Left: map of Banks Peninsula showing the whaling stations and settlements.
A (hopefully) reasonably concise history of Banks Peninsula.
Banks Peninsula, (Horomako), was important for Maori because it combined the resources of forest and sea and was close to the productive wetlands near the coast, also handy to Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere), and Wairewa (Lake Forsyth) - renowned eel and flounder fisheries.
The Peninsula is within the traditional boundaries of the Kai Tahu iwi (tribe). Their most important pa was at Kaiapoi which was also a centre of trade in pounamu (greenstone).
Captain James Cook sighted and misnamed the peninsula as Banks Island in 1769. He did not land there and so the first recorded European landing on the peninsula was not until 1815 or 1816 when a sealing ship put into Akaroa to trade for potatoes and flax. Akaroa is Kai Tahu dialect for Whangaroa which means "long harbour".
Schools of Humpback, Minke, Right and Sperm whales migrated past the New Zealand coastline from early May each year on their journey from the Pacific Ocean to Antarctica. By the eighteen-thirties whaling ships from Australia, America, Britain and Europe were anchoring at Port Cooper (now Lyttelton), and the Akaroa harbour.
The shore-based whaling stations of Ikoraki, Peraki and Oashore were established during the eighteen-thirties and the Island Bay whaling station was set up in 1842 by William Green, Charles Brown, and Matthew Hall.
So In 1842...
Akaroa had just been colonised by a small group of French and German settlers in August of 1840...
The oh so famous John and William Deans will not be founding their Riccarton, (Putaringamotu), until 1843...
And the Canterbury Association which will send the first four ships, (The Randolph, Cressy, Sir George Seymour, and the Charlotte Jane), of English settlers to colonise Port Cooper, (Lyttelton), in 1850 will not even be formed until 1848...
Whaling On The Peninsula
Upon their arrival at Banks Peninsula in 1842 James initially took his wife and infant daughter to the unsavoury environment of the Oashore whaling station. Captain Hempleman's log, (he owned the Peraki whaling station), paints day to day pictures of boredom, drunkenness, disputes, and desertions amongst the whalers. Weeks could pass without sign of a whale - according to the log, in the first six months of 1840 only seven whales were captured.
Whaling stations were usually filthy. They had a permanent "disgusting stench from putrid whale carcasses left to rot on the beach" which was also strewn with gigantic bone fragments. Pigs and seagulls picked over the refuse while mixed race children played in and out of the remains.
Workers at bay whaling stations were not generally paid wages, instead they were paid in slops, (loose-fitting trousers), spirits and tobacco. The whalers would have to purchase all their provisions on credit from the earnings they hoped to make from their share of any whales that might be captured. Frequently they could wind up ending their season further in debt than when the season had started.
A whaler could expect to earn the equivalent of about thirty-five pounds, (minus debt), for the whole season whereas more "skilled" workers such as carpenters, blacksmiths, and coopers, (barrel makers), were paid at the higher rate of ten shillings per day.
Hunting Whales
James worked as a whaler at the Oashore, Peraki, and Island Bay whaling stations for about the next ten years.
The work was dangerous. The whales were usually found close inshore in the bays, about two to seven miles off the coast. The shore whalers moved in with their fleet of small whaleboats, each boat holding a crew of six, comprising four strong rowers, a steersman in the stern, and a harpoonist standing in the bow ready to strike.
 The most dangerous part was when the whale had been harpooned and the ten fathoms of line had snaked out - a whale might speed off at a fast pace dragging whaleboat and crew behind it, or even more dangerously, the whale might dive towards the bottom of the sea and then resurface again amongst its attackers, its gigantic tail thrashing about in the waves, capsizing, swamping, or smashing boats and the crew could be drowned, or maimed, or left clinging desperately to their upturned boats, waiting for rescue from the other boats of the fleet.
As an example of how dangerous this life was, in 1845, "The New Zealand Spectator" published a short and bleak item to the effect that the Island Bay Fishery had "broken up" early that season due to "all hands being lost at sea on the 6th of May".
After a kill was made, the whale carcass had to be dragged back to the station which, depending on the weight of the whale, could take up to fourteen hours hard rowing over several days. If the weather packed up the whalers might have to anchor their catch out there in the swell while they rowed for safety to the nearest shore, to return the next day.
Reaching The Shore
The whale carcass would be hauled up the beach and then "flensers" would climb over it with sharp 'spades" to cut the strips of blubber down the length of the body. These strips were then dragged of with the help of a "capstan" and chopped into blocks to be thrown into trypots which were heated with "scrag", the name given to the residue of the previous rendering which burned well. As the reeking oil rose to the surface it was skimmed off and stored in large wooden casks for cooling, ready to be loaded aboard the next visiting whaling ship.
Then the whole jawbone was carefully cut out and buried in the sand for ten days by which time the hair on the plates was rotted away.
The Whale Products
Hairless, washed, scraped, and carefully packed, the whalebone was a valuable commodity. The pliable bone from the mouth was used for women's corsets and stays. this bone was also used in the manufacture of flexible "buggy" horsewhips.
Whale oil was in great demand. It was used as a clean burning fuel for lamps in Europe, Asia and America and for machinery lubrication. As whale oil would not congeal in extreme cold nor would it require further refining, and so therefore it was a useful lubricant for the cogs and wheels of delicate instruments such as clocks and watches.
The family grows and their fortunes improve...
During their ten years on whaling stations Hannah gave birth to six more children, George Henry was born on the 9th December, 1843; William who was born on the 14th October, 1845; Alexander on the 10th February, 1847; finally another girl, Susannah on the 14th July, 1848; James on the 15th April, 1850; and Joseph on the 24th August 1851.
And in the year 1852 they finally get their own land.
Shortydeb: hmmmmmm..Kia Ora Iri!!...is wondering if Great Great Great Grandpa was a whaler..now I have to go look into our families background...u got me goin Iri...
Monday 2 July 2007 - 02:03PM (MMT)
 | Those whalers were tough as nails, and proved it every time they went out.
I'm not in favour of whales being slaughtered, its not right, but those guys, in small boats, were either insane, or bloody heros to do that for a living. |
| I dont know if I told you Iri, but my grandfather was one of, if not the, last lighthouse keeper down in Bluff........both my mother and uncle were born there........ |
 | Very fascinating piece of history. |
 | excellent, i love learning these bits of history. thank you, iri. |
 | greenstone for axes?
did the Wrights come out indentured to whaling, or pay thier own passage? was he a boat man or a tradesman? was the land a purchace, grant, or in leiu of wages?
well, i guess you will answer all in time. it sounds like a pretty wretched life, but I guess everybody had that in the 1840s. This the same time that the Choctaw and Chickasaw have been driven out of Mississippi and the land taken up by British Americans and their West African American slaves. |
 | Actually I don't know how their passage was paid, Mary Evelyn, but they would not have been indentured at least, no indentured workers ever came out to NZ. Of his working life before he came to NZ I only know he was enlisted in the 1st Life Guards at Windsor but was discharged on the 12th of September 1838, which is mentioned in Part One. I suspect he was one who would try his hand at anything that came along.
greenstone for axes? I don't get the question, do you mean did Maori use greenstone for axes (only for very flash ones) or trade greenstone for axes, probably did that too lol. Greenstone was a prized commodity (still is). A maori name for the South Island is Te Waipounamu which means The Greenstone Waters (wai is water). Greenstone was found in rivers on the West Coast of the South Island and traded and brought over to Kaiapoi (which is on the East Coast just above Christchurch). Maori were canny and traded many things, what they mostly wanted in those times was guns.
Pioneering was rough and not for the faint-hearted. |
| thank you for your comments Howard and Deb. |
 | dnoakes wrote on May 14, edited on May 14  Pioneering was rough and not for the faint-hearted.  That's putting it well. It's been a long time since I read Herman Melville, but I see he was not exaggerating iin "Moby Dick" one bit. I'm totally against modern whaling for obvious reasons, but I have to admire the pure grit and determination that went into such "harvesting" expeditions. Bereft of motors and modern high-powered harpoons, one had to gamble with one's life on every trip--and then back to shore sounds like when the "real work" started. |
 | its not always modern technology that kills off a species, my thoughts drift to the so called american heroes who slaughtered the buffalo here in the states, often cooling there rifles with wet rags. mostly for the dollar not survival |
| First nations, and subsistence people are mostly known to kill what they need and use all of the kill for food clothing etc. What is disgusting is the culture of wholesale slaughter as in whaling or the buffalo and the killing of elephants for just their tusks etc. and wasting the rest. |
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