An offer too good to refuse
Frederic and his brother William were surveyors in the Ordnance Survey Department in London when they were approached by William Mein Smith who was the newly appointed chief surveyor to the New Zealand Company, and the directors of its subsidiary, the Plymouth Company. The company intended to take over some of the New Zealand Company's land, sell it to potential colonists from the west of England and organise settlement. Smith gave a glowing description of the new country, and its possibilities. The Carrington's brother Wellington, also a surveyor, had been to New Zealand in 1835, returning brimming with enthusiasm for the little country on the other side of the world. These glowing testimonials soon had Frederic convinced he needed to go to New Zealand.
Shortly after, he accepted the position of chief surveyor to the Plymouth Company with a salary of £300 per year, rations for he and his family, the sum of four pence per acre for all lands surveyed, plus 1% of the price of all lands sold.
As chief surveyor for the Plymouth Company he could, in theory, make himself a small fortune. His younger brother Augustus Octavius Carrington (Ocky) became first assistant surveyor. Wellington was to follow several months later.
Frederic's duties were to be large – he was to "facilitate from the New Zealand Company holdings an area of 11,000 acres of "available" land for the New Plymouth settlement, at the same time making provision for the addition of a further 50,000 acres adjoining the first area, survey and line out the town and suburban sections"
To New Zealand
On 13 August 1840 the barque London left Plymouth with Frederic, his wife Margaret, and their three children on board.
The surveyor was described as "aged about thirty-two, a slight man of erect bearing, with brown hair already receding from a high forehead, an aquiline nose and bushy beard."
His daily journal reveals a fastidious family man, intolerant of arrogance and pretentiousness in those in positions of authority but lavish with praise when he felt it deserved.
Octavius Carrington followed later in a separate ship, the Slains Castle, to avoid possible disaster. Frederic arrived in Wellington on 12 December 1840, Octavius early the following year.
The family left a country in the middle of an industrial revolution – the steam engine, and invention of "machines to make machines" had made life a little easier for many. They had arrived in a country that was, as a newborn colony, just being beginning to crawl. They had given up a comfortable home, cobbled streets and an ordered society to move across the world to a home in a little raupo hut and mud floors.
Barrett: guide, interpreter and scoundrel
In Wellington Frederic met with Colonel William Wakefield, principal agent of the New Zealand Company, who encouraged him to hire Richard (Dicky) Barrett as a guide and interpreter for his mission. Barrett had helped Wakefield buy Taranaki land for the New Zealand Company.
Barrett and his family had been living in Wellington where they owned a hotel.
The hotelier had an interest in the new settlement being in Taranaki, and more exactly, at his old home of Ngamotu. He'd had enough of the Wellington weather, a new settlement at Ngamotu offered him fertile soil, whales, more trading opportunities with a possible European population and a return to his extended Maori family. Barrett, his wife and her exiled Te Atiawa friends wanted to be able to return to Ngamotu, but they believed the only way they could do so was if there was a European settlement there to deter any more Waikato incursions into their territory.
Barrett told Carrington he would think about his proposal and mulled over the idea for a week before agreeing to join the survey boat.
Once he had "decided," Barrett set about convincing Carrington that Taranaki was the place for a new settlement.
He described the country in glowing terms and assured the surveyor of his support in setting up the settlement.
Before the search began, it was a foregone conclusion that New Plymouth would be at or near Ngamotu.
Barrett pointed out that stores were unavailable around the country and mentioned that certain goods would be useful as bargaining tools.
As a result Carrington increased his cargo by half a keg of tobacco and three hundredweight of biscuits, as well as more flour, rice, brandy and general stores.
But purchasing and packing the stores delayed the ship.
To Taranaki
Finally, on 6 January Carrington and Barrett set out for Taranaki on the Brougham, the winds being favourable in that direction.
Two days later, the ship anchored off the Sugar Loaf Islands, Frederic stood on deck and surveyed the coastline stretching away before him. The land at Ngamotu was indeed all that Barrett had described. Taranaki was green, beautiful and clearly fruitful with an abundance of fern and bush.
Barrett and his family went ashore, where they were greeted warmly by their family.
Carrington, his family and assistants followed, and Barrett began his campaign to have the Plymouth Company choose Ngamotu as the place for the new settlement.
The surveyor was greeted by handshakes from the fifty or sixty people who crowded round, repeating cries of 'Haere mai! Haere mai!' When Carrington asked what this meant, Barrett said that they wanted white people to come, then told the surveyor that the clustering, welcoming crowd were talking about little else but the expected arrival of Europeans to live with them.
Carrington then set out to take stock of the surrounding countryside. "which was not done without difficulty for almost every step we had to fight our way through fern and scrub," he wrote in his journal.
But there was a snag – there was no natural harbour, and Carrington surmised that building one would be at considerable expense.
On 11 January, Carrington, Barrett and the chief mate of the Brougham set off to explore the Waitara River, an area the surveyor had tentatively marked for the establishment of the new settlement.
What the first settlers would have seen: The fledgling settlement of New Plymouth in 1841
Image: chromolithograph by George Duppa entitled "Part of the New Plymouth
settlement in the district of Taranake, New Zealand - Mount Egmont 30 miles distant".
(Ref: A96.622)
[+] Click here for larger image.
They crossed the sand bar at the mouth of the river, before rowing up river for three miles. Carrington was again impressed by the richness of the soil and the lushness of the surrounding landscape. After a "wretched night passed with sandflies and mosquitoes" in the bush the party returned to the river mouth. They rowed back to the ship with a prematurely optimistic estimate of the possibilities of Waitara as a site for the new settlement.
Fruitless Search
Before a final decision was made, and to be fair to Wakefield who had recommended other sites, Carrington set sail to do a search of the South Island.
Barrett appears to have manipulated the exploration, taking the surveyor on shore trips, deliberately showing him areas of barren, swampy land.
Port Hardy (D'Urville Island) Adelle Island and Motueka were visited. None of which Carrington saw impressed him more than what he had seen in Taranaki.
Either bad weather or Barrett's cunning prevented them from sighting the perfect place for a settlement, a natural harbour and fertile plains. It's thought that had they seen the Wakatu harbour New Plymouth's history would be different. Instead the Brougham sailed on, and the area was discovered and settled by others – becoming the city of Nelson.
The Brougham returned to Wellington, with Carrington convinced that the extreme fertility of Taranaki would outweigh the disadvantages of having no natural harbour. Barrett's plans had been successful.
Sandbar sinks hopes
During the first week of February the Brougham was stocked with goods as Barrett's whaling gear, boats and everyone's furniture, animals and plants were put on board. At the last minute Carrington decided to take a prefabricated wooden house, and then had trouble finding a place on deck for the goat Wakefield gave him.
The ship arrived off the coast of Ngamotu on 12 February and unloading of Barrett's belongings began. The Brougham was to continue on to Waitara.
The next day Carrington despatched Ocky (Octavius) and a team in the ship's boat, surrounded by provisions, tents and tools. They were to set up camp for the arrival of the Brougham.
But one of the men returned the next day with bad news – three of the men had been thrown out of the boat and nearly drowned in the "truly awful" surf on the Waitara sandbar. Carrington went to investigate and returned demoralised – the sandbar had thwarted his plans for the new settlement.
A new site
Wakefield had recommended Moturoa as a site – so the ship was unloaded on the beach at Ngamotu. Barrett was to have the new settlement on his doorstep.
The only foreseeable problem was the lack of a harbour. Carrington took a boat out and examined the Sugar Loaf Islands, discovering the rock to be a hard granite. "If a breakwater was made here we should seldom or ever have any swell upon the beach, vessels may come along side to discharge and take on cargo."
He finally settled on placing the town between the Huatoki and Henui streams around three miles from the proposed breakwater.
Water was plentiful, the forest for house construction and firewood would be closer and the town dwellers would be well away from Barrett's planned whaling station, "which would be a horrible nuisance" and they would avoid the sand that would blow in the summer.
This gave Carrington enough space for a town of 2,200 quarter-acre sections, with 209 50-acre (20 hectare) suburban sections and 1,150 50-acre rural sections toward Waitara. The town was to have ample room for housing, industry, parks, playing areas and schools, with a green belt around the fringes. Carrington envisaged New Plymouth becoming the garden city on the Taranaki coast.
Surveying
Huts were erected and fire breaks were cut into the scrub around them. Carrington could not find anyone to erect his prefabricated house, so he and his family lived in a raupo hut with no floors, doors or windows, along with some labourers and their luggage and all the company stores. The inhabitants had to wear greatcoats and cloaks inside when it was cold, and Carrington had to draw his plans by lamplight at night, after being out all day with his instruments.
Frederic had Plymouth Company settlers on his heels, champing at the bit to move to a new life in New Zealand on their own piece of land, so time could not be wasted.
The men were set to work slashing survey lines through the scrub and bush and the marking out of land began. This was not an easy task – fern, scrub and grass covered the area – some scrub up to 20 feet high.
The summer had been hot and the scrub was tinder dry, so it took little effort to put a match to but needed careful watching. Carrington and his brother were standing near some untorched bushes which unexpectedly went up in a whoosh in a wind change one day, and saved their lives only by making a quick dash across some smouldering red-hot ashes.
The area was soon black and charred.
There was no shortage of helpers for the surveyors, with the few European settlers and many Maori being employed to help clear the surveyors' lines among the bush and scrub.
Carrington initially employed six immigrant labourers and nine Maori labourers, giving instructions to the latter through sign or using Barrett as an interpreter.
Carrington had some mild disputes with his Maori workers – not because they disputed the sale of the land – but because they had not been paid in full for it. His patience and willingness to use Barrett as an interpreter to gain understanding of the Maori and their concerns earned him respect.
Carrington was popular with his workers and always treated them courteously. He began his survey by running a line from the beach toward Mount Egmont, but at a later date ran a Devon line which extended in a straight line for nearly 20 miles (32km) to cross the Waitara River and intersect with the beach. Carrington made this line the origin of his surveys calling it 0deg. 0min.
Part 2 - Arrival of the First Immigrants