SPARS FROM HOKIANGA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 808, 21 January 1955, Page 5

SPARS FROM HOKIANGA

Sir,-A junior officer on Nelson's flagship, H.M.S. Victory, left a diary in which he states that that ship went into action at Trafalgar entirely sparred with New Zealand kauri in 1805, I quote from memory, but I understood him to state that kauri was first tried out on smaller ships before being used upon a ship of the line. This would infer that the kauri had been under trial for some time before 1805: Unfortunately, I have not the time to search for the information, but the diary mentioned above was reviewed in the Illustrated London News some time between 1932 and 1940. Coromandel Peninsula was named after the R.N. Transport H.M.S. Coromandel, which called there for spars in 1804-6. Probably the Maritime Museum at Greenwich could throw some light on the early spar trade. The cause of this early search for spars was the blockade of the Baltic by Napoleon, which cut off from Britain her supplies of Baltic fir. This search began some time before the actual blockade occurred, as British statesmen saw the probable trend of events. This I have always understood resulted also in the discovery of the Oregon pine, Bligh stated in his reports that everywhere Cook had been and where Bounty followed there was evidence of ships of unknown origin having called at these places in the interim. Kipling’s "Lost Legion" found their way about the world in no uncertain manner, but rarely bothered to record their doings, perhaps wisely. Concerning early Hokianga, I was told in my teens by a man then nearly 90 that there was a gravestone on the shores of the harbour with the date 1796 on it.

W. HUGH

ROSS

(Huntlv)

(Abridged.-Ed.)