‘The Russians are coming!’ Ripapa Island #3

Ripapa Island was variously a fortified pa, a quarantine station, a place of incarceration and then, as Fort Jervois, part of New Zealand’s nationwide coastal defence scheme. In other words it was a place that needed to be accessed, but not too easily and only by those in control, those seeking a safe place, or those who were being removed from society for a time. The island’s points of entry were a jetty, built in 1874 and a narrow bridge connecting with the mainland.[1]

This post is about Ripapa Island’s transformation into ‘Fort Jervois’.

Officers and friend at Fort Jervois, 1914, Lyttelton Museum

On 17 February 1873, Aucklanders woke to the news that a Russian warship had entered Auckland Harbour undetected and landed troops. Although the report was a hoax, conflicts between Britain and Russia in the nineteenth century inclined many in the new, undefended colony to take the threat seriously. A full-blown Russian scare in 1885, triggered by Anglo–Russian rivalry in Afghanistan, led to the building of major fortifications to protect New Zealand’s coastal cities. Guns on Ripapa Island, Erskine Point, Spur Point and Battery Point would provide protective coverage of the whole of Lyttelton Harbour in the event of a Russian invasion.

The strategic location of Ripapa Island, already recognised by Maori, made it an obvious choice. Plans were drawn up by Lieutenant Colonel Boddam, following recommendations made by Lieutenant Colonel Scratchley and Sir William Jervois, and with the aid of drawings provided by the manufacturer of the 'disappearing' guns to be mounted on the island.

Work began in 1886. The quarantine station, built only 13 years before and still used but only as ‘overflow’ accommodation, was dismantled and removed to Quail Island by Hollis and Williams of Lyttelton. The top 4.5 metres of the island were levelled, using unemployed and military labour. A submarine mining depot was completed in 1886 but funding cuts slowed other work. To push the construction along the Government decided to use prisoners from the Lyttelton Gaol. The Knights of Labour, representing the unemployed, unsuccessfully challenged the decision. Initially the prisoners were transported daily to and from Ripapa Island by steam launch, using the jetty constructed for the quarantine station as their point of arrival and departure. But in 1889 the mining depot buildings were altered and the men were then housed (incarcerated) on the island for six days each week, guarded by warders and Permanent Artillery men. The work would have been hard and the conditions spartan. The most famous and successful escape was made by Jonathan Roberts who swam the narrow, but potentially treacherous, channel on the mainland side of the island. He was never caught.

Letter, 1889, confirming that prisoners will stay on Ripapa Island rather than being transported daily from Lyttelton  Gaol. Archives NZ

In September 1888 it was announced that what had, until then, been known as Fort Ripa, would “henceforth be known as Fort Jervois, having been named after Sir William Jervois, Governor of New Zealand.”[2] William Jervois had previously been a military engineer.

A bluestone masonry seawall was constructed to encircle the island. A second wall retained the embankment surrounding the parade ground and outbuildings. The seawall was pierced by a single entrance opening off a drawbridge and jetty.[3]

At the south end of the island facilities were built to house and handle underwater mines and torpedoes. On the bedrock of the northern end, concrete gun pits, ammunition stores and connecting tunnels were built ... The soil removed through the tunneling was used to cover over the fort. A narrow gauge railway was built to shift the mines to the island’s wharf. Two quick firing Nordenfeldt guns and four hydro-penumatic Armstrong disappearing guns were in place by 1889 and the fort was declared operational in 1895, well after the Russian scare was over. It was not until convict labour was abolished in 1913 that work on the fort stopped.[4] 

The logistics of getting building materials and hardware to the island are mind-boggling. The big guns were brought over by barge from Lyttelton. The barrels alone of each 8-inch gun weighed 12 tons. Teams of men had to drag each gun barrel up from the sea along a specially constructed earthen ramp. 

The ‘disappearing’ gun carriage, in which the energy of the gun’s recoil is used to return the gun to the firing position, was first manufactured in 1883. Mounted with a heavy breech-loading gun, the carriage offered cheap and effective protection for the gun and its crew. The two carriages remaining on Ripapa Island are its most valuable fittings.[5]

Aerial view of Ripapa Island. Jetty and bridge to mainland are clearly visible as are the gun emplacements.
LINZ - Environment Canterbury 1973

Disappearing gun, Urbex Central

Derelict Armstrong disappearing gun on Ripapa Island, Megan Hieatt, February 2009

Inside the fort, Urbex Central

Getting onto the island usually involved a 20-minute steamer trip from Lyttelton followed by transfer into a smaller vessel that could navigate the shallower waters around the island and jetty. This was not without its challenges.  In April 1889, 

a sixteen-stone member of the navals, not getting fairly in the bottom of the small craft, she refused to uphold him, sending the sixteen-stone member and three others, with a quantity of the Naval officers’ baggage, and a couple of carbines, overboard. The carbones have not yet been recovered.[6]

Arrivals could be much more formal. In 1910 Lord Kitchener visited Canterbury and was taken to view the harbour defences. 

The party were landed in the defence launch the Te Whaka, at Fort Jervois, on Ripa Island, and were met by Lieutenant-Colonel Cooper. The jetty was lined with men taken from the No.1 and No. 2 Companies of the Garrison Artillery Volunteers. About 150 men were on parade at the fort...[7]

Jetty and tunnel entrance (Jane Robertson, 2018)

Accessing Fort Jervois could also end tragically. In November 1893 the Government steam launch had just left the jetty when the strong north-east swell caused it to lurch heavily. James McKenzie and Fitzroy George Hamilton, both members of the torpedo corps, were thrown overboard. The launch travelled another 200 yards before it could be stopped. Two men on the launch jumped overboard to help and a small boat was sent out from Ripapa Island, but neither McKenzie nor Hamilton survived.[8]

Fort Jervois was a bit of a white elephant, constructed to defend Lyttelton Harbour from an unlikely invader. It was used by volunteers for camps, gun drill and firing practice and as part of the harbour examination system during World War 1 when arriving ships might have warning shots fired across their bows if they didn’t respond correctly to signals from Adderley Head or Ripapa Island. In the twentieth century it served a variety of purposes. I’ll write about those in the next Ripapa Island post. 

Jane Robertson, 2018

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[1] I haven’t been able to ascertain when the bridge was built other than that it was after 1914. ArchivesNZ has files in Wellington that would provide more detail but accessing those will need to wait...

[2] Star, 12 September 1888

[3] The drawbridge was still capable of being raised and lowered when the Army decided to demolish the fort in 1954. The Lyttelton Harbour Board intervened and obtained a stay of orders.

[4] Heritage NZ Fort Jervois.http://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/details/5306. Accessed 4 June 2018. For a detailed description of the site, go to this page and click on ‘additional information’. 

[5] Ibid. The Press, 6 August 1888 (The Lyttelton Defences) contains a detailed description of the Fort Jervois guns.

[6] Lyttelton Times, 20 April 1889

[7] Lyttelton Times, 23 February 1910

8] Lyttelton Times, 29 November 1893