Settlement of Wellington and development of the port
Maori tradition tells of Wellington harbour and its entrances being formed by two taniwha, Ngake and Whataitai, who lived in the harbour when it was an enclosed lake. The harbour has been known by a variety of names, the earliest known being Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui (the head of Maui’s fish). It refers to the fish caught by the Polynesian navigator, Maui, which became the North Island.
The first Polynesian navigators were Kupe and Ngahue, who camped on the southern end of the harbour at Seatoun around 925. Sometime after Kupe, Tara and Tautoki, the sons of Whatonga from the Mahia Peninsula, visited the harbour and were so impressed with the place that Whatonga decided to establish a settlement around Wellington Harbour, which he named Te Whanganui-a-Tara (the great harbour of Tara) after his son.
Iwi who settled around Wellington’s inner harbour, as well as the Miramar Peninsular, and the south coast, included Ngai Tara, Ngati Ira, Ngati Kahungunu, Ngai Tahu and Ngati Mamoe. By 1819 when a war party comprising Taranaki, Te Atiawa, Ngati Toa, Nga Puhi and Ngati Whatua attacked the Wellington area it was mainly occupied by Ngati Ira who were driven out to the eastern side of the harbour and to the Wairarapa. By 1840, as the Waitangi Tribunal found, those Maori having rights in Wellington Harbour and its foreshore were Te Atiawa, Ngati Tama, Taranaki, and Ngati Ruanui.
The first European name given to Te Whanganui-a-Tara was Port Nicholson, after Captain J. Nicholson the harbour master at Sydney in 1826. In 1839 the Tory sailed into Port Nicholson. Aboard the ship of Captain E. M. Chaffers were Edward Jerningham Wakefield (1820-1879) and his uncle Colonel William Wakefield (1803-1848). William Wakefield was charged with selecting the spot ‘which he should deem most eligible as the site of a considerable colony to make preparations for the arrival and settlement of the emigrants.’ Wakefield noted: ‘the harbour is the only one into which a vessel of more than 100 tons can enter with safety on a line of coast of 600 miles in extent, from Manukau to the Thames, and must become the depot of the interior of this line, to be supplied by coasting trade, and all of the country on both sides of Cook’s Strait, for the importation of foreign and exportation to other countries of native produce.’
It was in 1839 that Wakefield named the inner harbour Lambton Harbour, after the Earl of Durham, Governor of the New Zealand Company.
The harbour was a key factor in the New Zealand Company choosing Wellington as its first organised settlement, as well as the new colony’s capital city, a position it was not to achieve until 1865. When Wakefield arrived in 1839 he intended the settlement to be laid out around Lambton Harbour. However the New Zealand Company’s chief surveyor, William Mein Smith (1798-1869), had other plans and in Wakefield’s absence laid out the town near the mouth of the Hutt (Heretaunga) River. This Britannia settlement was short-lived due to flooding and the settlers moved across to Lambton Harbour.
It was to be a number of years after European settlement before a public wharf was built in Wellington. The first recorded substantial wharf was, according to Elsdon Best, built in 1840 on Thorndon Beach for J. H. Wallace. The first officially recorded wharf was the Rhodes Wharf built the next year, and over the next 12 years there were a number of wharves built along the waterfront. These early wharves were serviced by lighters operated by licensed watermen who transported goods between the ships and the wharves for set fees.
Until 1853 the development of the port area was generally left to private individuals. In that year the newly created Wellington Provincial Council was empowered under the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 to undertake necessary harbour developments, including construction of wharves and reclamations. The first major reclamation undertaken by the Provincial Council involved the area between Clay Point and Panama Street, over the period 1857 to 1863. Over the next 40 years several further reclamations were made.
The second major undertaking of the Provincial Council was the construction of a new deepwater wharf. By this time the port’s trade had increased significantly and was beyond the capacity of the lighter service. The new wharf was built in the shape of a double ‘T’ in 1862. Within a few years this wharf became known as Queens Wharf and it was necessary to extended it to cater for increased demand from a rapidly expanding port town. It was nearly 20 years until a second deepwater wharf was constructed. Railway Wharf was built in 1880 as a joint venture between the Provincial Council and the newly formed Wellington Harbour Board (WHB). Within three years the newly appointed WHB Chief Engineer, William Ferguson (1852-1935), laid out a comprehensive plan for harbour improvements.
Gates and fences
The WHB iron gates and fences were constructed around the waterfront from Waterloo Quay to Taranaki Street between 1899 and 1922, and later along Aotea Quay (now removed). The large cast iron gates and posts with lamps and decorative orbs marked the entrances to each of the wharves, while fences filled in the gaps between the buildings which abutted the Quays. Despite being constructed over a number of years the gates and fences were all of a similar design to the initial ones at Queens Wharf which have been described as: ‘fine specimens of late Victorian wrought ironwork, with their cast-iron spandrels and ornaments and matching cast-iron pillars.’ The Queens Wharf gates were cast by Bayliss, Jones & Bayliss. The fact that gates and fences were being erected at all caused comment as they were seen as a threat to ‘public liberty,’ but the use of a London firm instead of a New Zealand one also made the WHB’s action unpopular among some Wellingtonians.
Because sea transport was a key means of travel, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Wellington’s port was essentially the main entrance to the city. Therefore, the Queens Wharf gate could be considered the city’s gateway during this period. As such, the Queens Wharf gates were often the focus of major civic events when important dignitaries were welcomed or farewelled, for example during the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall in June 1901. Indeed they were erected ‘in time to mark the departure of the second New Zealand contingent to the Boer War. Prior to this the wharf was guarded with a small wooden stockade-like arrangement, with two sentry posts.’ The South African War was the first instance of New Zealand troops being deployed overseas, beginning in late 1899.
Within a few years of the construction of the Queens Wharf gates, others followed. The fencing flanking the wharf was probably constructed at the same time as it was made by the same company. However, all of remaining the boundary markers, erected between 1901 and 1922, were made by J. W. Faulkner & Co. Ltd. of Dunedin, W. Cable & Co, Wellington, or were cast by Cable & Co for Faulkners. Cable’s was a sizeable and well-established Wellington engineering firm and foundry. The company specialised in the fabrication of parts for, and the repair of, large marine engines. The company’s director was also a member of the WHB.
The right of public access to the waterfront was a long held belief by the citizens of Wellington, and when the first gates went up on Queens Wharf in 1899 the public were more or less excluded from one of their favourite promenades. Conversely, the fences and gates were seen by the WHB as a means of protecting the public from the workings of a busy port. Johnson states that Wellingtonians felt aggrieved for decades and in March 1945, following access restrictions imposed during World War Two, the WHB again came under public pressure to open up the wharves. The result was that soon after ‘the War Cabinet agreed to the area from the Jervois Quay gate near the Star Boating Club to the Lyttelton Wharf being opened up, but there was to be no loitering, no fishing, and no entry to Queens Wharf.’
Day-to-day operations of the port were controlled by the wharfingers, who were WHB employees, and were in charge of a particular wharf, or wharf shed, and responsible for cargo-handling activity. They also determined which watersiders or ‘wharfies’ would work the ships moored nearby. The wharfies belonged to the Wellington Waterside Workers’ Union which ‘was central in defining the old waterfront industrial culture in Wellington, a key element of which was loyalty and solidarity during strikes and employer lockouts. The union was at the centre of two major industrial disputes, in 1913 and 1951, which led to nationwide industrial upheaval.
The October 1913 strike involved 1600 wharfies who supported shipwrights denied paid travel time to the Evans Bay Patent Slip. What began as a simple matter of principle resulted in the worst industrial confrontation in the country’s history, enflamed by the Massey Government enlisting farmers as special mounted police, or ‘Massey’s Cossacks’ as well as troops. The WHB gates were closed to the strikers and guarded. Some of the most iconic images of the industrial dispute are those showing huge crowds of workers gathered outside of the Queens Wharf entrance, climbing the fences and pushing the gates open. In the end the whole matter was uneasily settled after a month of bitter dispute.
The 1951 strike began in February of that year. It began when ‘watersiders banned overtime, both in support of a 40-hour week and after employers refused to pass on a full five per cent wage increase, as granted by the Arbitration Court. The Harbour Board refused to let the watersiders on the wharves and a five month standoff began. Again troops were used to load ships and there was a heavy police presence. Under enormous pressure from the Government the union finally capitulated in July that year.’ The WHB closed its gates to the unionised workers again. The strike divided opinion across the country and resulted in militant unionism being crushed, with many watersiders being banned from working on the wharves for years afterwards.
The WHB gates and fences became identified with political unrest especially during the waterfront strikes of 1913 and 1951 where they were used to control access to the wharves both by the police and the unionists. In the early 1990s Taranaki Street Wharf was proposed for a new service - the shipment of live sheep. This was to prove not only controversial but also short-lived, at least as far as Taranaki Street Wharf was concerned. On 16 April 1992 the first shipment of livestock on the Straitsman was blocked by a picket of seamen and watersiders who were opposed to the use of non-union seamen. Presumably the picketers were not able to be locked out of Taranaki Street Wharf as on other occasions, because the WHB fencing in the area had been removed, with the exception of the main gates. Within two days the service moved to Glasgow Wharf, where any protests could be better controlled by police.
Activities on the waterfront, particularly in the south of Queens Wharf, began to change in the closing decades of the twentieth century, accelerating after the disbandment of the WHB in 1989. This changing face of the waterfront was reflected in the removal of WHB boundary markers. Most of the gates and railings along Jervois Quay were taken down, along with the Jervois Quay Sheds, during the mid-1970s as part of further harbour reclamation and the development of Frank Kitts Park. Similarly most of the fences and gates further north along Waterloo Quay have also been removed as the port has been developed in this area for both port and non-port related activities. However, fencing and gates mainly focused around Queens Wharf were retained as well as the gate to the Taranaki Street Wharf, which was still a working wharf into the 1990s.
