Te Waipapa/Diamond Harbour #1

Once steam launches criss-crossed Lyttelton Harbour servicing the little settlements on its southern and western fringes. Today, with the exception of summer trips to Ōtamahua/Quail Island, Diamond Harbour is the only settlement with a regular ferry service catering for local residents and visitors. Diamond Harbour can also boast the longest surviving, outlying jetty in continuous use. So, when we travel on the Diamond Harbour ferry, we are part of a tradition stretching back 160-odd years. 

SS John Anderson leaving the Diamond Harbour jetty. Undated but pre-1914.
 M.O. Stoddart album, Canterbury Museum

Recognising how sheltered it was from the south and east, Māori named the little bay Te Waipapa or ‘flat water’. Other Māori names for points on the headland are recorded on the 1894 map detail below. Translations, taken from Gordon Ogilvie's Place Names of Banks Peninsula are Te Ana-o-kuri (the cave of the dog) and Upoko-o-kuri (the head of the dog).   

Detail from Maori Place Names of Banks Peninsula taken from sketch plans supplied by Canon James W. Stack, 1894, CCL

From 1844 till 1847 the Greenland brothers rented Te Waipapa (the Diamond Harbour headland) from the Pūrau Māori. In September 1850, as part of the Canterbury Association settlement, the Reverend Robert Bateman Paul purchased 50 acres in the area, promptly reselling it to Mark Pringle Stoddart in 1852. 

Mary Stapylton-Smith describes Mark Stoddart as “a world-traveller, explorer, writer of verse, angler, early Canterbury runholder and later a provincial councillor.”[1] He was also a husband, dad and, by all accounts, a genial host. Youngest son of an admiral, Mark Stoddart was born and educated in Edinburgh. He left Scotland at age 18 to go to sea and eventually bought a sheep station in Victoria, Australia before choosing to move to a more temperate climate. Stoddart’s friend E.M. Templar had already chartered the ship Australasia to carry 2000 sheep to New Zealand. Stoddart joined him with his own mob of sheep, arriving in Port Cooper in January 1851 when the first four ships were still at anchor in the harbour. 

Stoddart expanded his original 50-acre landholding through the gradual accumulation of freehold blocks. (These purchases included Ōtamahua/Quail Island, Aua/King Billy Island and the adjacent peninsula, Moepuku. He sold Quail Island to friend Thomas Potts of Governors Bay in 1862). The land was managed by Stoddart’s cousin, Mark Sprot, for some years, with Stoddart himself taking up residence probably in the late 1850s. We can date the construction of the original Diamond Harbour jetty with reasonable accuracy because, invited to Diamond Harbour in April 1857, Dr Matthew Morris described tying up at ‘a decent little pier’.[3] This simple jetty was built by (John?) Grubb at Mark Stoddart’s expense though it was used more by the local public than by the Stoddart family.    

It seems Mark Stoddart and Mark Sprott initially lived in a small cottage on the western point of the headland, just above this jetty. The cottage was close to a signal staff.

To his Honor the Superintendent…

We have now for upwards of four years performed the duties of Signal Masters communicating to the public and the Harbour Master the appearance of vessels off the Heads... using our own telescopes and keeping in repair the flags &c. From this date [14 May 1862] it will be impossible for us to do these duties... having removed to a considerable distance from the Signal Staff to a situation commanding a very indifferent view of the entrance to the Harbour.... We would let the house at the Signal Staff to the Government... The rent of the house would be £60 a year- the use of a jetty-crane, moorings &c included. 
Stoddart and Sprot.[2]

Plan of Diamond Harbour jetty, Stoddarts Point, Archives NZ/ECan

Sketch included in a letter from Mark Stoddart to the Secretary of Public Works, 29 July 1864, proposing a reservoir at Diamond Harbour for the use of passing shipping. The jetty, signal staff and cottage are marked in the lower right-hand corner. Archives NZ

Diamond Harbour jetty, pre-1914, minus the crane.
Diamond Harbour Historical Society archives.

This cottage, just above the jetty, is likely the one referred to in the letter above. Later it was home to a Mr Wyman who sold vegetables and fruit to ships moored off Diamond Harbour and provided a boat service when needed. The photo was taken in 1897 shortly before the derelict cottage was dismantled. Margaret Stoddart sits in the foreground.
Margaret Olrog Stoddart collection, Canterbury Museum

In November 1864 a road to the jetty replaced what must previously have been an informal track which had been the scene of a near-fatal accident in March 1861. The steamer Avon had discharged its load at the jetty and a man named Eaglesome was carting some iron gates and fencing up the track for Stoddart and Sprot. Agitated by the rattling of the iron, the horse started towards the cliff edge. Eaglesome was knocked over by the cart which ran over his chest, breaking ribs. The horse, cart and load were “precipitated over the cliff, and were at once crushed and shattered into atoms beneath.” The driver was said to be “in a fair way of recovery.”[4]

This account highlights just how difficult it must have been to transport the building materials required for Mark Stoddart’s family home. On a stock-buying trip to Australia in 1861, Stoddart purchased a prefabricated cottage (to which he later added a front section built from local matai and totara). The cottage was was assembled in time for his wedding to Anna Barbara Schjott in February 1862. Anna was a Norwegian clergyman’s daughter who had come to New Zealand as a companion/governess.  The wedding was in Okains Bay where Anna was living, and 43-year old Stoddart and best man Thomas Potts walked there on the day of the wedding. (That’s a long walk on your wedding day!). Fortunately Mark and Anna sailed back to Diamond Harbour for their honeymoon. 

The Stoddart cottage in 1897. Margaret Olrog Stoddart collection

Canterbury Museum

Mark Stoddard, his wife Anna and children in Diamond Harbour, 10 March 1871

Dr A.C. Barker photograph, Mark P Stoddart collection, Canterbury Museum

In a later post I'll write about the Stoddart family, their sale of Stoddart Point and the impact of that on the changing fortunes of the jetty. I'll also write an entry about the 'other' jetty in Diamond Harbour. In the meantime, to end this post, a rather sad little side-story I came across in my newspaper searches... 

Knowing that Te Waipapa/Diamond Harbour was sometimes called ‘Mr Stoddart’s Bay’ in the early days of his settlement there, I looked for any such reference and came up with the following story in the Lyttelton Times, 1857 – worth sharing I thought because it indicates the huge change in our attitudes to harbour wildlife (too late for this seal).

Lyttelton Times, 15 August 1857

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[1] Mary Stayplton-Smith (comp), Adderley to Bradley. Friends of DH Library, 2009

[2] Letter from Stoddart and Sprott to Superintendent on the signal service at Diamond Harbour, 14 May 1862, Archives NZ.

[3] Matthew Morris Collection | Held by Cotter Medical History Trusthttp://thecommunityarchive.org.nz/node/74519/description)
[4] Lyttelton Times, 9 March 1861
[5] Heritage New Zealand, Stoddart Cottage, http://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/details/3088