NEW ZEALAND COMPANY

The 'New Zealand Company ' was formed in 1839 to promote the colonisation of New Zealand. It established settlements at Wellington, New Plymouth, Wanganui and Nelson before ceasing activity about 1844.

Contents

Early attempts at colonisation

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

New Zealand Land Company

1839 expedition and land purchases

Treaty of Waitangi

Britannia

Further settlements

Dissolution

References

Early attempts at colonisation

The earliest attempt to colonise New Zealand had been made in 1825, when a company that also bore the name of "The New Zealand Company" was formed in London and headed by John George Lambton, MP. The company unsuccessfully petitioned the British Government for a 31-year term of exclusive trade as well as command over a military force, anticipating that large profits could be made from New Zealand flax, kauri timber, whaling and sealing. The following year it dispatched two ships under the command of Captain James Herd to explore trade prospects and potential settlement sites in New Zealand.
In September or October 1826 the ships, the ''Lambton'' and the ''Isabella'' (or ''Rosanna''), sailed into Te Whanganui-a-Tara, (present-day Wellington Harbour), which Herd named Lambton Harbour. Herd explored the area and identified land at the south-west of the harbour as the best place for a European settlement. The ships then sailed north to explore prospects for trade, "purchasing" what was later claimed to be one million acres (4000 sq km) of land from local Māori in Hokianga, Manukau and Paeroa on the way. The company opted against pursuing any trade or settlement ventures and ceased activity, having spent ₤20,000 on the venture.^[1]

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Plans for the settlement of New Zealand were revived during the 1830s by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who had grown up in a family with roots in philanthropy and social reform. In 1829, while in prison for abducting a 15-year-old heiress, he had published a pamphlet and a series of newspaper articles – the latter eventually republished as a book – promoting the colonising of Australasia. Wakefield's plan entailed the company buying land from the indigenous residents very cheaply, then selling it to speculators and "gentleman settlers" for a much higher sum. The emigrants would provide the labour to break in the gentlemen's lands and cater to their employers' everyday needs. They would eventually be able to buy their own land, but low rates of pay would ensure they first laboured for many years. The Interpreter: The Biography of Richard "Dicky" Barrett, Angela Caughey, , , David Bateman Ltd, 1998, ISBN 1-86953-346-1
His ideas were embraced by many of those who had been in the New Zealand Company of 1825 and used in 1834 as a basis for the colonisation of South Australia, where his supporters proposed recreating "a perfect English society". Wakefield regarded the South Australian experience as a failure, however, and in 1836 set his sights on New Zealand, where his theories of "systematic" colonisation could be put into effect. A year later he chaired the first meeting of the New Zealand Association. Its members soon included MPs William Hutt and Sir William Molesworth, R.S. Rintoul of ''The Spectator'' and London banker John Wright. Wakefield drafted a Bill to bring the association's plans to fruition.
The Bill attracted stiff opposition, however, from Colonial Office officials and the Church Missionary Society, who took issue both with the "unlimited power" the colony's founders would wield and the inevitable "conquest and extermination of the present inhabitants". Anglican and Wesleyan missionaries were particularly alarmed by claims made in pamphlets written by Wakefield in which he declared that one of the aims of colonisation was to "civilise a barbarous people" who could "scarcely cultivate the earth". Maori, he wrote, "craved" colonisation and looked up to the Englishman "as being so eminently superior to himself, that the idea of asserting his own independence of equality never enters his mind". Wakefield suggested that once Maori chiefs had sold their land to settlers for a very small sum, they would be "adopted" by English families and be instructed and corrected.

New Zealand Land Company

By late 1837 the association was gaining favour in government circles, and in December was offered a Royal Charter to take responsibility for the administration, and the legislative, judicial, military and financial affairs of the colony of New Zealand, subject to safeguards of control by the British Government. To receive the charter, however, the association was told by Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg it would have to become a joint stock company. Despite objections by its members to that condition, and the withdrawal in February 1838 of the offer of a charter, the association was wound up in August 1838 and in its place was formed the New Zealand Colonisation Company (by May 1839 renamed the New Zealand Land Company). Once again Edward Gibbon Wakefield provided the driving impetus.
Within the British Government concern was rising about the welfare of Maori and increasing lawlessness among the 2000 British subjects in New Zealand. Because of the population of British subjects there, officials believed colonisation was now inevitable and at the end of 1838 the decision was made to appoint a Consul as a prelude to the declaration of British sovereignty over New Zealand. The officers of the New Zealand Company knew that any such declaration would involve a freeze on all land sales pending the establishment of effective British control. They had other plans, which involved treating New Zealand as a foreign country and buying the land directly from the Māori, knowing they could get a better deal that way.

1839 expedition and land purchases

The New Zealand Company hastily organised a land-buying expedition, which sailed to New Zealand in the ''Tory'' in May 1839, commanded by Wakefield's younger brother, Colonel William Wakefield. A second vessel, the survey ship ''Cuba'', with a team headed by Captain William Mein Smith, R.A., sailed in August, followed a month later by the first of nine immigrant ships, even before word had reached London of the success of the ''Tory'' and ''Cuba''. The immigrant fleet had instructions to sail to Port Hardy on D'Urville Island where they would be told of their final destination.
With the aid of whaler and trader Dicky Barrett, who had good contacts with Māori and a grasp of their language, William Wakefield began negotiating to buy land from the Māori around Petone in the Wellington area as soon as he arrived in New Zealand, and by the end of 1839 had concluded several purchases that quickly became mired in controversy over their legitimacy.
The settlement was far from what had been planned in England: among the many falsehoods in company prospectuses and advertising about the nature of the country, Wellington had been described as a place of undulating plains suitable for the cultivation of grapevines, olives and wheat. The Penguin History of New Zealand, Michael King, , , Penguin Books, 2003, ISBN 0-14-301867-1 Plans prepared in England showed parallel streets and sections that bore no relation to the physical contours of the area. Streets and sections, parks and cemeteries had been drawn in an area that consisted of swampy delta or high hills and steep gullies.
As early as 1839 the New Zealand Company had resolved to "take steps to procure German emigrants" and appointed a Mr Bockelman as agent of the Company in Bremen. At one stage the Company made an agreement in principle to sell the Chatham Islands to the Deutsche Colonisations Gesellschaft, but were thwarted by the British Government. However, Lord Stanley did agree to make the German colonists instant British subjects upon arrival in Nelson after being vetted in Hamburg first.

Treaty of Waitangi

In the wake of the Treaty of Waitangi, first signed on 6 February 1840, which transferred sovereignty from Māori to the British Crown, Lieutenant-Governor Hobson immediately froze all land sales and declared all existing purchases invalid pending investigation. Hobson sent his Colonial Secretary, Willoughby Shortland, and some soldiers, to Port Nicholson (Wellington) to raise the Union flag and put an end to any challenge to British sovereignty. The colonists had set up a "colonial council" in March 1840, which Hobson described as a "republic", headed by Wakefield and Smith with primitive legal institutions.
This put the New Zealand Company in a very difficult position. They did not have enough land to satisfy the arriving settlers and they could no longer legally sell the land they claimed they owned. Despite this they pressed ahead, no doubt hoping that subsequent events would create enough pressure to allow them to proceed within the law.

Britannia

The original settlement, to be called Britannia, was intended for Petone, at the mouth of the Hutt River. However the ground there was very swampy and the anchorage dangerously exposed. The Hutt River flooded that year. They resolved to move further west within the harbour of Port Nicholson to the area they had named Lambton Bay, in honour of Lord Durham, who had been closely associated with the formation of the Company. William Mein Smith and his surveyors laid out the original town blocks and the surrounding reserve known as the Town Belt, and began allocating the land. This original area of settlement is now known as Lambton Quay, in the capital city of Wellington
Despite this setback the colony got off to a good start. Within the first year no fewer than 110 vessels had entered the harbour. Food was abundant, mainly supplied by the Māori, who were already supplying the whaling stations around the coast. Safety and relations with the Māori had been the primary concern of the early arrivals but, initially at least, they were very amicable. The initial purchase of the land had proceeded smoothly with Colonel Wakefield, (William), taking every care to ensure that the Māori understood the transaction and were satisfied with the deal. It was estimated that they paid over goods valued at about four hundred pounds (worth £24,700 in 2004) for the land on which Wellington was established. Although this now seems paltry there was another aspect of the sale which possibly helped justify the deal. One tenth of all the land the Company was purchasing, urban as well as rural, was to be reserved for the Māori. It was expected that the rise in land values subsequent upon European settlement would more than compensate the Māori for the loss of their land. By the standards of the time this was indeed liberal, although it was based on the land being valued in monetary terms only, a European concept. It did not take into account the spiritual and prestigious value of the land, important Māori concepts.
The fact remains that at the time of the sale the deal satisfied both parties.
However not all the Māori remained happy with developments. When the Settlers decided to move from Petone to Lambton Bay they found it already occupied by several Māori ''pa'' or villages. These particular Māori did not want to move. They had sold the land quite happily without anticipating the consequences, imagining that the Māori and Pakeha would be able to share the land equitably. The dissatisfaction from this dispute has continued until the present day and has been the subject of a lengthy report from the Treaty of Waitangi tribunal.

Further settlements

The New Zealand Company went on to establish settlements at Wanganui, 1840, at New Plymouth in 1841 and at Nelson in 1842 and sent surveyors down the east coast of the South Island to consider further sites, where they made contact at Akaroa with the fledgling French colony there.
However the Company soon go into serious financial difficulties. It had planned to buy land cheaply and sell it dearly. It anticipated that a colony based on a higher land price would attract affluent colonists. The profits from the sale of land were to be used to pay for free passage of the working-class colonists and for public works, churches and schools for instance. For this scheme to work it was important to get the right proportion of labouring to propertied immigrants. In part the failure of New Zealand Company plans were because this proportion was never achieved, there were always more labourers than landed gentry.
But there was another flaw in the plan which made the problem worse. A proportion of the land in the new colony was bought for speculative reasons by people who had no intention of migrating to New Zealand. They had no plans to develop the land they bought. This meant that the new colonies had a serious shortage of employers and consequently a shortage of work for the labouring classes. From the outset the New Zealand Company was forced to be the major employer in the new colonies and this proved a serious financial drain on the Company.

Dissolution

The income from the sale of land to intending settlers never met expectations and came nowhere near meeting expenses. In 1844 the Company ceased active trading. It surrendered its charter in 1850. The British Government initially assumed responsibility for the New Zealand Company's debts, but bequeathed them to the fledgling New Zealand government in 1854.

References

1. Fatal Success: A History of the New Zealand Company, Patricia Burns, , , Heinemann Reed, 1989, ISBN 0-7900-0011-3


★ ''First New Zealand Company'' in the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand

★ ''Second New Zealand Company'' in the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand

★ ''The Wakefield Myth'' in the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand

★ ''A society of gentlemen: the untold story of the first New Zealand Company'' by Richard Wolfe (2007, Penguin, North Shore Auckland) ISBN 9780143020516

★ ''An Account of the Settlements of the New Zealand Company'' by The Hon H W Petre (Smith, Elder and Co, 1842).