, Louis E. (1928)
• Early New Zealand Engineers, Furkert, F. W. (1953).

(1824–73).

Commissioner, Armed Constabulary.

A new biography of Branigan, St John appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

St. John Branigan was born in 1824 in King's County, Ireland. He joined the 45th Regiment at an early age and accompanied them to the Cape of Good Hope, where he transferred to the police. His efficiency earned him rapid promotion and he rose to the rank of inspector. During the Kaffir War (1850–52) he saw active service with the Cape Police, was wounded, and won a medal for gallantry. When news of the Australian gold discoveries reached South Africa, Branigan left the police in order to engage in a commercial enterprise. In 1854 he brought a shipload of merchandise to Melbourne, but his speculation did not prove as successful as he had hoped. He therefore joined the Victorian Mounted Police with whom he served until 1861. In the spring of that year, when the Otago Provincial Government was concerned at the increasing lawlessness on the Otago goldfields, Branigan came to New Zealand with 20 hand-picked volunteers from the Victorian Force. With these he quickly established law and order in the mining camps and provided efficient armed escorts for gold shipments from the diggings to Dunedin. The competence and reliability of this force soon won the settlers' confidence and approval. In 1863 Branigan was promoted to the rank of Commissioner. His general efficiency in this post made him known throughout the colony, with the result that in 1869 the new Fox Ministry invited him to reorganise the Armed Constabulary for service in the Te Kooti war. Towards the end of 1869 he assumed this post; however, in the following year, he suffered severe sunstroke and was obliged to retire. Branigan returned to Dunedin, where he remained until his death on 11 September 1873.

Branigan was one of the founders of the Otago Benevolent Institution, which cared for and educated orphan children. He also interested himself in the plight of the vagrant children of the city. In 1866 he prepared a report for the Provincial Council and, as a result, in the following year the Dunedin Industrial School was established at Look Out Point, Caversham.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Otago Daily Times, 11 Sep 1873 (Obit)

(1809–86).

Politician.

Alfred de Bathe Brandon was born in 1809 in London, the son of Henry Brandon. He was educated for the law and practised in London for a while, where he became interested in the colonising schemes of E. G. Wakefield. In August 1840 he arrived at Wellington in the New Zealand Company's ship London, and soon built up a flourishing legal practice. In the later 1840s he was an active member of the Wellington Settlers' Constitutional Association. When representative institutions were granted, Brandon was elected to the Wellington Provincial Council, remaining a member until its abolition. He acted as Provincial Solicitor during the whole of Featherston's long superintendency, but retired from office a few days after Fitzherbert was elected. From 1858 until 1881 he represented one or other of the Wellington constituencies in Parliament. In politics Brandon was a staunch provincialist and opposed Stafford's centralism. He upheld Weld in his “Self Reliant Policy” and consistently supported Fox until 1870 when Vogel's immigration and public works policy drove him into opposition. He lent his general support to the Atkinson and Hall Ministries, although he disagreed with their electoral policy. In 1883 Brandon was summoned to the Legislative Council, where he remained until his death.

For many years Brandon was the Crown Prosecutor in Wellington, but was not highly regarded as a pleader or public speaker. He was, however, an expert conveyancer and a competent legal draftsman. Brandon was deeply, interested in education and became the first chairman of the Wellington College Board of Governors. He was a director of the Colonial Insurance Co., of the Australian Mutual Provident Society, and president of the Wellington Law Society.

Brandon was twice married: first, in 1840, in London, to Constance Mary Ann, née Brandon; and, secondly, in New Zealand, in 1854, to Lucy Poole. He had four sons and four daughters. Brandon died at Hobson Street, Wellington, on 22 September 1886.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Evening Press (Wellington), 23 Sep 1886 (Obit)
• Evening Post, 23 Sep 1886 (Obit)
• New Zealand Times, 23 Sep 1886 (Obit).

(1876–1950).

Organist and professor of music.

A new biography of Bradshaw, John Christopher appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Born at Adlington, Lancashire, England, on 23 June 1876, the son of a chemist, Bradshaw decided at an early age to devote himself to music, and at the age of 15 he became organist and choirmaster of Christ Church, Adlington. Later he became organist of Lee Congregational Church, Horwich, and in 1896 assistant organist of Manchester Cathedral. In 1898 he was appointed to the parish church of Llangollen and in 1900 to All Saints', Scarborough. He was one of the earliest students at the Royal Manchester College of Music, studying the organ under Dr James Kendrick Pyne and theory under Dr Henry Hiles. In 1899 he took his F.R.C.O. diploma, and at the age of 25 became the youngest doctor of music in the British Empire, the degree being awarded by the Manchester University.

For health reasons he accepted in 1902 the joint positions of organist and choirmaster at Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand, and lecturer in music at Canterbury University College, declining the position of organist at Ripon Cathedral which had been offered to him. For 35 years he maintained at Christchurch Cathedral a standard of choir and organ music that was fully up to the best English traditions. He was a tireless worker and a stern disciplinarian. Unsparing of himself, he made the same demands on his choristers. By his insistence on precision of rhythm, tone, intonation and diction, he built up a choir whose reputation extended far beyond its own city. He was equally accomplished as an organist. For many years he was city organist at Christchurch, giving regular recitals at His Majesty's and the Civic Theatres, as well as at the cathedral.

Other appointments held by Dr Bradshaw were conductor of the Christchurch Liedertafel (1905–17), Royal Christchurch Musical Society (1904–12 and 1916–21), Christchurch Male Voice Choir (1917–40), and Canterbury College Choral Society (1937–40).

Appointed originally as lecturer in music at Canterbury College in 1902, he became dean of the faculty and, on the creation of a chair in 1937, the first professor of music, holding this appointment until his retirement in 1941. Apart from music his particular interest was mountaineering. He was one of the first to join the Canterbury-Westland section of the New Zealand Alpine Club, and between the ages of 45 and 60 climbed some 16 major peaks.

Bradshaw married twice: first, in 1901 at Scarborough, Yorkshire, Edith Garrod by whom he had four sons and two daughters and, secondly, in 1946 at Christchurch, Muriel Agnes Innes. He died at Christchurch on 16 January 1950.

Brought up in an industrial Lancashire area, Dr Bradshaw brought its traditions of hard work with him to New Zealand. In his constant striving after perfection he showed a forbidding exterior to all except those who knew him intimately, but at heart he was deeply religious and humble. His contribution to New Zealand's musical life was significant for, although in each of the spheres in which he worked the foundations had already been laid by his predecessors, he greatly raised general artistic standards, especially those of church music.

by Linden Charles Mansell Saunders, M.A., MUS.B., Music Master, King's College, Auckland.

• J. C. Bradshaw – A Memoir, Tucker, F. K. (1955)
• Nelson Evening Mail, 18 Jan 1950 (Obit).

(1831–86).

Pioneer of labour legislation.

A new biography of Bradshaw, James Benn Bradshaigh appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

J. B. B. Bradshaw was born in 1831 at Barton Blount, Lancashire, the son of General Joseph Bradshaigh-Bradshaw, of the East India Company's military service, and of Frances, née Clowes. Educated at Haileybury for a Company career, Bradshaw quickly found that his health could not stand the Indian climate. He resigned and travelled extensively, both in Africa and South America, before obtaining a post as War Office Agent in Cape Colony. In 1852 he left Africa and made his way leisurely to the Victorian goldfields, where he arrived in 1855. There he studied geology, and became an expert on quartz mining. After considerable success as a “digger”, Bradshaw opened his own assaying business at Castlemaine. In 1863 he emigrated to Otago, where he urged the Superintendent, J. L. C. Richardson to open a Government Assaying Office in order to guarantee miners a fairer price for their gold. In 1863–64 he edited the Lake Wakatip Mail, and from 1866 to 1870 represented Goldfields Towns in Parliament. In April 1867, on Macandrew's re-election to the Otago Superintendency, the General Government delegated the Governor's powers over the goldfields to Bradshaw. This arrangement caused dissatisfaction locally, but he retained them until 1870. On the opening of the Thames goldfields, Bradshaw made a special survey on aspects of quartz mining. In 1871 he was returned to Parliament for Waikaia and, a few months later, was elected to the Otago Provincial Council for Mt. Benger, serving for a year on Macandrew's Provincial Executive. In Parliament, J. L. C. Richardson encouraged him to persevere with his plans for social reform. These culminated in the passing of “Bradshaw's Act” (1873), which restricted the employment of women in factories to an eight-hour day and, in 1875, he obtained an amendment limiting child labour to a four-hour day. Defeated for Parliament in 1876, Bradshaw continued his struggle for social reforms. He assisted materially in getting the Saturday half-holiday and, as a member of the Otago Wastelands Board from 1878, he opposed “Dummyism” and similar abuses. He returned to Parliament for Dunedin Central in 1884. and attempted unsuccessfully to carry through legislation regulating employment in shops and offices.

On 20 April 1870, at St. Paul's Auckland, Bradshaw married Harriette Clementina, daughter of Captain R. N. Bolton of the 84th Regiment, and by her he had two sons and three daughters. He died at Roslyn, Dunedin, on 1 September 1886.

Throughout a long career in New Zealand public life, Bradshaw waged a relentless war on social abuse wherever he found it, and he has deservedly won recognition as the pioneer of much of this country's labour legislation.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Trades Unionism in Otago, its Rise and Progress 1881–1912, Paul, J. T. (1912)
• Evening Herald (Dunedin), 1 Sep 1886 (Obit)
• Lake Wakatip Mail, 3 Sep 1886 (Obit).

(1843–98).

Poet, politician, journalist.

A new biography of Bracken, Thomas appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Thomas Bracken was born, of Protestant parents, at Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland, on 21 December 1843. His mother died a few days later; on his father's death, when Bracken was nine, he was cared for by an aunt for three years before being sent out to Australia at the age of 13 to join an uncle, John Kernan, who farmed near Geelong in Victoria. A year later Bracken was apprenticed to a Bendigo chemist but after 18 months preferred to seek his fortune as a farm hand and prospector. He engaged in these occupations for approximately 10 years, making a hobby of writing verse. Early in 1869, at the age of 26, he landed at Dunedin.

In New Zealand Bracken devoted himself to journalism, joining the staff of the Otago Guardian. From July 1875 he was associated with John Bathgate in publishing in Dunedin the Saturday Advertiser, which under his vigorous editorship soon became popular and achieved a circulation of 7,000 copies. This journal was always sympathetic to the work of local writers. Some of Bracken's many contributions (which included in 1878 the New Zealand hymn, as he called it, God Defend New Zealand, and 1879 Not Understood) were written under the nom de plume “Paddy Murphy”. In 1879 the Saturday Advertiser became the weekly edition of the Morning Herald; Bracken was associated with it, even after a further change of name, for several years more. In 1883 Bracken visited Samoa with J. Lundon who campaigned for New Zealand to take over the islands. Bracken was later associated with the Evening Herald in Dunedin, resigning the editorship when it attacked his political ally, Robert Stout, and then made a brief excursion to Wellington. Next year, however, Bracken in association with Bathgate and others became the owner of this journal, which was continued until 1890 when it was sold.

When Musings in Maoriland (1890) did not attract the attention hoped for in Australia, the publisher persuaded Bracken to engage in a personal canvass and by this means he sold approaching 1,000 copies. He also lectured in Australia and contributed to Australian journals. In his last years Bracken suffered from failing health. In May 1894 he was appointed a Bill reader in the House of Representatives but had to give up the work some 18 months later. In increasing difficulties financially he died in the Dunedin hospital on 16 February 1898; he was survived by his wife and son.

Bracken's political career was largely the product of his sympathy for the underdog. He first stood for Dunedin City in 1879 as a supporter of Sir George Grey but polled the lowest of the six candidates. However, in 1881 the same electorate, now a single-member constituency, returned him; he defeated two other candidates and obtained substantial backing from railwaymen and other working men. In 1884 he had the bad luck to be beaten by three votes by J. B. Bradshaw who was even better entrenched in working-class affections. In September 1886 in the by-election after Bradshaw's death he recovered the seat, but did not stand again after the dissolution of July 1887. In politics Bracken was a constant supporter of the liberal platform without, however, ever being a good, that is a subservient, party man. He supported the eight-hour day and showed some sympathy with the Roman Catholic desire to obtain public support for church schools. In Parliament on one occasion (August 1883) he quoted a quatrain of Thomas Moore's verse and successfully took up a satirical challenge that he should sing it, without apparently ruffling the dignity of the assembly.

All his life Bracken remembered his Irish birth and, although born and brought up a Protestant, felt drawn to the religion of the majority of Irishmen. He had helped canvass for shares when The Tablet was founded in 1874; in 1896 he formally joined the Roman Catholic Church.

Bracken constantly published books of poems and prose between 1870 and 1897. The poems are difficult to collate owing to his habit of republishing, without bibliographical explanation, work already printed earlier. The massive volume Musings in Maoriland (1890) is the best introduction to his work, being in effect his collected poems. This illustrated and rather sumptuous volume was printed in Leipzig. It contains such work as The March of Te Rauparaha, a long poem in diverse metres on the career of the Ngati Toa chief, stories in verse about incidents in the Maori Wars (for instance, McGilliviray's Drum, a long poem much encumbered with Highland memories), and a reminiscence of his youth, Old Bendigo, when “the digger's shirt was freedom's badge”. It also, of course, includes his best-known piece Not Understood and the hymn God Defend New Zealand, sometimes, mistakenly, called the New Zealand national anthem.

In his own time Bracken's verse was highly popular, and the men who were his political partners, such as Sir George Grey and Robert Stout, even though of far greater intellectual pretensions, genuinely admired his work, much of which is suffused with a rather crude nationalism. Bracken's work is received less patiently today. Where his contemporaries saw him in much the same respected light as a Victorian academician punctually painting pathos-ridden “story” pictures, the modern reader sees chiefly the sentimentality of a poet who tried to make the banal acceptable by making it ornate. The present view of his work is indeed a sad warning of the cyclical nature of literary reputations caught in the “whirligig of taste”. However, we may accept McCormick's generous estimate: “At his best he has some of Longfellow's knack of expressing the plain man's thoughts about life and death and love in simple measures and apt phrases.”

Thomas Bracken was a tall bearded man of good physique who surprised one Governor (the Marquis of Normanby by his likeness to Charles Dickens. He was fond of long walks and convivial rencontres and was known to his contemporaries as much as a “character” as a writer or public man.

by David Oswald William Hall, M.A., Director, Adult Education, University of Otago (retired).

• Memories of Thomas Bracken, Otterson, G. W. (1929)
• Contributions to the Early History of New Zealand, Hocken, T. M. (1898)
• New Zealand Literature, McCormick, E. H. (1959).

Although they resemble sea shells, brachiopods are not molluscs but a distinct group of very ancient lineage. The name lamp shell refers to the fact that, in typical forms, it resembles an ancient Roman lamp. The shelly valves of a brachiopod are not left and right as in a true shellfish, but upper and lower. To the inside of the lower valve is fastened delicate shelly loops which support the branchia, fleshy arms which combine the functions of breathing and directing small food particles to the mouth. Brachiopods were much more abundant in early geological times than they are at present. New Zealand species include a small red one (Terebratella inconspicua) very abundant under stones at low water on Rangitoto Island, Auckland, the much larger, 1½ in., Terebratella sanguinea common at Stewart Island, and the black brachiopod (Hemithyris nigricans), also mainly southern in distribution.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

The Boyd was an English vessel of 500 to 600 tons owned by George Brown and under the command of a Captain John Thompson. Sailing from London on 10 March 1809 with convicts bound for New South Wales, the ship arrived at Port Jackson (Sydney) the following August and then, under charter to Samuel Lord of that port, set sail for New Zealand. Although the ship already had a profitable cargo, the intention was to take on spars for the Cape of Good Hope, Whangaroa being selected as the port of call.

Included in the 70 or so persons on board the Boyd were a number of Maoris, among them being a young Maori chief, Tara (otherwise known as George), who came from Whangaroa. Tara had travelled overseas and served as a seaman more than once on European vessels. He spoke English well. J. L. Nicholas, who accompanied Samuel Marsden on his visit to the area in 1814, describes Tara thus: “The face of the man bespoke him capable of committing so atrocious an act. His features were not unsightly, but they appeared to veil a dark and subtle malignity of intention and the lurking treachery of a depraved heart was perfectly legible in every one of them …”. Tara is also said to have been fond of alcohol which had rather drastic effects upon his character.

Apparently Tara and his fellow countrymen arrived at Whangaroa displeased with the treatment they had received. Whether he had been sick and was accused of malingering or whether he was suspected of stealing is a matter of conjecture. But Tara was flogged and apparently divested of his possessions. This grave indignity was aggravated when his claims that he was a chief were ridiculed.

There are differing versions of the story of the Boyd – what is certain is the fate of the ship and its crew two or three days after their arrival at Whangaroa. On that day when Thompson and a party went ashore in search of spars, they were set upon and killed and eaten by the Maoris who returned to the ship to slaughter all but four of its complement.

One account of the tragedy is given by Alexander Berry, supercargo of the City of Edinburgh and leader of the first party to reach Whangaroa after the massacre. According to Berry, the captain had only four men with him, all unarmed apart from his fowling piece. Before being overpowered Thompson had but time to fire one shot, which killed a child. Meanwhile other Maoris pulled alongside the barque, took its men off guard and butchered the crew.

Later, Captain S. R. Chace of the King George obtained a different account from a Tahitian living with the Maoris. According to this story, the captain and a larger party than that mentioned by Berry, all armed with muskets, were decoyed ashore in search of spars. No effort was made to molest them until their boats had been left high enough by the tide to prevent an escape. The Maoris then reviled the sailors and eventually slaughtered them, returning to the Boyd after dark in the victims' clothing to complete the massacre. Chace reported that the chief Tippahee, or Te Pahi, arrived next morning and attempted to save one or two survivors – he had to be forcibly held back while they were murdered. Berry's story, however, had been unfavourable to Tippahee, with the result that seven armed whale boats raided the chief's village in revenge and slaughtered many of his people. Tippahee subsequently died of wounds received on that occasion.

When Berry reached the scene of the tragedy in the following December, he found the wreck of the ill-fated vessel in shoal water at the top of the harbour, near the present Kaeo. Her cables had been cut and she had been towed until she had grounded. The ship was burnt to the water's edge and in the wreck of the hold could be seen the remains of her cargo of coals, salted seal skins, and planks. On the top lay the ship's guns, iron work, standards, and such like equipment which had fallen in when the decks collapsed. According to Chace, the fire was the result of an accident – Tara's father, Pepio, had ignited some gunpowder when trying a flint, thereby killing himself and four others and setting fire to the ship.

The City of Edinburgh party rescued four survivors – an apprentice named Davies, and a woman with two children. Davies, who was later to be lost at sea, had taken refuge in the hold and when he emerged some days later was spared by the Maoris – now well sated with blood presumably, although one report says that the deformity of a club foot might have saved him. The woman, Mrs Morley, had placed herself under the protection of one of the chiefs, but even so she would have been in grave danger from the excited people had not the Maori women come to her rescue. Mrs Morley died at sea on the way home. Her baby and the other child, the little girl Broughton, were eventually returned to Australia. The Boyd's longboat was subsequently sent back to Australia and was refurbished as a colonial vessel, but its service was short – it was lost in 1812 near the Hunter River.

by Judith Sidney Hornabrook, M.A., National Archives, Wellington.

• From Tasman to Marsden, McNab, R. (1914)
• Shipwrecks – New Zealand Disasters, Ingram, C. W. N., and Wheatley, P. O. (1961)
• Adventures of British Seamen in the Southern Ocean, Murray, H. (ed.), (1827).