Frederick Carrington: From Plymouth to New Plymouth

Imagine choosing the site of a brand new town and then being told for the next 40 years, that you had got it wrong. That's what happened to Frederick Carrington the surveyor. People thank him now but the first of the English settlers grizzled and groaned. They even called a meeting to talk about shifting the town of New Plymouth.

This week's story is all about Frederick Carrington - what he did and why he did it.

Rewind to 1841

Read the events below and decide if they really did happen on or around 1841. Just answer true or false and then check your answers at the end of the story.

1. The first of the settler ships from Plymouth, England arrives off the coast of the new New Plymouth.

2. By now Auckland and Wellington are quite big towns.

5. There are no other Pakeha people living in the new town- apart from Dicky Barrett and Carrington's surveying crew.

Answers at the bottom of the page.

What do surveyors do?

Surveyors investigate the land. They measure and calculate, study and analyse. They record their findings in notes, drawings and maps. The photos above show Carrington's tools of the trade.

Frederick Carrington was sent to New Zealand to find and mark out a "new" Plymouth. There was already a Plymouth in England. Look here to see some more of the types of tools that Carrington would have carried.

A job worth shifting for?

Frederick Carrington learnt to survey in the English military and he was very good at it. He could draw large areas of land in detail and show all the special features like hills and valleys. That's why the Plymouth Company offered him a job in New Zealand. He was one of the best surveyors around.

His duties were to mark out 11,000 acres (4,451hectares) of land the Plymouth Company believed they had bought from Maori. Carrington had to mark out the town and the suburban sections and then work on another 50,000 acres (20,233 hectares) the Company said was also theirs.

As chief surveyor Frederick had been offered £300 a year ($600), food for his family, fourpence (four cents) for every acre surveyed and 1% of the price of all lands sold. He took the job and sailed for New Zealand. Ocky, his younger brother followed and became his assistant and another brother, William joined them a few months later.

Would you have taken the job if you were Frederick Carrington?  You would have to swap cobbled streets and a fine home in England for a little raupo hut and mud floors in Taranaki.  Decide for yourself and share your ideas with a classmate.

Choosing the site

Carrington's first job was to choose the best place for the town. He sailed from Wellington with Dicky Barrett the whaler. He was meant to check out a number of possible sites but Dicky was keen on Taranaki. He had lived there and a town full of new settlers would be good for trade.

Find out what happens next by reading the second part of this Taranaki story.  Just scroll down until you get to "To Taranaki".

As you read work out why headlines like these might have appeared in the newspapers of Plymouth, England.

CARRINGTON REJECTS FIRST CHOICE FOR NEW TOWN

MOTUROA SITE EXCELLENT BUT TOO SMELLY FOR SETTLERS. " A NUISANCE," SAYS CARRINGTON

"JUST RIGHT!" CARRINGTON DECIDES ON SITE FOR NEW PLYMOUTH. SETTLERS, PACK YOUR BAGS

Word watch

This week's story includes the following words and phrases. Choose the best meaning and then check your answers as you read the story.

1. bewildered (a) bitter or (b) flabbergasted

2. false expectations (a) expecting something quite different or (b) no idea of the future

3. rife (a) worse or (b) common

4. conscientious (a) honest and honourable or (b) overly fussy

5. anguish (a) anger or (b) distress

6. absentee owners (a) landowners that do not live on their properties or (b) landowners that wish to sell.

7. quashed (a) halved or (b) thrown out so that it no longer counts.

8. inception (a ) beginning or (b) division

9. hampered (a) slowed down and blocked or (b) damaged

10. legacy (a) things handed down from the past or (b) a will

Answers at the bottom of the page

The settlers arrive

This week's story begins with the arrival of the first immigrant ship the William Bryan. By now Carrington and his men have slashed their way through the scrub and bush to mark out sections. Some of the scrub was more than six metres high and has now been burnt to the ground. The settlers arrive but their sections aren't ready.

Read the first part of this week's story down to "Half starved and depressed."

Check out the settler in the cartoon above. Which two items in his sack of belongings are unlikely to be there? Replace them with five smaller necessities - things he would really need.

I say, I say, I say

The story tells us the new settlement was not a happy little community. Three of the groups from the story are represented in the cartoon. Decide which three and write speech bubbles for each cartoon character. Make sure your speech bubbles tell us what the characters really think about their new town and neighbours.

Free trip home?

What if a ship had sailed into New Plymouth a week after the William Bryan's arrival? The captain offers a free trip back to England as long as those that go do some work on the ship on the way home.

Think, pair and share your ideas with a classmate. Which groups do you think would sail to England?

The groups are:

The whalers and labourers, Barrett and his family, the missionaries, Carrington and his workers, the wealthy settlers, the poorer settlers, the local Maori people.

Sad settlers

"Half starved and depressed!" That's what the next part of the story is called. Read on to find out who is depressed and why.

The new settlers still had choices. There was food in the bush and fish in the sea. It's a new town so people need things.

Try this with a classmate. Become a couple of settlers with a bit of get up and go. Pick a set of skills from the list below and then decide how you will use those skills to get ahead.

Write a five point plan so that in one year from now, late March 1842, you are doing very well indeed. The first part of your plan will solve the problems of food and shelter for yourselves. The second part will see you making money!

The skills: Law, building, farming, school teaching, baking, hairdressing, tailoring, mining, blacksmithing, shoemaking, storekeeping.

A rough stretch of coast

The Amelia Thompson was the second of the English immigrant ships to arrive off New Plymouth. She was followed by her baggage ship, the Regina. Read this part of the story and find out why so many townspeople thought Carrington had made a big mistake when he chose the site for the new town.

Let's call a meeting

A meeting was even called to discuss the possibility of moving the town. More people voted to keep New Plymouth where it was but it was a very close vote.

Perhaps the meeting went a little like the play below. Now that you know how the meeting ended, finish writing the play then form a group of six and act it out.

Chairman: Order please, order. Gentlemen I need order... thankyou.  We have a motion on the floor that the present town of New Plymouth should be shifted to a place that allows ships to berth safely. Is there any discussion?

Henry: Well all I've got to say is the man's a fool, a fool that's what he is.

Edwin: Aye, a fool he is that Mr Carrington. Only a fool would build a town where is no natural harbour.

Thomas: It was a foolish act I'll agree. The skipper of the Regina will agree now too. She's wrecked you know.

Henry: Too true! Smashed to bits on vicious rocks

Thomas: Those on board were lucky to escape with their lives I hear.

Edwin: I've heard that ships are avoiding this part of the coast. It's too rough.

Henry: Too true. It's a vicious coast this one. Vicious I say.

Edwin: And that's why we are all so hungry. The trading ships won't call. They don't now and they never will. I say move the town before we all starve.

Henry: Hear, hear. Put it to the vote now. All those in favour?

Chairman: Mr Gilbert I'll put it to the vote thankyou, not you. Please sit down. Now will anyone speak against the motion?

Henry: Not likely.

Chairman: Mr Gilbert!

Henry: Well I can't sit down can I? My chair got wrecked when the Regina ran aground. It's only got three legs.

William: Yes Mr Chairman I'd like to speak against the motion. Mr Carrington chose well. The soil and climate is better than anywhere I have ever seen. We can grow almost anything we want. All that is needed is a little patience and a lot of hard work.

Richard: I support William Mr Chairman. In years to come our town will be the farming capital of New Zealand. Why, corn seeds planted barely a week ago are healthy seedlings already. We can build a port but we can't build fine farmland. I say stay where we are. We will all be better for it.

Henry: As long as we don't starve.

What can you see?

Mapped: An early copy of the New Plymouth survey map drawn by Fred Carrington in 1842.

[+] Click here for larger image.

Take a close look at Carrington's map. Find the sections he has marked out. Where would the breakwater and the port go? Find the spot where the wind wand now stands. Find Moturoa. That's where Dicky Barrett's whaling station was and find a hill that is no longer there.

What a horse!

Read Pompey and find out why the surveyor decided to keep walking.

A breach of faith

The next part of the story is about a disagreement over land. Carrington and his men were still surveying but the land his company thought they owned was not officially sold. The Governor had said that all land sales were "null and void" - under investigation.

A land commissioner was going to try to sort things out but relationships between Maori and Pakeha had been fairly peaceful, Well they were until "Big John", sailed into town.

Read about Big John Wicksteed in the part called "Waitara/Raleigh".

Ideal, workable or not on?

What happened next would be viewed in different ways by each of the people or groups involved.

The people are Frederick Carrington and John Wicksteed. The groups are local Maori and the new settlers.

Decide what each of the people or groups above would think of each of the actions below.  Would they view the action as "ideal", "workable" or "not on"?

1. The company rules that one tenth of the Waitara land becomes "Native Reserves".

2. Wicksteed rules that Maori get one block of land away from the settlers.

3. Carrington promises Maori two favourite spots of land for their reserves.

4. The reserves are forgotten and settlers can choose any section of land they want to.

5. The special constabulary fires a volley of shots and land is taken from Maori.

Rich men, poor men

The Plymouth Company bought the land around New Plymouth in the first place. They were a group of businessmen living in Plymouth, England and many of New Plymouth's streets are still named after them today.

This company wanted to make money just like the New Zealand Company did. The New Zealand Company sold land to wealthy people in Britain and then used part of the profit to pay for the fare of the poorer immigrants. These settlers would then work for the rich just as they had in England.  This was the plan but it didn't really work.

Many of the settlers didn't want to work for the rich. They wanted their own piece of land so for all sorts of reasons the land companies started to lose money. It happened to the Plymouth Company.

Read "Financial Problems" and "London" to see how all this affected Frederick Carrington. Find out too why the Plymouth Company didn't sell as much land as they had hoped.

We want a harbour!

In 1857 Frederick Carrington returned to New Plymouth with his family. The town  didn't have a harbour and this annoyed him. Some people still said the town should never have been built there. Read "Return to New Zealand". Find out how the people of New Plymouth tried to solve the harbour problem and then find out what Carrington did himself.

Convict power!

Finish the story now and find out when New Plymouth finally got a breakwater and then a wharf.

Building the breakwater must have been a huge job. Massive machines would make short work of it today but back then much of the work must have been done by hand. Imagine being a convict. They probably marched out of the prison early in the morning, worked all day and marched back just before dark.

Write the job description for a rock busting, breakwater building convict. Include the hours of work and the skills and equipment needed. Describe the work and list the rate of pay.

Fast forward to 2005

Port Taranaki took a little while to get started but now it's the only deep water seaport on New Zealand's west coast.  It's sheltered by two breakwaters and handles large volumes of international and coastal cargoes of the farming, engineering and petrochemical industries.

The port is also a servicing base for sea transport and related industries and provides support and heavy lift services for the offshore and onshore oil industry.

Now Port Taranaki is going to be deepened to handle the big ships of the future and this will put it among the top ports in New Zealand.

The whole project will cost $20-30 million dollars. A digger worth about $10 million will float on a barge and reach 15 metres below the surface of the water. Getting it here will cost millions of dollars but it will do 95% of the project without have to blast. The bigger rocks and boulders will still be blasted.

So how would you rate Frederick Carrington's choice for the town of New Plymouth now? Fair, good, excellent or exceptionally farsighted!

Answers

Rewind

1. True
2. False compared to today. Auckland had about 2000 people living there and Wellington had under 3000. For those days though they could be called big towns and compared to New Plymouth they definitely were. So, True or false is correct for this one.
3. False. Many Te Atiawa had left their tribal lands and were living near Wellington. They returned but that was later on.
4. True. Dicky's first visit to the area was in 1828. He set himself up as a trader and married a local chief's daughter. He lived with his family at Ngamotu and later helped defend a pa against attacking Warriors from the north.
5. False. Missionaries were living in the area.

Click to go back to the questions.

Word Watch

1b, 2a, 3b, 4a, 5b, 6a, 7b, 8a, 9a, 10a

Click to go back to the questions.