Five of the 11 children of tenant farmers John and Hannah Honeyfield – Harriet Matilda, William, Henry, James and Edmund – emigrated from North Dorset, England to Taranaki, New Zealand between 1849 – 1856.
The young Honeyfield siblings left Dorset in search of a better life, one where the climate was more suited to dairy farming, and they could purchase land and be their own masters free of tithes to pay. An agricultural depression in England around 1847 – 1852 no doubt was another big influence on their decision.
The first British settlers had arrived to establish the town of New Plymouth only nine years before, in 1841. While new to the settlers, Māori first arrived in Taranaki hundreds of years previously, with the area of British settlement being known as Ngā Motu (The Islands).
At time the Honeyfield and Morgan cousins arrived in 1850, aside from the papakainga of local Māori, New Plymouth was little more than a village with a coastal strip of farms and “… a few small stores on either side of the Huatoki Bridge, a few cottages at Devonport as St. Aubyn Street was then called, and a few around the [St. Mary’s] church” (Wells, 1878:147).
Harriet Matilda and William, 1850
Harriet Matilda Honeyfield, aged 23, and her younger brother, William Henry Honeyfield, aged 17, departed from London on the Berkshire on 4 October 1849 and arrived just off New Plymouth on the 8 January 1850. Matilda and William were accompanied by their cousins John and William Morgan. In total the Berkshire carried 100 passengers and had a crew of 30.
Matilda was the first ashore, spending her first night in fledging town of New Plymouth at the Masonic Hotel on the corner of Devon and Brougham Streets.
In a good example of the hazards in the lack of a natural harbour, William had to wait a bit longer as an approaching storm meant the ship had to sail out to sea for a few days before all the remaining cargo and passengers could disembark. William claimed the storm was worse than they had on the whole voyage. Apparently, the poor cow on-board could not stand for days afterwards.
Along with his two cousins, the Morgan brothers, William readily found short-term work harvesting wheat and clearing fern. After three weeks of arriving in Taranaki, they entered into a 12 month lease of the Peachtree farm, just across the Waiwhakaiho river … and of course, there were no bridges over the Waiwhakaiho in those days.
The Waiwhakaiho location was not the best option however due to disputes within Te Atiawa over the sale of Bell Block land and the extent to which European settlement ought go. Thos opposed to the sale had imposed a boundary (just north of the Waiwhakaiho) on European settling north of the Pau Tutaki – Fitzroy Pole.
About three years before the Honeyfield siblings arrival in New Zealand, Governor George Grey, in response to settler demand for land, purchased several blocks of land from Maori, including land at Omata and Tataraimaka.
About eight months into the Peachtree farm lease, William and his two cousins purchased 50 acres at Omata. Incredibly, they paid in cash, putting 80 gold sovereigns on the table. Apparently, the agent said it had been a long time since he had seen so much gold! Actually, the farm had been foreclosed and by paying cash simply meant that the mortgagee and mortgagors split the sovereigns to an acceptable level and, after scooping up the gold coins, went on their merry way. Cash was king and made for simple business.
The Omata block was next door to where Matilda had settled, now married to John Litchfield Newman. When the Peachtree farm lease expired, William and the Morgan cousins lived with John and Matilda, working the two Omata farms together. It must have been confusing at times with four men living in the house and working the land, two named John and two named William.
They attempted a wheat crop but compared to the well developed farms in England, the crop was poor. In John Morgan’s papers he wrote:
This to young beginners was a great blow, but it so happened that compensating circumstances came to our aid.
The aid came by way of the following (source: If walls could talk … Succession):
More immigrants were arriving and with little to no open farmland for sale the price of land rose rapidly. The 50 acres at Omata had risen to be worth 300 pounds in one year … a 375 percent increase in 12 months.
Also, the settlers who had been ordered off what they thought was to be their land north east of the Fitzroy pole, had been given script, which was a promissory note, to take a certain amount of land when new blocks from the New Zealand company or the Crown became available. This script was tradable and the Tataraimaka block was to be made available for script holders.
First presence at Tataraimaka
The following is an extract from, If walls could talk … Succession.
The Morgan brothers sold their 2/3rd share of the 50 acre Omata block to William Henry for 200 pounds, assumably funded from debt, and purchased enough script for 212 acres at 1 pound an acre. They moved to Tataraimaka, the land immediately across the Timaru Steam from the high tide mark following the river upstream.
A year later, William sold his 50 acres at Omata to John Newman, and followed his cousins, buying adjoining land to them at Tataraimaka.
John & William Morgan had built a second house on their Tataraimaka farm. The first was simply a dirt floor shelter with trees felled from Cutfield’s Bush property three miles up Timaru Road. It was only flax and fern growing on the Morgan land by the river mouth. The second house had three rooms and a veranda with proper window joinery that had been rowed in by boat to the Timaru Steam river mouth from New Plymouth. The Morgan brothers had bought the first plough to Tataraimaka, traversing Maori land with no roads connecting Tataraimaka to Omata. They had succeeded in getting some imported grass growing so that at the very least their bullocks would be happy to graze instead of continually trying to run back to Omata for better pasture.
On the 4th March 1853, John left for an expedition to Kai-Iwi just north of the little known town of Wanganui. They were to drive 799 ewes and 222 lambs to New Plymouth.
On returning to his farm at Tataraimaka in early June 1853, John Morgan wrote:
On arrival home I found that strange events had taken place. My brother and I had been batchelorising, and I left my brother to batchelorise alone. On my return I found a married couple had sought a home for a time with us. My cousin had sold his section in Omata to his brother-in-law and had purchased land at Tataraimaka. He had commenced building a house on the land, and in the meantime to facilitate matters, had got married [to Sarah Barrett] and for the time being until the house was finished, had taken up his quarters in our establishment.
It certainly had a civilising effect in our quarters; the cooking and household affairs were handed over to the lady of the house, so that my brother and I were at liberty to get on with our work. Up until the advent of this lady, there was but one lady on the Block, and to us this was convincing proof that the settlement was advancing in our district. At this period there was no European house between Tataraimaka and Kai-Iwi, except 2 mission stations. On my return, I found in addition to the occupancy of the house, that the grass we had sown was growing quite luxuriantly, in fact my brother had been able to cut some of it and made a little hay, so that should we be able to get a horse, we could keep him in a stable. In fact our holding was beginning to look like an Oasis in the desert.
As a consequence of their younger cousin William now married, the Morgan brothers agreed:
It was time they also engaged in the folly of marriage and in the not so distant a future.
They agreed that if they both took wives it would not be fair to have two women in the same house so the agreement was made that John would sell his 1/2 of their 212 acres to their adjoining neighbour Robert Greenwood and move to New Plymouth.
The split between the Morgan brothers happened in October 1853 even though it appears there were no apparent suitors for wives, John was a married man two months later.
Henry John and James Charles, 1852
Henry John Honeyfield, aged 22 and his younger brother, James Charles, aged 13, departed London, England on 24 May 1852 on the Joseph Fletcherand arrived in New Plymouth on the on 8 October 1852. Henry recorded a diary during the voyage, noting the incidence of smallpox onboard, catching flying fish and porpoise to supplement their diet, and that young James suffered a good deal from sea sickness.
Henry started a drapery business. James joined his brother William farming at Barrett Road [on land acquired by Dicky Barrett, then transferred to Sarah and her sister, Caroline].
Edmund Charles, 1855
Henry went back to England In 1854 but returned to New Plymouth with his first wife Elisa and his younger brother Edmund Morgan Honefield, departing from Gravesend on 26 October 1855 on the Ashmore and arriving at New Plymouth on 27 March 1856.
Edmund married Catherine Gane in 1877. They went on to farm at Patea in South Taranaki.
Other Honeyfield migrations
The remaining children of John and Hannah remained in England. Two descendants from England attended the 2015 Honeyfield Reunion in New Plymouth.
Two of John and Hannah’s grandchildren emigrated to New Zealand. Ambrose (son of Robert and Rhoda) sailed to New Zealand in 1876 on the Rangitiki and set up farming in the Stratford area. He married May Piggott in 1878 and they had nine children:
Alberta Selina, born 1882; married Fred McDonald
Alice, born 1886; married Christopher Topless
Laura Eileen, born 1887; married Ivan Walters in 1903
Grace, born 1888; married Stan Riley, 1928
Rhoda May, born 1889
Margaret Ellen, born 1893
Henry Robert, born 1895; married Lydia Amy (Fisher) Axten in 1927
William Newman, born 1901
Charles Rufus, born 1906; married Christine Lepper in 1932
Ambrose went on to buy land at Ohanga Road, Onaero
Kate, John and Hannah’s granddaughter, emigrated to New Plymouth in 1875 along with her husband, Edward Pretty.
Three of Robert and Rhoda’s grandchildren (children of James and Mary) emigrated to New Zealand in 1910:
William Henry, born 1882. William worked on orchards in the Te Puke area. He died from asthma in 1926.
Walter Augustus Cannock, born 1885. Walter worked on a sheep and cattle station at Kaipikeri, inland from Urenui. During World War 1 Walter served in France and Germany. After the war he purchased a two acre property at Moturoa where he cleared the land and ran a small farmlet, including one dairy cow. Walter married Dorothy Tylee. Walter and Dorothy later moved to a 100 acre dairy farm at Inglewood.
Walter and Dorothy’s son, Henry James (Jim) Honeyfield was born on 23 August, 1925. Jim went on the serve as a Seaman Boy Class 1 on the HMZS Achilles in WW2. Jim was killed in action on 5 January 1943 at the age of 17 and was buried at sea. The Achilles had joined the US Navy in December 1942 during the Solomon Islands campaign against the Japanese. While patrolling off the south coast of Guadalcanal, four Japanese aircraft attacked the allied force. A bomb hit the top X turret on the Achilles, killing 13 men and injuring eight others (Source: Andrew Morgan, NZ History). Henry James Honeyfield’s service is recorded on the Rāhotu War Memorial.
3. Herbert Sidney, born 1893, married Mary Crompton in 1917. Walter died in 1954 at Te Puke.
John and Ellen Honeyfield, grandchildren of John and Hannah, left Park Farm in 1908 and settled in Manitoba, Canada.
Other Honeyfield relations also migrated to Canada and the USA. James and Mary’s granddaughter, Miriam, emigrated to the USA in 1875, followed by her nephew James in 1880.
James and Caroline (Kara) lived through tumultuous times in the colonial history of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Kara was one of the first children of Māori/Pākekā parents, born in pre-colonial times (1829). Kara’s early years would have been most heavily influenced by her Māori whānau and tikanga (culture), transitioning in her latter years to a life dominated by English values and customs.
James emigrated from England, arriving at the fledgling settlement of New Plymouth at a time of nascent conflict between Māori and the settlers about entitlement to and use of the land.
Those differences cumulated into armed conflict and extreme upheaval – war and conflict between Māori and Pākehā lasting about 30 years – that would have played significantly on the relationship between James and Kara that was formed in 1852, through to their marriage in 1864 and throughout their lives from there on.
James Charles Honeyfield
James was born in Gillingham, Dorset in southwest England. He was baptised at St. Mary’s Church on 9th of June 1839. Prior to emigrating to New Plymouth, James attended Orchard House, a school for farmer’s sons in Gillingham.
After emigrating to New Plymouth in 1852, James joined his brother, William working on the Barrett whānau farms in Moturoa and Barrett Road. James was 13 at the time. The circumstances prompting the Honeyfield brothers to work for the Barrett’s is not recorded. We can safety speculate that the farm needed labour due to the deaths firstly of both Dickie (1847) and Rawinia Barrett (1849) and then grandfather Eruera in 1851, leaving the surviving daughters unlikely to mange on their own. It is plausible that William starting work on the Barrett property as early as 1851 soon after Eruera’s death, possibly in addition to his other interests at Omata with his cousins, the Morgan brothers.
William went on to marry Sarah (Hera) Barrett in April,1853. William and Sarah lived for a time with the Morgans at Tataraimaka and then moved back to the Barrett homestead farm at Moturoa. Their return to Moturoa may have been prompted by the resolve by Māori at a hui in South Taranaki, 1854, not to sell more land to pakeha.
It is likely that James remained working on the Barrett farms, possibly under the supervision of Caroline in the first instance, who was aged 24 at the time of William and Sarah’s marriage.
When the first Taranaki wars broke out in 1860, James joined the local militia and took part in the Battle of Waireka. James also saw active service in the Waitara district under Major Nelson.
Caroline (Kararaina) Honeyfield (nee Barrett)
Caroline (or Kara) was born on 2nd February 1829 at the Otaka pa, Moturoa (Ngamotu) which in terms of size was really more like a kaianga (village). See the posts on Dicky & Rāwinia and Caroline & Sarah for more information about Caroline’s younger years.
By 1849, after her parents had died, Caroline and her sister Sarah continued to live in the house build by Dicky Barrett, but they were under the care of their grandfather, Eruera Te Puke Mahurangi until he died in 1851. After Sarah married William Honeyfield in April 1853, Caroline joined the household of Reverend Hanson Turton for several years at the mission station in Kawhia.
Caroline’s departure may have been the prompt for William and Sarah to return to Moturoa to farm rather than leave James on this own as he was only about 14 years of age at that time.
The mission was established by Rev Turton at Raoraokauere Block in the Aotea District in 1840, although by the mid 1850’s it was being run under Māori leadership under the supervision of Rev Schnackenberg – who was based initially at Mokau but from 1858 was in Kawhia (Robin Astridge, November 2013).
The Aotea mission (then known as ‘The Beechamdale Mission’) continued until the conflicts between Māori and Pākehā in the 1860s forced the closure and withdrawal of all mission endeavour south of Raglan in 1863.
After the cessation of hostilities attempts to reopen the missions at Aotea and Kawhia were unsuccessful as both sites lay beyond the Aukete (confiscation line) in Māori held territory (Astridge) … by which time Caroline had returned to New Plymouth. The coincidence of the Aotea mission having been established by Turton, and Caroline’s years spent living up that way, together with her return to New Plymouth possibly as late as 1863, suggest that Caroline was likely to have been involved with the Aotea mission in some way.
We do not know how long Caroline remained at Kawhia. The Rev Turton left the mission in 1858. It is possible that either Caroline continued with the Aotea mission until it was forced to close in 1863, or she returned to New Plymouth several years earlier than that.
James and Caroline marry
After both coming to the aid of Sarah after William Honeyfield’s untimely death in 1864, and being reunited on the Barrett farms, James and Caroline were married six months later by Rev John Whiteley on 2nd January 1865 at James’s residence in Moturoa, New Plymouth. James was 25 and Caroline was 34.
Soon after they got married, James established a butchery business. It must have been successful as indicative with one of his invoices in 1869 being for £246 owing to him from the Crown for supplying meat to the military – a very large sum of money in those days.
The Tataraimaka block, having initially been acquired from Taranaki iwi by the Crown in 1847 under the direction of Governor George Grey, was allocated by Crown grant to the New Zealand Company in April 1950 (Parsonson). The land acquired by James and Caroline had initially been purchased from the New Zealand Company by Robert Greenwood in 1850. In 1869, after the birth of their two eldest children, the couple purchased the 180 hectare farm with the homestead at Tataraimaka for £1250 from Mr Greenwood. This is the land between the Greenwood and Timaru Roads to the hide tide mark but excluded Oxenhams farm down the bottom of Timaru Road. Settlement date was the 15th May 1869.
Robert Greenwood’s original house had been burnt down nine years earlier during the New Zealand land wars. It is assumed Greenwood built a new one on the same site, using the same foundation stones. During renovations on the house in 1988, the base of an old chimney was discovered under the floorboards that may well of been from Greenwood’s original house.
James and Caroline did not have to clear heavy bush to commence farming the property. At the time it was described as park-like countryside with beautiful shrubbery. For many years prior to the arrival of Europeans, Māori had cultivated the land for kumara and taro. However, the land had been let to fallow for 30 years following conflicts between the Taranaki iwi and northern tribes. Yet, it was easy land to cultivate compared to the heavy bush further down the coast and inland.
It was back in 1818 that the northern iwi turned up at the beach by Tataraimaka pa, bearing muskets. The local Taranaki people had never seen or heard of a musket before. Their rangatira were shot and slaughter followed. The invaders raided all the crops and it was from then the land was left to fallow for 33 years before the Morgan cousins bought the first plough to Tataraimaka.
James had to adapt to the markets of the day, from sheep, beef, and cropping, He planted shelter to establishing a dairy herd and processed his own milk. James converted an old flour mill into the first butter factory in the area.
James introduced four sparrows to the property, paying four pennies per sparrow. The grain grown on the farm today is loved by sparrows, and an annual cull is necessary.
James also introduced pheasants, and recent generations of these birds can still be seen from time to time. One story reported in the local paper stated that James had wadded out into the sea to retrieve one of the first peasants that had become disoriented. The event was witnessed and reported by a passing ship.
James proved to be a very good farmer. By 1878 he had acquired 420 acres comprising: wheat, 35 acres; potatoes, 3.5 acres; swede turnips, 8.5 acres; with 370 acres in grass. James entered the farm in the Taranaki Agricultural Society’s ‘Prize Farm’ award, and won! The judges commented that:
The crops on this farm are the best we have inspected, the fences are in good order, with good gates where required, and the farm generally in good order … Dwelling house 44 feet by 40 feet, with verandah around three sides, containing eleven good rooms, iron roof – a first-class dwelling-house, with lawn and flower garden in front, a credit to the keeper thereof (as reported in the Taranaki Herald, 5 December 1878).
The Tataraimaka Pā site was part of the ‘Bank Farm’ that James purchased in 1897. It was called the Bank Farm as it had been managed by the National Bank for many years until James purchased the property. Over the years James accumulated more land in the area to have an uninterrupted block of 486 hectares.
By the turn of the century, James and Caroline’s sons were all farming, William on the original farm, Charlie was on a farm at Oakura, and Barrett at the Bank farm at Tataraimaka.
Barrett ended up leasing out the Barrett’s Lagoon farm and he moved to Parnell, Auckland. Barrett died in Parnell on January 24, 1933. His only child Murray eventually inherited, and then sold his land, to live his life out in Surfers Paradise. It is believed he and his wife had no children.
Charlie sold his farm (at Tataraimaka by that time) around 1916 to take his farming interests elsewhere. His son Arthur Huia Honeyfield, who had his schooling at Tataraimaka, went on to establish the avocado industry in Katikati on his property he called “Tatara”.
William continued living in the Homestead until his death. He had a heart attack whilst milking the cows.
Today, 97 hectares is still owned and farmed by the family, including the original 150 year old Honeyfield Homestead.
Return to Moturoa
The Otaka Pā site in Moturoa where Caroline was born was very close to where James and Caroline returned to probably in 1895. The photo below of Caroline and James was taken after their retirement to Moturoa.
Caroline and James Honeyfield, 1890’s
Moving from Tataraimaka seems to have been triggered by James fracturing his right leg after being thrown out of his buggy. The following account of the accident appeared in the Taranaki Herald on 27 May 1895:
James received a visit from his cousin, John Morgan about one month after the accident. John recorded the visit in his dairy (Source: Andrew Morgan):
Took breakfast at Mr H [Henry] Honeyfield’s, and chatted till near 10.00am. [Henry] put the horse in the phaeton [type of carriage] and drove me to town where we visited W Petty, then on the south road to visit Mr J.C. Honeyfield. I found him much better than he had been and in fact seems wonderfully well in health considering the bad accident – it will be some months before he will be able to get about – still he is progressing favourably.
James and Caroline continued to farm on the Blagdon farm were the Blagdon shops are today, land that they purchased with Caroline’s sister Sarah.
As reported in the Taranaki Herald, in August 1896 there was a petroleum gas explosion from a bore within 50 metres of James and Caroline’s residence at Moturoa. The strong westerly wind blew fragments of burning material over the residence with some falling on the roof, although the house was saved. However, it was a close thing and the family had to carry their valuables and some of their furniture to safety.
The photo below is of the Honeyfield family with some of the grandchildren, taken at the home of James and Caroline in approximately 1899. With Caroline and James at the rear, at the front there is William on the left, Barrett, with Thomas Johns, in the middle and Charles on the right. Octavia, with baby Oscar Johns, is in front of Caroline and Sarah is to the left. William’s wife Ethel, with baby Eric, is sitting just above William.
Unfortunately, Octavia passed away on May 14, 1901 with the cause of death being typhoid. Her sister, Sarah took over raising the Johns family. James leased out the Blagdon property and purchased a larger property of 40 hectares at Bell Block for the Johns children to farm. Sarah remained a spinster living with the Johns family until she finally returned to Tataraimaka farm to die aged 65.
Land holdings
After coming from tenant farming background in North Dorset, England, fifty years previously, James had acquired a large land holding, from Tataraimaka to the south of New Plymouth, to Bell Block and within New Plymouth. Included in the Honeyfield land holdings were the Barrett reserves A, C & D. See below of a map of the land holdings (prepared for the Honeyfield family reunion, 2014).
Final years
Caroline died in November 1899 at the age of 70. Her obituary in the Taranaki Herald, on 13 November 1899, read that she:
…earned the respect and esteem of her fellow settlers, who will deeply sympathise with those she leaves behind her – a widower, three sons, and two daughters, as well as a number of grandchildren.
Caroline left a life interest in her estate to James, and then equally to her children. Her interest in a Ngāti Rāhiri land holding trust passed to her children in 1901.
Born at time when the European influence was beginning to make it felt amongst the ruthless tribes of the southern part of this island, she had seen the district emerge from a state of wild confusion and lawlessness and develop into the present state of advancement. What changes had occurred at Ngamotu during her life of three score years and ten!
James died on 21st February 1911 at the age of 72, with the cause listed as ‘valvular disease of the heart’ and exhaustion. James is buried alongside Caroline at Te Henui Cemetery.
Prior to his death, James’s sons were effectively given the land they were farming on, although it is evident there was some debt associated with the Tataraimaka farms.
Sarah Honeyfield with her father, James
In his will James left Sarah:
his household effects
12 acres on land at Barrett’s Reserve C
a lifetime interest in the Bell Block farm and then to Octavia’s children.
James left the Blagdon farm to Octavia’s children, and parts of the Barrett Reserve A, Moturoa, and a section to Edgar, Oscar and Thomas Johns.
Although Dicky Barrett’s place of birth has been regarded as uncertain, Anne Hodgson’s and Ron McLean’s research indicates there are records in the United Kingdom stating that Dicky was born in Cherry Garden Street, Rotherhithe / Bermondsey, South East London in 1807 to parents Matthew & Sarah Barrett. Dicky was their third child, one of seven children.
Born and raised in London in the Northern Hemisphere, Dicky lived 18,500 kilometres away from Wakaiwa’s Nga Motu, Taranaki in the South Pacific. Dicky’s London was the centre of world trade and was a magnet for migrants from not only within Britain and Europe, but from around the world and particularly from Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Britain led the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. With a diverse population of around 1.5 million, London was not only one of the world’s biggest cities, but it was also the most dynamic, emerging from a period of economic downturn after the Napoleonic Wars.
According to McLean, ‘…the South Bank [had became] a dumping ground for the dirtier trades that had been shut out of the City. Tanners and leather dressers were confined to Bermondsey because of the obnoxious nature of their trade, and by the end of the eighteenth century, Bermondsey was characterised as a place of slums and alleys’.
Despite his impoverished upbringing, Barrett did learn to read and write, as is evidenced from the journal that he went on to keep, and in other correspondence such as letters to his family. It is possible that young Dicky attended St. Mary’s Free School in Rotherhithe.
The local docks were Dicky’s second home. From an early age Dicky would have been captivated by the stories told by sailors who frequented the local taverns. Their tales of far-off lands and daring adventures would have fired up his imagination, filling his young mind with dreams of being a sailor / trader. Retired sailors would have coached young Dicky in the art of navigation, how to tie knots and the secrets of the sea.
Some of Dicky’s neighbours may have been former convicts who, after having served their sentences in the penal colonies of Australia, returned home to England.
There is a record of Richard Barrett, aged 14, being indentured in the British Merchant Navy, bound on 12 January 1821 for five years. This would link with the age of Dicky Barrett as he too was born in 1807.
What motivated the young Dicky Barrett to go to sea? Dicky was aged nine when his mother died. He may have been unhappy at his father’s re-marrying. Or he may have simply needed to get out and earn a living, which in those days would have been common for children at age 12 to 14 or younger. As Dicky’s grandfather was a ’waterman’; and his father was a ‘mariner’ and ‘lighterman’, it made sense for Dicky to seek a trade in the maritime industry.
While the British nation was the victor, and the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 brought peace, the economy struggled while adjusting to a peace-time economy. Moreover, a succession of bad harvests resulted in famine for many. The more temperate climate of the South Pacific and the economic opportunities to be found in the new world would also have beckoned to young Dicky.
After gaining qualifications and experience during his time in the merchant navy, on 12 January 1826 Dicky Barrett set sail as a crew member on board a trading vessel bound for the South Pacific. As we shall see, young Barrett was an adventurous, inquisitive and gregarious man, bound for a very interesting life.
By 1828, Dicky had become the first mate, with John (Jacky) Love as the captain, on the 60 ton schooner Adventure. The vessel was owned by Sydney merchants Thomas Street and Thomas Hyndes. The Adventure was built in 1827 at Hyndes’ timber yard in Cockle Bay, Sydney. It was a two-masted schooner, 40’8″ long, 12’3″ wide and 5’9″ deep (Caughey, 1998:264)
Jacky, Dicky and their crew worked the trans-Tasman trade, leaving Sydney in February 1828 loaded with clothes and blankets, muskets and powder, tobacco, razors and rum, barley and corn, and discharging to storehouses in Kororareka (Russell) and in what is now known as Queen Charlotte Sound and Port Nicholson (Wellington). They returned to Sydney with pigs, flax and potatoes.
Arrival at Ngā Motu, 1828
On its second trip in 1828, the Adventure was intercepted off the coast of Taranaki by two waka (canoes) paddled by 40 warriors from the Te Atiawa tribe, led by rangatira (chiefs) Honiana Te Puni-kokopu (Te Puni) and Te Wharepouri. On board the Adventure along with Love and Barrett were George Ashdown, James Bosworth, William Bundy, Joseph Davis, William Keenan, a chap called Lee from the USA, a chap called Oliver, James Robinson and Daniel Sheridan and Robert Sinclair.
The Adventure’s arrival off the coast of Taranaki came almost 60 years after Captain James Cook’s first voyage in 1769. Although Cook returned to New Zealand twice, he did not go ashore in Taranaki.
Up to that point Te Ātiawa had limited exposure to Europeans. However, the iwi would have acquired some knowledge about the benefits of contact with Pākehā (European) – particularly from the acquisition of iron tools, woollen blankets and muskets – from the experiences of other iwi and from some limited previous contact, and were keen to build a trading relationship with Pākehā for the purposes of securing arms and other goods. While Pākehā had set up trading stations in other parts of Aotearoa, the lack of a natural harbour in Taranaki meant traders lacked the incentive to go ashore and investigate the potential for trade on their own initiative, let alone establish a permanent base there.
Love and Barrett, keen to expand their trade connections, agreed to go ashore at Ngā Motu (The Islands) to see what was available to trade, where they inspected flax and pigs. According to Bremner, ‘Te Atiawa, pressing for a trading post permanently occupied by Pakeha to ensure prosperity and preservation, presented high born Te Atiawa women to Barrett and Love. Barrett partnered Wakaiwa and he took the Māori name of Tiki Parete. Jacky Love’s Māori name was Hikirau and his partner was Mereruru Te Hikinua. By staying at Ngamotu (as the site is called now), Barrett, Love and their men became the fist European residents in the Taranaki region’.
The practice of giving a wife to distinguished visitors was a well-established custom within Polynesia as the people regularly travelled from their home lands to other islands. The relationships formed were accompanied with land transfers which in turn became inheritable by the offspring of visitors (History and Traditions of the Māoris of the West Coast, North Island of New Zealand prior to 1840: Chapter V – The canoes of “The Fleet“).
Some 130 traders had established trading posts between 1827 and 1840 making Love and Barrett one of the first, helping to generate the flax trade boom from 1829 – 1832 (Bentley, 2007). Around that time there were an estimated 300 Pākehā living in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and at least 100,000 Māori (Te Ara: Maori-Pakeha Relations).
Barrett and Love went on to monopolise the Taranaki flax trade.
“Flax was planted up to 30 miles up the coast by neighbouring tribes who gave the two pakeha first right of purchase. Coastal traders complained that they could not acquire cargoes in Taranaki”.
Bentley, p153
Wakaiwa Rāwinia
In complete contrast to the slums of East London, Wakaiwa’s rohe was a place teeming with natural beauty. With a backdrop of the majestic Taranaki Mauna, surrounded by lush bush, fresh rivers and streams flowing down to the coastal plains of flax, ferns and native grasses boarded by black sand beaches, and a population of around a mere 2,000, the land was pristine and unpolluted.
As with all her people, Wakaiwa possessed a deep connection to her ancestral lands and lived within several closely related and inter-connected hapū. Living within her tikanga (culture) Wakaiwa learned the values of manaakitanga (hospitality, protection, kindness, and respect for others) and whanaungatanga (kinship and close connection between people). She was taught the ancient customs such as weaving intricate patterns into flax mats and the role and significance of performing haka and waita.
Successive generations of Honeyfield descendants were told by their parents that Wakaiwa was a ‘Māori princess’ by dint of her being the granddaughter of a senior chief (Ariki). While there was no equivalent concept of a European princess in traditional Māori society, Puhi came very close. Puhi are daughters of rangatira, were of high rank and highly respected. They were renowned for their beauty, their courage, and their leadership. Marriage for such highly ranked women were arranged in the interests of the iwi /hapū. The duties of such women cantered on hospitality and generosity to visitors. All those attributes were attributed to Wakaiwa.
Wakaiwa’s first contact with Europeans probably pre-dated the arrival of the Adventure in 1828 as trans-Tasman whaling and trading was established before that time. However, those interactions would have been for short periods of time as traders purchased flax from Māori to make ropes for shipping in exchange for European goods.
Wakaiwa Rāwinia (also known as Rangi, but Barrett called her Lavinia, an anglicised version of Rāwinia) was the daughter of Eruera Te Puki-Ki-Mahurangi and Kuramai-Te-Ra and granddaughter of Tautara, the ariki (paramount chief) of Te Atiawa, and Maheuheu. Tautara, who resided at the Puketapu Pā (in the present day Bell Block), was the son of Te Puhi-Mañawa and Mairangi. Tautara was related to ariki in other iwi and could trace his whakapapa (genealogy) back over six hundred years, to the origins of Maori from the southern Cook Islands and Tahiti in East Polynesia. Angela Caughey traced Rāwinia’s ancestry back seven generations to Tukiarangi. Rāwinia’s full whakapapa is available here.
Being a woman of such high-ranking, Rāwinia’s marriage to Barrett was a reflection of the high status in which the trader was held by Te Atiawa.
According to research by Angela Caughey and others Rāwinia belonged to the Ngāti Rāhiri and Ngāti Maru hapū of Te Atiawa (J & H Mitchell, p333). There are many references to Rāwinia being of the Ngāti Te Whiti, such as evidenced by Rāwinia, her children and her father being recorded as Ngāti Te Whiti in the census completed by Donald McLean in 1847.
Rāwinia’s grandfather, Tautara has been described variously as belonging to the Puketapu, Ngāti Rahiri and Ngāti Tawhirikura hapū of Te Ātiawa. I have yet to find any evidence of a link to the Ngāti Maru.
In any case, Rāwinia can be unambiguously described as part of the collection of hapū that were resident at Ngā Motu. See my posting on Rāwinia’s hapū connections for more details and analysis.
By the weight of evidence the Mitchels rightly concluded that, ‘By virtue of her own status within the tribes she afforded protection and support that helped ensure the success of her husband’s commercial endeavours’ (page 335). The Mitchells included Rāwinia in the section of their publication covering Nga Wahine Toa – brave women or women leaders.
Rāwinia was reputed to have been one of the most beautiful and talented Māori woman of her time.
Dicky and Rāwinia had three daughters. Caroline (Kararaina) was born at Nga Motu in February 1829, followed by Mary Ann (Mereana) in December 1831. Sarah (Hera) was born in June 1835 at Te Awaiti Bay on Arapawa Island in Tõtaranui (Queen Charlotte Sound).
Mary died in 1840 at the age of eight years. Sarah married William Henry Honeyfield on 5 April, 1853. Caroline married James Charles Honeyfield in 1865.
Departure from Ngā Motu
As well as being a trader, Dicky went on to become an explorer, a whaler, interpreter and agent to the NZ Company, a publican and farmer.
After leaving Taranaki in 1832 (covered in a separate posting) Dicky established a shore based whaling station in Te Awaiti Bay, Tōtaranui (Queen Charlotte Sound).
Not long after the New Zealand Company’s Tory arrived in 1839, Dicky was engaged by Colonel William Wakefield acting as interpreter in negotiations for the sale of land at Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Port Nicholson, Wellington), Tōtaranui and Taranaki. More details about the negotiations and subsequent disputes are covered here.
Wakefield apparently described Barrett as being fond of relating “wild adventures and hairbreadth scapes”. Edward Jerningham Wakefield (William’s nephew) described Barrett at the time they met as:
Dressed in a white jacket, blue dungaree trousers and round straw hat, he seemed perfectly round all over, and good-humoured smile could not fail to excite pleasure in all beholders.
Adventure in New Zealand
Ernst Diefenbach, naturalist on the Tory, noted Barrett’s sunny disposition.
‘His ruddy and good-humoured countenance showed, at all events, that such a life had not occasioned him many sleepless nights, and that in New Zealand a man might thrive, at least as far as regards his bodily welfare’.
J & H Mitchell, page 336
The only known portrait of Barrett (below) is undated but was possibly done following his whaling injury in 1845 when he was forced to stop working. By that time Barrett had lost a lot of the weight that Wakefield wrote so humorously about him in 1839.
Wakefield named a hazardous reef at the western side of the entrance to Wellington Harbour, Barrett Reef, after Dicky.
There are testimonies to Barrett’s skill for storytelling. McLean stated that:
[Barrett] regaled credulous settlers on numerous occasions with tales about the siege at Otaka Pa, including long and detailed accounts of cannibalism to shocked audiences. Other accounts included tales of being tied to a stake while Māori prepared to cook him for dinner (page 74).
Dicky went on to develop various business interests in the new settlement in Wellington, including establishing Barrett’s Hotel which became something of a civic centre in the new colony.
Jerningham Wakefield wrote the folloing description of life at Barrett’s hotel.
The house was always half full of hungry natives and idle white men who had wondered from the whaling stations, and large iron pots and spacious table constantly extended his too undistinguishing hospitality to all applicants. He was quite proud of the change which he had aided to produce in the appearance of the place and the prospects of his friends the natives, and used to spend his time in watching the proceedings of the newcomers; sometimes mystifying a whole audience of gaping immigrants by a high-flown relation of a whaling adventure, or some part of his Maori campaigns.
Bentley, p220
Return to Ngāmotu
Barrett’s whaling business suffered heavy losses and, after he was forced to lease his hotel in 1841, he led a party of Te Atiawa back to Taranaki and went on to help establish new settlers in New Plymouth.
While in Wellington however, Barrett, as the New Zealand Company’s chief agent for the proposed settlement of New Plymouth, was engaged by the Plymouth Company’s surveyor, Frederick Carrington, in January 1841, as a pilot / interpreter on Carrington’s mission to select possible sites for the establishment of a new settlement. As Barrett was already planning on returning to Ngāmotu he set out to persuade Carrington to select Ngāmotu area as the new site. One of Barrett’s tactics was to guide Carrington around the steep and mountainous areas of land in Queen Charlotte Sounds, and the Te Atiawa settlement at Motueka, where the land was low, swampy and liable flood from the rising sea. The area then known as Nelson Haven, which on closer inspection had the advantage over Taranaki in having a natural harbour, was over-looked by Barrett.
A small number of Te Atiawa had remained at Ngāmotu, keeping the home fires burning. They lived on one of the islands, Mikotahi, which was a semi-island fortress. Among this group of people were Rāwinia’s parents.
On 28 March, 1841, Dicky and Rāwinia were married by the Wesleyan missionary Reverend Charles Creed at the Mission House. Their surviving daughters Caroline and Sarah were also baptised that day. In his December 1846 letter to Donald McLean (at that time the Inspector of Policy), Harcourt Aubrey wrote:
“His [Barrett’s] marriage gave him additional influence over his wife’s people, for the natives seem now, fully as as well Europeans, to understand the binding nature of the marriage contract”.
Paperspast,National Library
By then Aubrey would have got to know Barrett quite well, having came out to Aotearoa/New Zealand in 1840 as an assistant surveyor with Frederick Carrington. In his letter Aubrey described Barrett as “a remarkable individual”, having experienced much in his 20 years in Aotearoa.
At about the time of Barrett’s return to live in Ngāmotu he wrote a letter to his brother asking for news of home and his family, but also complaining about previous correspondence not being replied to. It was not until 1842 that Barrett had news from his family in England, some 15 years after he had left home (McLean).
Barrett went on to be one of the first men to drive cattle from Wellington to New Plymouth, and he introduced new crops and vegetables to Taranaki. He established a cattle farm and horticulture business, while continuing in whaling and trading in flax.
The pleasures of life at Ngamotu for the Barrett family, and the character of Dicky Barrett, are evident in the following newspaper article:
Mr Barrett resided in a wooden house, and here his two daughters, Caroline and Sarah, sported their childhood. Here they laved [sic] their youthful limbs in the waters of the clear little lake, or flashed their bare brown bodies through the blue waves that rolled around the Sugar Loaves and entered the little reef bound cove into which the whales were towed when killed. They ran over the hills and plucked ripe Kea-Kea, or they stored the flax honey in small bottles as a curious present to some white new chum friend. Then, when tired of their sport, they took their way homeward to have a tune on the organ. I am not joking. As Mr Hursthouse’s piano has been named, it is right that an instrument, which preceded it by many years to the colony, should also be mentioned. Mr Barrett’s was a hand organ: and was in all probability, the first instrument of the kind that ever reached the colony. He had certainly had it for many years when I first saw it in 1842 or 1843. Many a tune have I played on it, tunes unforgotten still, and one at least of them never heard elsewhere.
It must not be thought that Mr Barrett was an ordinary whaler. A very short, powerful, round-faced man was he, good-natured looking but determined – a man to stand no nonsense. The feelings of the best lady in the land would not be shocked by Mr Barrett’s carriage, or by any word or look from him. I have passed more than one evening with him in such society in early youth, and I know this to be a fact. mr Turnbull, in Jacob Faithful to those who have read that work – and who has not? – will saye [sic] all description of Mr Richard Barrett.
Unknown author published in The Press, December 12, 1889
Right from the beginning of NZ Company emigrant arrivals at New Plymouth, Barrett and his crew regularly provided assistance to new emigrant arrivals in New Plymouth, providing them with temporary accommodation and assisting with the landing of cargo with his whaleboats. On the arrival of the first ship, The William Bryan, this was said about Dicky Barrett:
Barrett, an ex-whaler, was a noted character in early Taranaki. He was a powerful, frank sort of fellow, and seems to have been a general cicerone to the first settlers.
Henry Brett
In a letter to the directors of the Plymouth Company on May 2, 1841, Mr George Cutfield wrote that:
Mr Barrett has done everything in his power to assist us in land the cargo [from the William Brian] with one of his whaleboats for which I shall have to pay him.
Wells
Dicky Barrett goes aboard an emigrant barque off New Plymouth, 1842 – watercolour by Arthur Herbert Messenger
The watercolour above was painted by Arthur Messenger and captures one such scene in 1842.
Barrett’s shore-based whaling station, consisting of trypots, harpoons, wind lasses and long boats that lay on Ngāmotu beach, could be quickly utilised whenever spotters on the lookout at nearby Paritutu saw a whale offshore. ‘Once caught the carcass was floated back to shore where it would be stripped of baleen and oil and the remains were left to rot on the sand’. (from Ngamotu – more than just a beach, Puke Ariki Learning & Research).
Whaling tools harpoon and rope tools found at the power station, New Plymouth in the 1970’s thought to be Dicky Barrett’s
Whenua
As Barrett was instrumental in securing land at New Plymouth from The New Zealand Company, he was allocated Barretts Reserve A, 23 hectares (56 acres) between the Hongi-hongi Stream and what is now Pioneer Road (which used to be part of Barrett Road).
Another 68 hectares (168 acres) that became known as Barrett Reserves C & D had been given over to Barrett by Rāwinia’s father, Te Puke Mahurangi, when Barrett first partnered Rāwinia in 1828 (in keeping with the well-established Polynesian custom of giving local interests to distinguished visitors). Transfer of the land at the time would have been in accordance with the Māori custom called take tuku (right of gift).
The area contained Kororako Pā. Part of this – 5.67 hectares of what was within Barrett Reserve D – was subsequently gifted by Dicky and Rāwinia’s son, Barrett Honeyfield, to the local authority in the early 1900’s. The land containing the pā was acquired by the New Plymouth District Council in 2012 and is recorded as wāhi tapu (a place regarded as sacred to Māori) in the New Plymouth District Plan. The area is identified as an archaeological site by the New Zealand Archaeological Association, as site 19/52. The defensive ditches of the pā area not easily visible today and an old farm track that led over the pā is now used for pedestrian access (Barrett Domain Management Plan, New Plymouth District Council, August 2013). The photo below taken in January 2019 shows that pā on the left hand side.
The official name of Barrett Lagoon was changed to Rotokare / Barrett Domain under the Treaty of Waitangi Deed of Settlement between the Crown and Te Ātiawa in 2014. The reserve has a number of attractions and walkways. The location of the pā is set out in the map below (source: New Plymouth District Council).
Barrett’s land holdings were confirmed in being awarded 73 hectares (180 acres, being sections 23 and 37) by the Spain Lands Commission in May, 1844. Commissioner Spain also awarded 24,000 hectares to the New Zealand Company and 40 hectares to the Wesleyan missionaries (Dicky Barrett Part 3: Quest for Land, by Rhonda Bartle, Puke Ariki Learning and Research).
In August 1844 Governor Fitzroy, being critical of Commissioner Spain and Barrett’s role in the NZ Company land purchases – particularly in the transactions not having involved or recognised the interests of Te Ātiawa who were absent or held in captivity by the Waikato at the time of the land purchases – set aside the Commissioner’s award of 24,000 hectares to the NZ Company, substituting it for a 1,400 hectare block which included the town site and immediate surrounding area. However, no change was made to Barrett’s land holdings.
In a letter to the then Inspector of Police, Donald McLean in December 1846, Harcourt Aubrey described Barrett’s farm as being the only one of any consequence in the Moturoa area. Aubrey noted:
“…the readiness with which Mr Barrett afforded me information on every required topic, and before we parted he required me to assure you that he should always feel the greatest pleasure in rendering you any assistance that lay in his power”.
Fitzroy was replaced as Governor by George Grey in 1845. Grey managed to purchase more land for European settlement in 1847, including blocks at Tataraimaka and Omata.
According to the Taranaki Maori Land Court minute No.7, page 205, Rāwinia was also awarded interests in Ngāti Rāhiri sections 3 and 9 and Rātāpihipihi A East block (H & J Mitchell, 2014, page 347).
Barrett’s role in the new community of New Plymouth diminished somewhat after being criticised by Te Ātiawa and Pākehā alike for his role in what became highly disputed land sale negotiations between the New Zealand Company and Te Ātiawa. Another influence in Barrett’s declining influence would have been the Ngāmotu hapū established their own trading relationships with colonists.
It is worth noting however, that much of the subsequent land disputes that subsequently gave rise to the Taranaki Wars in the 1860’s was due to disputed land transactions between the Crown and Te Atiawa.
Despite such setbacks wihin the community, Barrett’s whaling operations continued. Soon after Governor Fitzroy’s decision some twenty tons of oil and more than one ton of whalebone from Barrett’s whaling operations were shipped to Sydney (Wells).
As the two daughters of Dicky and Rāwinia married Honeyfields, the Barrett land eventually came under Honeyfield ownership.
Dicky Barrett died at Moturoa, on 23 February 1847, possibly from a heart attack or following injury after a whaling accident. He was buried in Wāitapu urupa (cemetery) at the seaside end of Bayly Road, adjacent to Ngāmotu Beach, New Plymouth, along side his daughter Mary Ann. They were joined later on by Rāwinia in 1849 and Hannah, daughter of William and Sarah, in 1861. Wāitapu was the first cemetery in New Plymouth and the first recorded burial was Mary Ann.
More about Barrett’s whaling operations at Moturoa, the injury and his declining health is set out in the Whaling at Moturoa posting.
Barrett’s will left one third of his estate held in trust to pay income to Rāwinia for life. The rest of his estate was left to his children.
According to a letter from the Crown’s Surveyor, Edwin Harris, to the Colonial Secretary dated 9 August 1847 (following the Crown’s purchase of the Grey Block on land in 1847) 120 acres (49 hectares) were reserved especially for ‘Barrett’s widow and children that they should have in exchange for land at Moturoa A block. The Moturoa native reserve included Otaka Pā, the Waitapu urupa as well as 56 acres of the estate claimed by the late Richard Barrett which has been cultivated and is in the possession and occupation of natives’ (Boulton, page 99). Boulton also stated that ‘Barrett and his whaling crew … in exchange for their skills as traders and whalers, had been given use rights to portions of tribal lands’ (page 54).
Indeed, of the crew who were on board the Adventure in 1828 and who went on remain with Barrett – Bosworth, Bundy, Robinson, Sinclair and Wright – all were granted sections of land at ‘Whalers Gate’ in 1847 (Mullon, p 5).
The exchange referred to by Harris appears to have been to formalise the return to the Ngāmotu hapū as native reserve the 56 acres of land that had been allocated to Barrett by the New Zealand Company. The transfer was negotiated by Donald McLean, who noted in his 17th August 1847 letter to the Colonial Secretary, that the Māori reserve “includes 56 acres of the Estate claimed by the late Richard Barrett, which had been cultivated and in the possession and occupation of the natives …. In the absence of an Executor to represent Mr Barrett’s interests, I have proposed to his widow and children that they should have in exchange for the above land at Moturoa, a block of 120 acres beyond and adjoining to Mr Spain’s award and forming, with two other sections within that award, a continuous block, of which a considerable portion was cultivated by Mr Barrett” (Papers Past, National Library).
The background context of the re-occupation of the land after Barrett’s death appears to have been in relation to a long-running dispute between Barrett and some of Rāwinia’s kin. Donald McLean, then in the role of Sub-Protector, Protectorate of Aborigines, noted in October 1844 that Barrett had complained to him that “Wiremu Kawahu and Poharama had fenced off the road upon which he carried his produce, and drove cattle to and fro putting him at considerable inconvenience as he would have to go a round of a mile with his horses and cattle” (Papers Past, National Library). According to McLean, the natives had various grievances leading them to fence off the road, including that Barrett had owed them for some timber that had not been paid. Making it harder for Barrett to earn an income to repay debt does not seen like a sensible intervention. The more likely cause was due to those who refused to accept the sale of land by the Ngāmotu people to the New Zealand Company in 1840, and in particular Barrett’s acquisition of land including the site of the old kainga (village) and associated cultivations. They also apparently had a dispute with “Barrett’s natives [including] the father [Eruera Te Puki-ki-Mahurangi] of the native women he is married to” – probably due to the land dispute. I feel it is worth noting that Eruera stood up to other Ngāmotu rangatira, representing further evidence of his being of rangatira standing.
We can only imagine the grief and stress that Rāwinia and her children must gone through after Barrett’s death, and to then have the land dispute with their kin manifest in occupation by those kin. McLean’s subsequent intervention and assistance to provide land in exchange for that returned to the hapū would no doubt have been welcomed by the Barrett family.
Donald McLean went on to play a substantial role in the colonial government, respected by settlers for his pragmatism, and by Māori for his te reo skills and understanding of their culture, but stained by his controversial role in land sale negotiations. He eventually became Minister of Native Affairs and Defence and a substantial land owner in the Hawkes Bay.
Rawinia’s native reserve lands passed through Native Court determinations to the Honeyfields. In the early 20th century one of the Honeyfield family gave a portion of a block at Ngāmotu as a public reserve (H & J Mitchell, 2014: 347).
Rāwinia died almost two years to the day after Dicky passed away, she was only 38 years of age.
Barrett and Honeyfield headstone, Waitapu cemetery, Ngamotu
In an acknowledgement of Rāwinia’s contribution to the early history of New Plymouth, Rawinia Street was named after he. Located in the suburb of Moturoa, Rawinia Street is adjacent to the site of Otaka Pā.
More recently, the Puketapu Bell Block Community Board resolved to name a new subdivision road Wakaiwa Drive. The subdivision was developed on land that was previously the Jones whānau farm (Source: Julie Johns).
Port Taranaki named one of their pilot vessels ‘Rawinia’; the first of which was launched in 1961 and the replacement in 2008 (see here for details of the latest one).
Winestone Publication, 1971. The Taranaki Harbour Board Pilot launch “Rawinia”
Herbert Mullon described Barrett as “one of the outstanding men in pre and early colonial days, respected by Maori and Pakeha (page 25).
Over 75 years after Barrett’s death, his memory and his legacy lived on:
Recalling one of the most widely known and loved men of his day in New Zealand, whether by Maori or Pakeha, Richard (Tiki Parete), whose sterling integrity and hospitality were watch words, who took part in the Ngatiawa – Waikato Native wars, and who through his marriage with the sister of Te Wharepouri, was able to assist greatly the negotiations of the first colonisers; the man, in fact, whose opinion was consulted in the fixing of the site of Wellington itself.
Whaler who Married A Princess.Romantic History of “Dicky” Barrett, After 85 years, Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1922, Paperspast, National Library.
Barrett’s name remains a legacy in New Plymouth and Wellington, with Barrett Street (named by Carrington) and Barrett Road and Barrett Domain in New Plymouth, and Barrett’s Reef at the entrance to Wellington’s harbour, named in Barrett’s honour by William Wakefield. A residential sub-division near to where the Barretts and crew members were allocated land is called ‘Whaler’s Gate’.
Summary
To say that Dicky and Rāwinia Barrett led extraordinary lives is an understatement. They were both, in their own ways and as a couple, remarkable people. What stands out is that so much of their personal circumstances were interwoven with so much historical change.
Dicky’s origins were of extreme poverty where individuals and families struggled to live their lives in brutal, polluted, unhygienic ‘urban jungle’ conditions, competing for the essentials in life: protection from the elements, food and water and clothing. Add to that a long history of European and American wars and associated economic and social upheaval.
By the time he died in 1847, Dicky Barrett had been in living Aotearoa / New Zealand for 19 years. He became a ‘Pakeha Māori, living with Rāwinia’s whānua and adapting to their ways. As a ‘white chief’ he fought along his Māori kin at Moturoa and near to Wanganui.
His business interests started with being a trans-Tasman flax trader at Ngā Motu. He was head man at two onshore whaling stations. He grew vegetables and fruit and established farms, raising cattle. He acted as a guide / mentor to Māori, aiding the establishment of their own businesses trading with Europeans. He travelled widely within New Zealand and came to know its coastline very well. He became an interpreter and agent for the New Zealand Company. Dicky and Rāwinia were both influential in the NZ Company’s selection of Wellington and New Plymouth as locations for settlement. Dicky established Barrett’s Hotel in Wellington. His lived a most extraordinary life, far beyond what he could have dreamed of as a boy in East London in the early 19th century.
All of that took a huge strength of character, a man of strong mind and body. A man widely known for his hospitality and kindness to all.
Trevor Bently, in writing about the early Europeans who lived as Maori, stated that:
Pakeha Maori had significant political, economic and social importance in tribal New Zealand … Close scrutiny of the contemporary evidence reveals a unique class of men (and women) possessed of the knowledge, skills and courage necessary to live and prosper among a warrior society rent by intertribal gun warfare”.
Bentley, p 10
In contrast, Rāwinia’s origins were a place of extraordinary beauty and abundance with deep interconnections to family, community and to the land and the environment. And yet Rāwinia’s circumstances were not without brutally as evidenced by the long history of inter-tribal warfare.
Rāwinia’s life changed dramatically after she married Dicky, becoming what may be described as a ‘Māori Pakeha’. merging the customs and traditions that she was raised with to life as a wife of a European man and experiencing the early stages of European colonisation and the massive upheaval experienced by her people. Throughout their lives together, Rãwinia maintained the duties of a high-born wahine centred upon hospitality and generousity to visitors and whānau.
Rāwinia was ‘high-born’. Dicky was ‘low-born’.
While they were from vastly contrasting origins, values and cultures, they made a lasting impact particularly on the history of Ngamotu / New Plymouth and Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington and showed that a relationship between the two cultures could be beneficial to both. Their legacy lives on.
As noted in the blog post about Dicky and Rawinia, in 1828 Dicky and John Agar (Jacky) Love started a trading business between Sydney, Australia, and what was to become New Zealand (Aotearoa). After being intercepted off the coast of Taranaki by a party of Te Ātiawa, lead by Te Wharepouri and Te Puni, the traders were persuaded to go ashore at Ngā Motu (now Ngāmotu) to inspect flax and pigs in exchange for muskets, iron tools and woollen blankets with the view to establishing a trading station there. Barrett, who had previously interacted with visiting Māori while in Sydney, understood the substance of Te Wharepouri’s invitation.
Te Ātiawa were motivated to have traders set up a trading station on their territory where they could gain regular access to European goods. However, Te Ātiawa wanted to do so under their own terms, thereby maintaining (and enhancing) tribal mana, and obtain muskets and other weapons to enhance their defence against attacks from other tribes – particularly the Waikato.
Pressing for a permanent trading post to be set up, Te Ātiawa presented both men with high-born women as wives, and they went on with life based at the small fishing kainga (village) of Mataipu, adjacent to Otaka Pā. Hapū that lived in the area at the time were collectively known as the Ngāmotu hapu (including Ngāti Te Whiti, Ngāti Tawhirikura and Ngāti Tuparikino). At the time there were an estimated 2,000 – 3,000 people living in the area in over 30 pā along the coastline (Caughey, page 27). In what is now known as New Plymouth there were many Te Ātiawa kāinga along the Te Henui and Huatoki streams, the Waiwakaiho River, at Puke Ariki, Paritutu and other places. Those rivers, streams and lands, along with the coastal reefs, provided an abundance of fresh water, food and other resources.
Barrett was at heart an entrepreneur. He persuaded Te Ātiawa to plant and cultivate new crops, including melons, maize, cucumbers, pumpkins and wheat, and to raise extra pigs for the export market. Barrett travelled far and wide to negotiate extra supplies for the trading station such as flax from north of Mokau, east to the Bay of Plenty and Hawkes Bay, and south to the Taranaki iwi, using the established network of Māori tracks.
“Ngamotu … had from the earliest times been a favourite position for Maori occupation. The surrounding country was fertile and well sheltered from the prevailing winds, the sea in its neighbourhood abounded in fish, and the almost inaccessible peaks and sea-grit rocks of the Sugar Loaves presented unrivalled positions for defence and refuge in times of war. These rocky islands and peaks, known to the natives by the name of Ngamotu, or The Islands, were given their present name by Captain James Cook, who was the first European of whom we have record to sight them. This he did at noon on the 12th January, 1770.”
Barrett saw the potential of what was on offer. He went on to build a raupo warehouse, supervised the development of crop farming and extended the flax plantations. Barrett and Love’s vessel, the Adventure, was renamed the Tohora (Albatross in Maori) and the men commenced to engage in trade with the Sydney market, importing farm implements and whaling gear.
Some of the Te Ātiawa chiefs, including Te Wharepouri and Te Puni, accompanied the traders on the first trip to Sydney.
Soon after the return from Sydney, the vessel was driven onto the beach during an unexpected gale. After making minor repairs, the dilemma of how to relaunch the vessel soon became apparent, as described by the Taranaki Herald in 1899:
“… but now to launch her as she lay at high water with no ways or proper appliances to move her. A bright idea struck one of the traders, and the natives, who had gathered in great numbers from every direction, were set to collect seaweed, and this was placed beneath the ship’s keel and laid on the track by which they intended to draw her seaward. Then towing ropes were made fast all over the ship, and by the united efforts of the hundreds gathered, whose pull was regulated and worked up to the utmost power by the wild dance and shouts of encouragement of their chiefs, Tohora moves [and was] guided carefully seaward and successfully floated”.
Unfortunately, after the Tohora’s re-floating, an incident occurred which led to a disastrous end for the vessel. A cask of pork slipped from its sling on the point of being lowered in the hold of the vessel, and the ship was scuttled.
Trading continued though, firstly via another brig plying the trans-Tasman trade, the Elizabeth, and subsequently by other vessels arranged by the traders principals in Sydney.
Barrett discovered he had an entrepreneurial flair and became the business manager of the trading post, which in time became very profitable. According to the same Taranaki Herald article:
“… it has been stated by reliable natives who lived at Ngamotu at the time that for the first lot of muskets bartered a price of one hundred big pigs for each musket (flintlock) was demanded and obtained.”
Although Te Ātiawa had extensive gardens planted, Barrett introduced new seeds from Australia, ‘… and persuaded Ati Awa [sic] to prepare, sow, tend and harvest considerable areas of melons, maize, cucumbers, pumpkins and wheat in their cultivations, and around his home, and to raise extra numbers of pigs for the export market (Caughey, page 36).
Barrett travelled extensively, going as far north as Mokau, east to the Bay of Plenty and Hawkes Bay, and to southern Taranaki and Wanganui, all the while expanding on trade networks and supplies for the trading station. No doubt accompanied by Te Atiawa guides, Barrett’s ‘… friendly personality would have gone far to assure him of an enthusiastic welcome at most of the villages he visited’ (Caughey, page 38).
With their day-to-day life being co-existent with Māori culture and society, Barrett, Love and their fellow traders would have experienced a considerably different culture, while at the same time ushered in considerable economic and social change for Te Ātiawa.
Māori society was hapū-based, comprising members of the same whanau (family). Each hapū survived on seasonal horticulture along with the harvesting of natural resources from the land and sea. Stones were used as their primary tool for such diverse purposes as chopping wood, cutting and slicing food, hangi stones, as anchors for waka and fishing nets, and stone clubs (as weapons).
Both Te Ātiawa and the traders adapted to their changed circumstances of living together. For example, Te Ātiawa added bartering in addition to their cultural practice of gift-exchange. That meant directing resources away from horticulture and harvesting to the production of dressed flax and other products to trade.
Barrett and the other Pākehā in turn adopted some Māori customs. They were given Māori names, lived with their wife’s hapū and spoke pidgin Māori. They became known as Pākehā-Māori.
It was this practice of accommodation that led Ron McLean to conclude that, ‘Both parties were changed by the contact and to a greater or lesser extent they both compromised and moved away from acting according to their cultural norms (page 12).
However, many aspects of their respective cultural norms remained in place. McLean went on to state that ‘Te Ati Awa [sic] were selective in what they adopted from the European world. New crops, new goods and new ideas were introduced, which had significant ramifications for Te Ati Awa society. Yet in many ways, their lifestyle remained unchanged. Those cultural elements that were adopted by Te Ati Awa from Barrett were primarily economic in nature’ (page 12).
Similarly with the traders, in that their ‘decision to adapt to a Māori lifestyle was a tactical one, aimed at facilitating trade. They retained European dress and European ideas, values and attitudes’ (page 16).
Barrett Honeyfield Te Atiawa Tūpuna / Ancestry: their lives, the times and their legacy 
