The Omarama area located in the Waitaki River Valley inland of Oamaru is significant in the traditions of the Ngai Tahu Whanui. The headwaters of the Waitaki River are fed by ka roimata o Aoraki - the tears of Aoraki - the ancestral mountain of Ngai Tahu.
The tradition of the Takitimu waka asserts that local limestone outcrops are the legacy of Tamatea-Pokai-Whenua. During his exploration he traversed the land, using this sacred flame for making fire as he went; as the fires cooled, mounds of pale white ash were left in their place, which became the limestone features that are so prominent in the landscape of this region.
Both iwi history and archaeological evidence show occupation by Maori in the area over an extended period, with the inhabitants utilising a wide variety of natural resources from the diverse environment of the Waitaki River catchment. The date of earliest Polynesian settlement of the Waitaki area remains unknown, but is generally thought to date from at least 1,000 years ago. There was extensive settlement throughout the Waitaki Valley when the moa existed, as shown in the widespread archaeological remains of moa bones in cultural contexts.
With the Canterbury purchase of 1848 (with the boundaries in the Waitaki area a matter of some confusion), and the scanty reserves laid out, as well as the loss of access to mahika kai, there was growing concern from Ngai Tahu about their rights to land in the interior of the South Island. Ngai Tahu’s view at the time was that only land that could be seen from the coast could be considered to have been included in the 1848 sale, and therefore the interior (including the Upper Waitaki) still belonged to them. With the opening of the interior for pastoral farming Ngai Tahu were further alienated from their traditional uses of land and resources.
Pastoral Occupation
The early pastoral history of Benmore is confused by the run being within the disputed area between the Canterbury and Otago provincial boundaries. Benmore was almost enclosed by the waters of the Ahuriri, Lake Ohau, Ohau River, and by the Waitaki River. Some parts of Benmore were leased twice, in Canterbury and Otago, and it was Canterbury which gave the first licence for 50,000 acres applied for in April 1857 by Ronald McMurdo and Nelson brothers George and Edmund Hodgkinson.
Station legend has it that Nelsonians Hugh Fraser and McMurdo rode into the Pukaki area and looked at the sunny hills above the Ohau River and both exclaimed that ‘I will have that country.’ They then apparently decided to race to the Christchurch Land Office for first choice, but sense prevailed and they raced to a nearby matagouri bush. McMurdo won and chose what would become known as Benmore. Later Benmore was declared to be in Otago (when the boundaries were proclaimed in 1861) so the leases were changed to the Otago system as run number 189.
In January 1863 Ronald McMurdo died as the result of being kicked in the chest by a colt. In the face of this tragedy George and Edmund Hodgkinson sold Benmore. The 200,000 acre station was auctioned on 10 April 1863. Prominent Otago runholders Robert Campbell (1843-1889) and William Low (1835-1905) bought the leases for £36,000. Twenty seven year old William Low and seventeen year old Robert Campbell had owned Galloway Station in the Manuherikia Valley since 1860, the beginning of their long and significant role in pastoralism in Otago. Low was based at Galloway, while at Benmore, Campbell and manager James Cowan each had a house on the homestead block.
Robert Campbell was one of the most significant nineteenth century runholders. Aside from Galloway and Benmore he owned Otekaike, Rocky Point, Burwood, Mararoa, and Mavora, as well as several North Island runs. From 1881 he oversaw the management of these properties for his father’s company Robert Campbell & Sons. Campbell was from a wealthy business family, and was commissioned to purchase or lease land on behalf of his father in New Zealand. He became a member of the House of Representatives, and the Legislative Council, and was active in local politics. His estate at Otekaike with its imposing Scottish baronial style mansion was a local social centre.
At Benmore Campbell built a ‘comfortable stone house’, put up a new woolshed and built new yards (replacing McMurdo’s which had been destroyed by wild cattle). He hired mainly Scottish shepherds, imported seventy Saxon rams, and imported Australian merinos. A homestead of sod was built in the mid-1860s or the early 1870s.
With all the runs to oversee, much of the work in running the stations was done by managers. The station managers were important figures in the operation of large pastoral runs such as Benmore. Cowan left Benmore in 1867 to manage Kawarau Station near Bannockburn, and was replaced by William Henry Ostler, who also managed Otekaike for a period. Ostler was replaced as manager by Thomas Middleton in 1873 (Ostler later buying Ben Ohau Station). Scottish-born Middleton had arrived in New Zealand in 1865 and had been a partner in the Ben Ohau run (bought out by Ostler in 1874). By 1878 under Middleton’s management Benmore was shearing 80,617 sheep.
Historian Robert Pinney writes that the station buildings were erected as required, and when contract labour was cheap. Survey plans from the 1870s indicate that by that time there was a complex of buildings representing the essential functions of a pastoral station on Benmore: woolshed, men’s quarters, house and huts, as well as the associated sheep yards. There was also a dam and water race which provided water supply for the wool scour, and later provided power for the turbine which powered the shearing machines.
The woolshed was central to the station operation as around 90,000 sheep were being shorn by the 1890s. Some 3,000 fleeces were classed over four tables in the shed each day during shearing. The skirters had to be supervised, and the classer was an important figure in the shed, addressed as ‘Mister’ and eating with the manager, separate from the shearers.
According to architect and engineer Geoffrey Thornton the first Benmore Woolshed was built in 1868 with a timber frame clad in corrugated iron. On 5 November 1870 there was a fire at the Benmore woolshed. Robert Pinney writes that the woolshed was destroyed but the sorting room was saved. This differs from the current owner’s view (in light of the physical evidence in the shed itself) that the sorting room was destroyed and the shearing shed and pens were saved. Scouring resumed within a week, and a new sorting shed constructed from recycled iron was still being finished when shearing began on 8 December of over 52,000 sheep. The ‘huge woolshed’ is a significant feature in the landscape, being visible from the main road.
Machine shearing was introduced early at Benmore in 1889(though Galloway preceded them in 1888), with the trial of Wolseley mechanical hand pieces. The technology was adopted and powered by a turbine with water from the nearby creek. Frederick Wolseley first demonstrated machine shearing technology in Australia in 1885 and he formed the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company in 1887. Surveyor T.N. Brodrick witnessed the event and wrote: ‘It is wonderful. It clips the sheep better than it could be done by and does not hurt them so much and it is easier on the man….’ Thornton describes the woolshed as ‘impressive’ with its two boards totalling twenty eight stands, one of the few larger sheds still in use, though fewer stands are used now. The woolshed was also the centre of industrial unrest which is discussed in more detail below.
In the 1860s sheep were shorn ‘in the grease’, that is unwashed, and it was necessary to clean the wool before shipment through scouring. On large and isolated stations such as Benmore (and others such as Morven Hills), this was usually completed at the station. By 1870 much of the wool clip was scoured with up to six men employed sorting, and up to sixteen men scouring. The water supply came from a dam above the homestead, from which water was sourced to drive the turbine for 28 shearing machines.
The Wool Scour was built in 1870, and in 1898 was moved close to the woolshed, to use the overflow water from the turbine. The Wool Scour had iron boilers surrounded by stone at one end of the building to heat water to make the scouring solution. The wool was placed in vats alongside the boilers and scoured by agitating it in the soapy mixture. Fleeces were drained and then rinsed in a rinsing box with a perforated bottom, and supplied with a constant supply of cold water to remove the dirt and soap. The fleeces were air-dried before being pressed into bales.
Next to the Wool Scour is the large Wool Sorting Shed (where the wool was sorted before scouring), a single-gabled, timber-framed building clad with wide birch slabs on the lower level and corrugated iron on the upper level. The dump screw press goes through both levels and has its base recessed into the floor. It was used to compress two bales into one. Thornton identifies only one other surviving scour, at Lake Coleridge, and considers the Wool Sorting Shed as a ‘utilitarian structure of considerable character.’
Other buildings such as the Blacksmith’s Shop were central to the functioning of the station. Pinney describes the blacksmith as the ‘[m]ost skilled of the men employed at Benmore.’ William Bell, blacksmith at Benmore from at least 1865-1876, was a significant figure. Bell was also a partner with John Murchison in the Conchra Run in the Ahuriri. As well as smithing at Benmore, Bell worked at other Campbell holdings, including Otekaike and Station Peak. He shod horses for the station and neighbouring properties, and made tools, bolts, grates and fencing standards.
Geoffrey Thornton considers smithies particularly important on isolated stations. As a farrier the smith kept the horses’ shoed feet in good condition, and as a smith he made and repaired tools and equipment, and made iron tyres for drays and wagons. The equipment and tools were specialised and significant. He describes Benmore’s smithy (erected in 1872) as a good example, timber framed using ‘black birch in the round’, and clad in blackened iron from the wool shed which burned down in 1870. The long narrow building has a store at the rear with an open bay for implements. Some of the iron was replaced in the 1980s (recycled from the homestead), and some of the timber replaced with like round timber harvested by permit from the station. The tools, forge, bellows and anvil are still in situ.
Horses were also important to the operation of a large station, providing access to the distant reaches of the 300,000 acre property. The stables at Benmore are modest and included accommodation for the stablehand. They are constructed of stone with a corrugated iron lean-to. Thornton describes it of ‘considerable character.’
Housing was also important, from the primitive early cottages, to the more comfortable manager’s house, through to accommodation for men. On Benmore there are a range of buildings which represent these functions.
The Men’s Quarters and Cookshop at Benmore are combined in a single building. The structure dates from around 1867, and is constructed of stone, with sleeping quarters at one end, a dining room in the centre and a kitchen at the other end. Thornton considers it an ‘interesting example’ of its type. The Farm Store (dating from 1867), raised on stone piles, and constructed of timber is located adjoining the Men’s Quarters, providing easy access to essential provisions.
Periods of Dispute
Te Maiharoa and Te Ao Marama
The development of Benmore Station took place in the context of Ngai Tahu anxiety about the loss of their land through the 1848 Kemp Purchase. Ngai Tahu leader, tohunga and Kaingarara religious prophet Hipa Te Maiharoa (?-1885/1886) attempted to protect the land, with the efforts focused in the Waitaki Valley. In mid 1877 he led 100 of his people up the Waitaki valley to establish a settlement called Te Ao Marama near modern day Omarama. Te Ao Marama was a stopping place on the way to the West Coast. Here he and his people cultivated land, built dwellings, and a large church, and held religious services and established a school of learning on land part of the Omarama lease.
Te Maiharoa’s protests took place in the context of the Taranaki iwi’s defence of their land, Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi’s pacific resistance at Parihaka, and widespread fighting between government troops and iwi in the North Island. While initially welcomed as providing much needed station labour, Te Maiharoa’s people were soon under pressure from the run holders, including Robert Campbell, particularly around the issue of Maori-owned dogs which runholders claimed were worrying sheep, though this was disputed by iwi living at Te Ao Marama. Robert Campbell refused to employ Maori shearers on the run. Campbell and Duncan Sutherland (the Omarama Station manager) were portrayed in newspapers as the ‘victims’ of the illegal occupation.
Te Maiharoa had an audience with the native minister John Sheehan in 1878 to present the Ngai Tahu case, but was dismissed, and later ordered to return to the established Maori reserves, and in August 1879 were evicted by armed constables. Te Maiharoa moved to Korotuaheka south of the Waitaki River mouth, and continued to present the Ngai Tahu grievances to the Crown.
Shearers’ Strikes
Controversy for Benmore Station continued in the early 1890s with the shearers’ strike in late 1893. Labour historian John Martin describes this strike as the ‘most important single strike’ in the history of the Shearers’ Union. Struggles between station management and the shearers were not new, with the organisation of rural workers in the later part of the nineteenth century ‘coming up directly against the power of the runholders and farmers.’ There was notable conflict at Benmore in 1873 (where shearers argued for £1 per 100 sheep shorn which started in the Waitaki district and led to the formation of the first shearers’ union) and further boycotting of the station after a shearer was sacked for bad shearing in 1878. President of the Shearers’ Union and member of Parliament J.W. Kelly described Middleton (Pinney would argue unfairly) as ‘a perfect tyrant amongst his men’ and who had earned a bonus from Campbell as ‘the most economical station manager’ in the employ of Robert Campbell and Co.
The strike, based on Middleton’s judgement that the sheep were dry versus the shearer’s assessment that they were wet, took place on 22 December 1893. Under the shearers’ contract, which John Martin describes as typically one-sided in favour of the station manager, only Middleton had the right to decide whether the sheep were wet. Middleton fired the shearers’ representative, and refused to pay the other men who had walked out as he considered them on strike. The conflict escalated with all the roads to Benmore picketed. Middleton recruited more shearers from the coast and broke the strike.
The union decided to make a ‘test case’ of the strike to highlight the arbitrary employment conditions under which shearers worked, knowing well that they would lose, but hoping that the publicity would aid their cause. They did indeed lose but protests about the court decision were held in Waimate and Christchurch. The House of Representatives discussed the strike at length and led to the unsuccessful attempt to change the Workmen’s Wages Act.
The following year Middleton hired shearers from New South Wales, and requested police protection so that shearing could continue unhindered. This was refused and once again all roads to the station were picketed, but shearers were allowed to pass through unhindered. While the Shearers’ Union ultimately lost its struggle at Benmore (the battle moving to other sheds), Martin writes that old hands remembered the Benmore strike as ‘a big means in reforming and strengthening the Shearers’ Union.’
The Sutherland Era
In 1892 James Sutherland took over as head shepherd and in June 1899 took over management of the station from Thomas Middleton. In 1916, when Benmore was subdivided, Sutherland was offered the opportunity to buy the homestead block, which he took up. He was known as a tough but fair man with a legendary ability to count sheep, and a gift for reading the weather, the country and stock. Sutherland owned Benmore until 1936 when it was transferred to his two sons Robert and William. James Sutherland died in the early 1950s.
In the 1960s and 1970s the NZHPT put together a project which aimed at recognising and protecting various early pastoral farm complexes in the South Island. Benmore Station was identified as ‘unique’, and one of the most important in the South Island, and the preservation of the buildings was discussed with the then owners.
In 1977 the Benmore Station buildings were used as a set for a historical dramatisation of the life of nineteenth century figure James MacKenzie due to their ability to represent a good range of the buildings of the period.
A report was prepared by the Ministry of Works in 1978 which surveyed the condition of the buildings in the Benmore Station Complex that were no longer being used, and were therefore seen as at risk (the wool scour and wool sorting shed, blacksmith’s shop, wooden store and the shepherd’s hut to north of other buildings.) Remedial work was completed on the Wool Scour, Blacksmith’s Shop and the Woolshed in 1980, including the replacement of bush pole timber in the smithy with similar timber from Benmore Station, and recladding the building with corrugated iron from the homestead. A heritage covenant was signed in the early 1980s.
Since that time Benmore has continued to be a working station run by members of the Sutherland family.
