Little Port Cooper #3: The Deal boatmen
I like jetties. I particularly like jetties in varying states of decay – I find them both beautiful and poignant. Beautiful because of their wonderful textures and shapes, poignant because they represent a way of life that is long gone. As for the jetties that have disappeared completely (I would like to say reclaimed by sea and sand but usually it is a deliberate demolition), well, there’s a challenge...
I’m saying this because there is a temptation to focus primarily on the structures themselves. I got very excited when I discovered plans for the ‘outlying jetties’ of Lyttelton Harbour in the Archives NZ/ECan collection. They are such beautiful documents detailing the structure of a jetty and its relationship to a particular location. But I always knew, and understand more and more as I continue the blog, that ‘jetties’ are just a portal – a way of stepping back into harbour communities whose reliance on the sea was so much greater than ours today.
So I come across little side-stories. And I think, oooh, I can’t really justify writing about that – and then I think ... blow it, this is my blog and this is really interesting and I’m going to share it anyway. It’s the advantage of having an organizing framework flexible enough to include – well, almost anything!
This post grows out of the stories so far told of the community at Waitata/Little Port Cooper.
This post grows out of the stories so far told of the community at Waitata/Little Port Cooper.
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On the south-east coast of England the Deal boatmen ferried goods to and from ships, helped sailing vessels over the treacherous Goodwin Sands into the safe anchorage provided by the Downs, offshore from the coastal town of Deal and swept the roads for anchors left by visiting vessels.
The Deal boatmen did something more than carry cargoes – they saved life. On those dangerous sands...many a ship and many a soul would have been lost but for the heroic mariners of Deal. Inured to the storms, and trained upon the waters of their coast, they braved the most tempestuous seas, and it is said, to their honour, that they were never known to heed lucre when they could preserve lives. [1]
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| All images from http://www.ramsgatelifeboat.org.uk/heroes-of-the-goodwin-sands.html |
The advent of steam vessels (and the decline of smuggling) meant that the services of the several hundred Deal boatmen were no longer required. They and their families were quite literally destitute. It was decided that jobs might be found for the younger boatmen elsewhere. James Edward Fitzgerald, the first Superintendent for the province of Canterbury, returned to England in 1857 and acted as the province’s immigration agent for the next three years. He attended a special meeting of the residents of Deal and offered six boatmen and their families free passage to establish a fishery in Lyttelton Harbour. There would be a good boat and fishing gear waiting for them.
The part of NZ to which I belong is the Province of Canterbury; the harbour is six or seven miles long. In the neighbouring rivers and rocks are plaice and cod, very similar to ours, but the deep waters have not yet been tried, and that is what I wish you to do. [2]
Thirteen boatmen - six government-funded and seven self-funded - and their families sailed on the Mystery, leaving London in December 1858 and arriving in Lyttelton on March 20 1859. [3] Accompanying them was a Deal fishing boat. Fifteen deaths from small pox and scarlet fever meant that the ship was quarantined on arrival. The Lyttelton Times reported at the beginning of April that the Provincial Government had offered the men the option of occupying the reserve at Little Port Cooper – a location from which they could fish and supply the Lyttelton market. Their presence would also facilitate the establishment of a pilot or signal station.
The Deal boatmen appear in the shipping list for the Mystery as follows.
R.W.Bowbyes, boatman, and wife
J.H.Newton, mariner, wife and 4 children
W.L.Roberts, mariner, and wife
H.Clayson, mariner, and wife
M.C.Cory, mariner, wife and 4 children;
P.R.Buttress, boatman, wife and 4 children;
N.Heyward, wife and 3 children;
J.Gardner, mariner, wife and 2 children;
J.Gardner, mariner, wife and 2 children;
R.Rogers, mariner, wife and 5 children;
E.Newton, mariner, wife and 3 children;
R.Morris, mariner, wife and child
T.Whyman, mariner, wife and 8 children
J.Johnston, wife and 8 children (not sure about Johnston)
Just what happened then is unclear. It seems that the six government-funded boatmen camped at Little Port Cooper from March to May 1859, manning the pilot boat (I haven’t yet found any documentary evidence of this). Their families would have remained in Lyttelton since there was no way of accommodating them in the bay at that stage. According to the Newton Family RootsChat page,
Once ashore, the Deal families, amongst others, were housed in the nearby barracks then set about unloading the ship. The self-funded families found immediate employment doing what boatmen did in Deal. The self-funded boatmen established a fishery in Lyttelton in 1861 but two years later went bankrupt as fishing was not a familiar occupation for Deal boatmen. [5]
I wonder whether the second ‘self-funded’ in this account is actually intended to read ‘government-funded’, as per Fitzgerald’s stated plan for the boatmen. The dates are also puzzling because what we do know is that Henry John Le Cren, an early settler and merchant in Lyttelton, offered the boatmen work in his landing service in Timaru, where he had settled in 1856. This must have been attractive because by September 1859 the Deal boatmen and their families were settled in Timaru.
In October 1860 a ‘furious gale’ and high running sea put the schooner Wellington in danger off Timaru.
The Deal boatmen manned their surfboat and came bravely out to the rescue; but the sea was too rough for them, and swamped the boat; of the crew (six in number) two were drowned, Wm. Corie and – Boubius [5] both married men, and the former the father of five children. A third party, named Bowles, was severely beaten on the beach, and only slight hopes were entertained of his recovery when the Wellington left, on Tuesday night. [6]
And that is what we know (so far) about the Deal boatmen and their (probable) brief sojourn at Little Port Cooper. It wasn’t until after their time that accommodation was built for the pilots at the base of Adderley Head – and later relocated to the shelter of the head of the bay itself.
It’s a side story but an interesting one I think.
[3] One family, displaying symptoms of smallpox, was landed at Gravesend and came out to Lyttelton the following year http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=1266.9
[4]http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ashleigh/Shipping/1859.March.MYSTERY.Lyttelton.Times.html
[5] A Timaru Herald account reminiscing about the Deal boatmen, spells the name Bowbyes (Timaru Herald, 16 August 1899)
[6] Lyttelton Times, 13 October 1860
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