Hardwicke was the name of an agricultural and whaling community set up at

Port Ross Port Ross is a natural harbour on Auckland Island in the Auckland Islands Group, a subantarctic chain that forms part of the New Zealand Outlying Islands. Guarding the mouth of Port Ross are Rose Island, Enderby Island, Ewing Island, and th ...

, a natural harbour on

Auckland Island Auckland Island ( mi, Mauka Huka) is the main island of the eponymous uninhabited archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the New Zealand subantarctic area. It is inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage list together with the other New ...

in the

Auckland Islands The Auckland Islands (Māori: ''Motu Maha'' "Many islands" or ''Maungahuka'' "Snowy mountains") are an archipelago of New Zealand, lying south of the South Island. The main Auckland Island, occupying , is surrounded by smaller Adams Island, ...

in the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

, south of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. Although a short-lived settlement was established, it was abandoned within three years.

History

This colonial settlement was first proposed in 1846. The

Southern Whale Fishery Company The Southern Whale Fishery Company was established by the granting of a Royal Charter in 1846 to Charles Enderby, for the purpose of operating a permanent whaling station on the Auckland Islands. Charles Enderby was the grandson of Samuel Enderby, ...

was formed in Britain and granted a

Royal Charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...

with its founder,

Charles Enderby Charles Enderby (1797–1876) was one of three sons of Samuel Enderby Junior (1756–1829). He was the grandson of Samuel Enderby (1717–1797), who founded the Samuel Enderby & Sons company in 1775. Samuel Enderby & Sons was one of th ...

, as the resident chief commissioner and lieutenant governor of the new colony. Charles Enderby was the son of Samuel Enderby, founder of the London whaling company

Samuel Enderby & Sons Samuel Enderby & Sons was a whaling and sealing company based in London, England, founded circa 1775 by Samuel Enderby (1717–1797). The company was significant in the history of whaling in the United Kingdom, not least for encouraging their ...

. The Enderby Settlement was the start of the establishment of Hardwicke, the intended ship provisioning and whaling station in Erebus Cove, Port Ross, at the north-eastern end of Auckland Island, close to

Enderby Island Enderby Island is part of New Zealand's uninhabited Auckland Islands archipelago, south of mainland New Zealand. It is situated just off the northern tip of Auckland Island, the largest island in the archipelago. Geography and geology Enderby ...

. Settlement began in December 1849.Murihiku timeline
(Abandoned website

at the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

. Three ships, the ''Samuel Enderby'', ''Fancy'' and ''Brisk'' from Britain arrived at Port Ross with the intending colonists, prefabricated houses and bricks with which to build chimneys. The settlers were carefully chosen to establish the new colony. They included women and children as well as farm workers, shipwrights, a surgeon, a civil engineer and other people with appropriate skills. When the colonists arrived at Port Ross they found a group of

Ngāti Mutunga Ngāti Mutunga is a Māori iwi (tribe) of New Zealand, whose original tribal lands were in north Taranaki. They migrated from Taranaki, first to Wellington (with Ngāti Toa and other Taranaki Hāpu), and then to the Chatham Islands (along with ...

settlers, with their

Moriori The Moriori are the native Polynesian people of the Chatham Islands (''Rēkohu'' in Moriori; ' in Māori), New Zealand. Moriori originated from Māori settlers from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 CE. This was near the time of the ...

slaves from the

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...

, already there, having arrived in 1842. The new colonists compensated the Māori for enough land to build their colony, and then to help clear the forest, build roads and crew the ships, with the chiefs Matioro and Manutere (sometimes called Ngatere) appointed as constables to maintain law and order. In January 1850, the settlement was officially named "Hardwicke" after the

Earl of Hardwicke Earl of Hardwicke is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1754 for Philip Yorke, 1st Baron Hardwicke, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain from 1737 to 1756. He had already been created Baron Hardwicke, of Hardwicke in ...

, the governor of the company. Two farm sites were chosen, one on Auckland Island and the other on Enderby Island. However crops were difficult to grow because of poor soils, harsh climate and high rainfall. Livestock were hard to muster in the thick scrub. Whaling was also unproductive. Within three years, special commissioners from the whaling company decided to close the settlement as it was too expensive to maintain. It was abandoned in August 1852, after a period of two years and nine months during which five weddings, sixteen births and two infant deaths had taken place. In 1854, the island was also abandoned by Māori, most of whom resettled on

Stewart Island Stewart Island ( mi, Rakiura, ' glowing skies', officially Stewart Island / Rakiura) is New Zealand's third-largest island, located south of the South Island, across the Foveaux Strait. It is a roughly triangular island with a total land ar ...

, with the remainder returning to the Chathams. Most of Hardwicke's buildings were disassembled and removed, leaving little evidence that settlement had occurred – the prefabricated buildings were later auctioned off in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. Today all that remains is a cemetery containing six graves, the remains of infant settlers, and three subsequent

castaway A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island, either to evade captors or the world in general. A person may also be left a ...

s from the wrecks of the (1907), (1864), and (1866).

References

{{reflist Auckland Islands Former populated places in New Zealand Geography of the Auckland Islands History of the New Zealand outlying islands Whaling in New Zealand 1849 establishments in New Zealand 1852 disestablishments in New Zealand Populated places established in 1849