Corsair Bay/Motukauatiiti/ #1

Corsair Bay – once the jewel in the crown of Canterbury swimming resorts, billed as ‘the playground of the plains’! What happened?

Known to Māori as Motukauatiiti meaning 'little fire-making tree grove', the bay was home to many kaikōmako trees used to make fire by rubbing wood on wood. That tells us something about the vegetation that was once present and its value to Māori at nearby Rāpaki.

So where did the name 'Corsair' come from? On 23 April 1861, the steamship Omeo dragged her anchors in a strong south-west gale. The anchors then tangled with the cables of Captain Thomas Gay’s whaleship Corsair. The Corsair’s cables were snapped and she was driven ashore at the small cove past Naval Point and Magazine Bay where she lay for six years before salvage and repair. Hence the European name ‘Corsair Bay’. 

In the 1850s and 60s Motukauatiiti/Corsair Bay would have seemed well removed from Lyttelton township and a suitable place for industrial enterprises. Initially the bay was used for boat-building, repairs and launching. Grubb and Allan had a shipyard near Naval Point. The 69 ton Moa was put together (from materials sent out from England) on the slip at Corsair Bay and launched there in 1864. In 1874 Malcolm Miller, with sons Archie and Jack, built a slipway in Corsair Bay able to take coastal vessels of up to 70 tons.  The Miller shipyard and slipway saw the launch/repair of many vessels although sadly, in 1881, a boat awaiting repairs on the Miller slip, along with the boatbuilding shed containing tools and other valuable material, were lost to fire. The shed was uninsured – a £150-200 loss.[1] In 1907 Miller moved his business to the port. 

Ship-building/repair in Corsair Bay, probably Malcolm Miller's business which remained in the bay until 1907 - so this image pre-dates that. Canterbury Museum

Star, 25 October 1884

Star, 5 December 1878. But Malcolm Miller continued to work from Corsair Bay until 1907.

A slaughterhouse, operated by Garforth and Lee, operated in Corsair Bay from mid-1875. Eight years later Malcolm Miller complained to the Lyttelton Borough Council about the nuisance caused by the slaughterhouse. The following year, Garforth and Lee applied to move their abattoir from Corsair Bay to Cass Bay – further from the port town but still very close to what was to become the feted Corsair Bay swimming beach. 

William Langdown was the early operator of a brick kiln at Corsair Bay. He brought lime in from Kaikoura or Motunau The kiln was still operating in 1906 when it was offered for sale as a going concern by Prisk and Williams. In 1916 the partnership between James Prisk and David Williams was dissolved with the business being carried on by James Prisk.[2]

John Gibb,  Old Lime Kiln, Corsair Bay, Lyttelton, 1885

Lyttelton Times, 19 November 1902

In the late 1860s and early 70s hard labour gangs from the Lyttelton Gaol worked to improve the Governors Bay Road. With the opening of the railway tunnel in 1864, Christchurch residents could get the train to Lyttelton and walk round the road to Corsair Bay. With its clear water and a sandy bottom the bay became increasingly popular as a place to hold school picnics. From 1886 Christ’s College and Boy’s High swimming sports were held there.

The Lyttelton Domain Board decided to form a good track to make the approach to Corsair Bay beach more accessible and to have the water supply extended to the beach “to provide fresh water for the large number of residents who visit the bay during the summer months.”[3] Trees were planted. The Lyttelton Rifle Club shifted from Cass Bay to Corsair Bay and opened their new range in October 1893 with a picnic on the sandy beach. 

An outbreak of bubonic plague in 1902 saw temporary tents erected at Corsair Bay to house cases. There was concern about proximity of plague sufferers to two dairy farms, abattoirs, Miller’s slip and the increasing numbers of swimmers and picnickers.

In November 1903, perhaps in response to increasing local agitation for better facilities at Corsair Bay, the Lyttelton Borough Council accepted Hollis & Brown’s tender of £50 for constructing a shelter shed. To do much more the Council needed a local bill passed in Parliament to obtain possession of the foreshore at Corsair Bay. The object of the bill, introduced to Parliament in 1905, was “to vest the Foreshore of Corsair Bay, Lyttelton Harbour, in the Mayor, Councillors and Burgesses of the Borough of Lyttelton absolutely, and to place the control of the aforesaid foreshore in the said Mayor, Councillors and Burgesses, as a pleasure resort for the public of Canterbury.”[4] The creation of the Corsair Bay Recreation Reserve marks the true beginning of what was to become the bay’s huge popularity with the Canterbury public.

During 1906 and 1907, 24 prisoners from the Lyttelton Goal built a sea wall and esplanade around the beach and levelled the land above the wall for use as a playground. They then constructed the first jetty in Corsair Bay. A ladies’ room was added to the pavilion or shelter house and by December 1907 salt-water baths had been constructed at the western end of the bay. Lyttelton Borough Council passed a bylaw in 1908 to provide for ‘the decent and orderly control of Corsair Bay as a pleasure resort’. 

None of the contemporary newspaper reports mention that a key reason for the enclosure was probably the presence of the abattoir around the point in Cass Bay. Since the abattoir discharged directly into the sea below it must have attracted sharks![5]

Press, 24 December 1907

The swimming enclosure and ladies bathing sheds, Corsair Bay, shortly after  construction. Canterbury Historical Association Collection, Canterbury Museum

A closer view. Canterbury Historical Association Collection, Canterbury Museum

Swimming enclosure at Corsair Bay, 1909. Jetty centre back.
Published in The Weekly Press, 9 June 1909, Bishop Collection, Canterbury Museum

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[1] Star, 13 August 1881

[2] Press, 12 December 1916

[3] Lyttelton Times, 6 February 1895

[4] Lyttelton Times, 3 July 1905
[5] Locals remember the sea running red with blood (Facebook discussion, Lyttelton Ain't No Place I'd Rather Be, September 2018)