Family History 4.10

Robinson Story

An article from Ancestry.com

The Dream that was Cornwallis

The Manukau Settlement and the Voyage of the barque Brilliant

In 1833, realising the value of the Kauri forests on the shores of the Manukau Harbour, Thomas Mitchell, a trader from Sydney, established a trading post on the Puponga Peninsula. He later built a "substantial house" and brought his wife and children over from Sydney to live there. On January 11th 1836 Mitchell purchased "...the whole of the Auckland isthmus" from Apihai Te Kawau, a chief of the Ngati Whatua and from other local chiefs. For this he paid the princely amount of a quantity of merchandise to the value of £160. On Mitchell's death two years later his family returned to Sydney where his wife, through the trustee appointed to look after the estate, sold the land in New Zealand to the New Zealand Manukau and Waitemata Company for £500. This organisation had been formed, along with the New Zealand Company, out of the ruins of the New Zealand Association to acquire valuable tracts of land on the harbours of Manukau and Waitemata in the northern island of New Zealand.

Although the Company owned the land before the arrival of its sister company in New Zealand, they decided against immediate settlement because the Company considered it proper to refrain from incurring the responsibility of selling land to intending emigrants, or inducing them to go out until Her Majesty's government had determined the course to be adopted with respect to New Zealand and also until they should be in possession of reports from Captain William Cornwallis Symonds who had undertaken to proceed to that country for the purpose of ensuring authentic information as to the extent and capabilities of the Company's property. In fact the Company's property was very extensive indeed. It covered all of Auckland from the Waitakere Ranges in the west to the Tamaki River in the east and from the northern shores of the Manukau north to the Waitemata. Its core, and the proposed location of the city of Cornwallis, was Puponga Point (the Puponga Peninsula).

Finally, in May 1840, the Company issued its prospectus to entice purchasers to take up land in the proposed settlement. In its 40 pages the prospectus spoke of opportunities for trade and shipping (to Australia principally but also to the Home Country), of whaling, flax, timber and agriculture. It promoted a fertile soil and a salubrious climate congenial to European constitutions and those who went there sickly are soon restored to health, and the healthy become robust, and the robust, fat. The report previously forwarded by Captain Symonds spoke, too, of the benefits of the area for settlement and the proposal went ahead. The land was divided into sections comprising  100 country areas and one town lot for the price of £101 per section. Interested parties could obtain information from the head office of the Company at No. 6 Northumberland Street, Edinburgh, or at No. 6½ Waterloo Place, London.

More than 80 (of 220) sections were thus sold to buyers in England and Scotland and the barque Brilliant was fitted out for a voyage to the Manukau to prepare and lay out the settlement of Cornwallis. She left Glasgow on December 28th 1840 and the Clyde 2 days later. Important though the voyage was, its beginning was hardly auspicious. On day one Brilliant almost ran aground at Rothesay Bay near the Firth of Clyde and put into Cork on the southern Irish coast to be checked over. Here the Captain, Officers, Crew and some passengers left the ship amid concerns as to her seaworthiness and doubts about her ability to make the voyage safely to her destination. David Ritchie took command of the vessel, signing on fresh officers and crew and theBrilliant once again set sail for the Manukau.

Stopping at Sierra Leone, Cape Town, Melbourne (where several more passengers left the long suffering vessel) and Hobart, the Brilliant finally made her destination on October 29th 1841, fully 10 months after departing Glasgow. Even on reaching Manukau Heads a few days earlier the going was not easy for Brilliant. When it was found that the channel she was following was not deep enough to accommodate her she was anchored. The only chart Captain Ritchie had with him was a pencil sketch of the Harbour Entrance so he sent off one of the ship's boats to find a more appropriate means of entering the harbour.

(to be continued)