The Seat of Government Commission, 1864: an Australian intervention

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XVIII, Issue 1, 1 May 1985, Page 5

The Seat of Government Commission, 1864: an Australian intervention

A.G. BAGNALL

On negative evidence the most protracted series of non-events in New Zealand history were the steps leading to the decision in 1864 to transfer the capital from Auckland to Wellington. The often lengthy debates from 1856 until 1863 on the merits of an administrative capital closer to the geographic centre, which provoked threats from Auckland that it would secede if deprived of its almost divine right and by Otago that it would withdraw if nothing was done, resulted in a compromise decision to abide by the choice of an ‘impartial tribunal’, perhaps from beyond the seas. The selection of Wellington led to an immediate outburst by Auckland, followed by Otago, but the ‘Separation’ issue, which rumbled on in the far south until the end of the provincial period, was out-ridden.

A cursory glance at the standard works reveals little. A now vintage handbook on the legislature, Frank Simpson’s Parliament in New Zealand (1947), has a succinct paragraph on the topic so far avoided by the Parliamentary Record, the Oxford compendium, the Encyclopaedia (although it would have been in McLintock’s unwritten second volume of parliamentary history), Sinclair, Oliver, back to that remote but invaluable contemporary, Alfred Saunders, a faltering exception. He started well but when Nelson and its neighbouring candidate, The Grove, were passed over, lost interest. Nevertheless, if we work back to an imprint of 1866 there is light in the pages of a still neglected chronicler, C.R. Carter, at least on the moves leading to the adoption of the Australian compromise resolution. Una Platts is unique in drawing on Carter for a summary in The Lively Capital but baulks at the final steps, perhaps too painful to enlarge upon.

Clearly, there must be good reason for breaking silence on so moribund a topic of which any extended treatment would be far from the range of this journal. However, the generous gift to the writer, when in Australia recently, of copies of four most interesting letters by Joseph Docker, written from New Zealand as one of the three commissioners appointed, was more than an excuse, 1 when a check revealed that the Library held the Commission’s minutes and associated documents. 2

Controversy about the site of the capital arose within three years from the meeting of the first parliament. Henry Sewell, during his

three weeks reign as Premier, suggested, on 25 April 1856, that as Auckland had only twelve of the thirty-seven seats in the House, twenty-two of which were in the southern provinces, the northern capital should host only one session in three. 3 A month later he managed to get through a motion which gave the Governor authority ‘to select a more convenient central place’. Sewell, with some later commentators, favoured Nelson, but after some shuffling it was decided that the next session should be in Auckland as before.

When the gold discovery of 1861 led to a sudden explosion of Otago population, pressure mounted for a change. Thomas Dick, Member for Dunedin City, moved a resolution in August 1862 urging the selection of a central site. The debate on the question was appropriately in Wellington, during the second session of the third Parliament (July to September 1862), as the result of a decision on the lines of Sewell’s original ‘rotation’ proposal. In Saunders’s words, ‘lt had more than once been decided or understood that the next meeting... would be in Wellington; but, so far, something had always turned up to prevent it.’ 4 The interlude is best remembered for the wreck of the White Swan, carrying a number of members and some records. Although the losses were confined to the vessel and a few files, and the quantity of the latter somewhat exaggerated, 3 it was not a good omen for change. In the short term Dick’s motion was lost by one vote. During the debate, Stafford, the Premier for the five crucial years 1856 to 1861, expressed his preference for the Marlborough Sounds, the place ‘intended by nature for the purpose’, rather than Nelson. 6

A year later, in 1863, during the October/November session, there was further debate. Two new factors gave the southerners grounds for hope. Wellington, Nelson and Marlborough members reached an understanding during a private meeting before the debate and the 1862 Representation Act had given an additional four seats to Otago. C.R. Carter, a self-taught successful contractor, one-time Chartist with, later, a penchant for world travel —and New Zealand book collecting—seems to have taken the initiative behind the scenes. Informal discussions had shown that most of the members on either side of Cook Strait were ‘far from indisposed to submit the rival claims of the two provinces to a species of arbitration’. 7 At a meeting at the Masonic Hotel on 11 November twelve members agreed that, in order to ensure the transfer of the Government to some suitable locality in ‘Cook’s Strait’, they would ‘forego their own provincial prepossessions, and submit to the final arbitrament of an independent tribunal...’. To this end,

... proper steps should be taken to request the Governments of New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, to appoint a Commission consisting of three gentlemen,

unconnected with New Zealand, to take evidence and determine the site. One Commissioner to be appointed by each of the above named Governors. The full resolutions, as Carter explained, ‘never appeared in print’ but were embodied in a resolution put before the House by Domett on 20 November, except for the final provision which was withdrawn to ‘allow an address to the Governor to be subsequently introduced in its stead’. Carter gives an excellent summary of the debate, 8 amendments proposed and lost, personalities, the white anger of Stafford, who although a Nelson member was not a party to the agreement and known to be unwilling to rock the Auckland boat, the vital support of Fitzgerald, and final victory by 24 to 17 at two fifteen in the morning.

As Carter had said, the resolution, as carried in the Legislative Council nine days later, was to ‘leave the decision on a site for the seat of Government in some suitable locality on Cook’s Straits to the arbitrament of an impartial tribunal’. Dr David Monro, as Speaker, signed the copy of the resolution which was sent to Grey under the signature of Frederick Whitaker, Chief of the Executive and privately a strong Auckland supporter, with the suggestion that the Governors of three colonies would ‘readily lend their aid in the selection of such Commissioners’. The resolution had anticipated the steps necessary to implement the decision with the requisite financial authority to acquire a site and erect buildings for the offices of Government, meetings of the General Assembly and the Governor’s residence. 9 Grey was enjoined to exercise haste as ‘continued delay in the settlement of this question will only tend to keep alive those feelings of rivalry andjealousy between different parts of the Colony... which threaten at no distant period... [its] dismemberment.. .’.

The Auckland reaction was to be expected, but the protest from Otago at this juncture was a little surprising. The Otago vote in the House was divided, five in favour and four against. 10 Now, in a printed memorial, Otago asked the Governor to ‘Suspend Taking Action... for the Removal of the Seat of Government... until after the next election’. The province’s grievances would not be remedied simply by the proposed change. It was claimed, by some convolution of thought, that in ‘making the Government of Auckland more difficult, the Removal will in Reality leave the Ministry less time to attend to the affairs of Otago’. It was, Otago considered, ‘exceedingly undignified’ to invoke the assistance of Governors of neighbouring colonies ‘to adjust a purely domestic affair...’. 11

To Auckland it was not merely undignified but ‘unconstitutional’. Whitaker’s friends in the Provincial Council, on 28 December, in a special session between Christmas and New Year,

considered a lengthy report from its own Seat of Government Committee. The principal recommendation was that an immediate address be sent to the three Governors concerned ‘protesting in the strongest terms against any interference on their part with the administration of the internal affairs of this Colony... such interference being unconstitutional and uncalled for’. There was an overt threat —any decision ‘must prove unsatisfactory to the greater portion of the population... [and] will never be acquiesced in by them!’. 12

Grey sensibly and politely waved aside the appeal while formally transmitting it with the invitations to the respective Governors to nominate individual commissioners. 13 The first choice of Sir John Young (New South Wales), was the State’s distinguished servant, Sir Edward Deas Thomson, who declined on health grounds. The availability of Joseph Docker, ‘a distinguished member of the Legislative Council’, was formally advised on 14 April. From Melbourne Governor C.H. Darling notified the willingness of Sir Francis Murphy to act, and Sir Thomas Gore Browne from Hobarttown, for whatever reason, took a little longer to decide and Ronald Campbell Gunn left Tasmania with his letter of introduction dated 20 June. 14 They were an interesting trio; all immigrant settlers with pastoral experience, two with medical training, and the third of strong scientific interest and knowledge; all with political and administrative background, but there the similarities ended.

Sir Joseph Docker (1802-1884), surgeon, landowner, architect and designer of Thornthwaite, his homestead in the upper Hunter Valley, was also an artist and pioneer photographer—not to be confused with his Victorian cousin of the same names (1793-1865) of Bontharambo . Although it was his experience in various Cabinet posts which provided the grounds for his appointment, his interest to us now is as a recorder and tiro photographer. He had brought with him from Sydney the somewhat bulky camera and equipment for the collodion or wet plate process to record the tour. lr> In his own judgement the results were uneven and although some local scenes and portraits may still survive unidentified in New Zealand collections the main body of his plates appears to have been an Australian library casualty.

Sir Francis Murphy (1809-1891), like Docker, was at the outset of his career a surgeon and later a pastoralist. From a magistracy at Goulburn he moved to Port Phillip with his family in 1846 and took up another run. He was in the Victorian Legislative Council from 1851 to 1855 but after the establishment of representative government was elected to the House and was Speaker for fifteen years, his incumbency when appointed to the Commission. He was plain,

blunt, able, wealthy but without any of the interests of his colleagues. Ronald Campbell Gunn (1808-1881), prison superintendent, administrator, politician, estate manager, and above all botanist, perhaps met with more response from New Zealanders of similar background interests. The son of an army officer at Cape Town, he emigrated to Tasmania in 1830 at the suggestion of an elder brother then in the colony, where his abilities, range of interest, understanding of people, humour and engaging personality ensured his success. Like Colenso in New Zealand he was for decades a collector for the Hookers at Kew to whose insatiable expectations he once penned a bantering letter of defence worthy of an anthology. For some seven years he was the editor of the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science, Australia’s first scientific serial. 16

The Commission, of course, needed a secretary, the choice being Frederick J. Eaton (1839-1881), a former London War Office clerk who emigrated to New Zealand to take up farming. In view of the Waikato War he was happy to accept a temporary place in the Colonial Defence Office at ten shillings per day, two months before the Commission’s arrival. As the latest appointee he could be spared with least dislocation and was seconded accordingly. 17 The commissioners were each paid £5 55. per day, and Eaton £1 lx., both parties plus expenses.

In view of the communication delays of the period the act was brought together in remarkably short time. Despite local rumours of several ships from various ports by which members might be expected individually the party sensibly assembled in Sydney and crossed to Auckland in the Prince Alfred. The ten days between their arrival on 23 July and their departure for Wellington on 3 August were occupied in the formalities of their appointment and a visit to the Waikato. Press detail on their Auckland activities is understandably meagre. The province, after all, had asked them not to come. There certainly would have been a meeting with Grey who as Governor had signed and presumably handed over the formal commission of 29 July I<s authorising them to nominate a site in accordance with the quoted resolution.

The ever facetiously superior Daily Southern Cross honoured them with a leading article of two columns on how their task appeared from the capital:

These gentlemen of high character and position have been chosen by three Governors of equally high character and yet more lofty position... some of us may feel a shade of disappointment at the thought. Dear me, these men are, after all, very like our selves... heroes... [to] face the terrors of Cooks Straits in winter... of all places the least likely to become the seat of Government in New Zealand... 19

Although the campaign in the Waikato had virtually ended with the battle of Orakau four months earlier, many of the troops were still in camp and significant skirmishing was continuing on the southern and eastern limits of British power. The Herald’s Te Awamutu correspondent reported their arrival at the camp on 28 July with an A.D.C. to be greeted by General Carey. A garbled placename suggests that Kihikihi might have been their furthest night stop but the journalist gloating in revolting prose at the territorial spoils of the campaign could only say that ‘... they must have been impressed with the resources of this vast and inexhaustible tract of country’. 20 He would have been disappointed at Docker’s impressions in his first surviving letter:

What we have seen of the interior has uniformly consisted of bare undulating plains covered with fern instead of grass and without a tree or shrub for fifty miles at a stretch interspersed with swamps on which the flax grows... occasionally these swamps collect into small lakes which when they have a few trees near them are picturesque enough but then you cannot get near them as these margins are all swampy...

Docker’s description might have been a reflection of his pictorial disappointment for he had little opportunity to try out his new equipment which was heavy and bulky. Each shot apparently required an exposure of ten minutes: ... I took the camera with me to the front and saw several nice points of view... [but] we were always too early in the morning in starting or too late in arriving to do anything... The plates Mr Hitzer prepared were good for nothing; they came out all spots and streaky so that those I did get... were worthless.. , 2

The Lord Ashley on which they travelled to Wellington made an overnight stop at Napier permitting Gunn to visit Colenso in his eyrie by Milton Road, probably their first meeting which Colenso later mentioned to Hooker. The coastal voyage was in company with Dr I.E. Featherston, Provincial Superintendent of eleven years standing. On arrival in Wellington on 7 August Murphy and Docker accompanied Featherston to Government House ‘which had been prepared for their reception’. Gunn had to be rescued from Queen’s Hotel on the Quay—a slight hint that at this point of time he was, very briefly, the odd man out. 22 Although there was no suggestion that the journey south had been taken up with political discussion, Featherston would have been his most urbane and ingratiating self in discreetly dispelling much of the Auckland-induced anti-Wellington mythology. Gisborne has pointed out that his influence over men ‘was almost magnetic’. 23 As a strong provincialist his views on several matters would have been in tune with those of representatives of three separate states. Docker, writing cautiously to a son in distant

Australia, warned that ‘we cannot arrive as yet at any conclusion with regard to our ultimate decision; when we have seen the other places we shall be better able to judge...’. They were so feted and made much of that, although ‘doubtless very pleasant to be paid five guineas a day to eat and drink... the absolute deprivation of almost a single hour of privacy is underpaid at that amount’. But ‘if our decision should leak out in any way, I daresay we should meet with a different reception from the disappointed province...’.

On the day after their arrival in Wellington they held their first meeting at noon in Government House when Murphy was appointed Chairman. As Docker later commented, ‘Although I was named first in the commission I though it expedient to cede the chairmanship to Sir Francis as it was evident we should get on better...’. 24 It was a wise decision. Apart from his title, Murphy had broader experience and higher standing in the legislature of his state than did Docker in New South Wales. Docker, henceforth, was more free to observe and photograph.

Members agreed also on general principles by which the various localities were to be appraised, such as their relative central position and access by sea and land, ‘water capabilities’, harbour approaches, depth of water, anchorage, protection from the prevailing winds, tides etc. Of comparable importance was the potential of the town itself, the resources of the surrounding country, its capability for defence, and, finally, natural disadvantages and the extent to which these were ‘capable of removal or amelioration’.

The first Wellington witness was R.J. Duncan, manager of the New Zealand Steam Navigation Company, who had earlier agreed to make the company’s newest vessel, the Rangatira, available to the Commission throughout the survey. Some evidence presented, although not in itself of the highest importance, is now of intriguing value to the local historian—for example, the fact that at the period of post-Crimean war artillery development, a battery on Ward Island could prevent the entry of a hostile vessel —‘Wards Island would be the key of the Harbor’; but Major Coote’s additional proposal for guns not merely at the Pilot Station but on Barrett’s Reef might have daunted the most intrepid Royal Engineer of the period. 2

Not that any bland calm in Wellington’s weather gave grounds for such an assumption. To Docker’s disappointment it was most seasonal —‘so bad, blowing a gale with constant showers that I have only got three pictures as yet’. He had, notwithstanding, ‘a capital darkroom in a bathroom attached to my bedroom which enables me to prepare plates when I can get a moment of time. There is a very fine effect produced by snowy mountains in the background when the mist and cloud will allow you to see them.’

A change of scene was imminent. Coincidentally with the Commission’s visit Featherston was about to ride up to Manawatu to pay the Maori owners £12,000 in gold, due on the purchase of the upper Manawatu or Ahuataranga Block. It was desirable that Murphy and partners should see something of the province—and Wanganui —although, as Docker commented somewhat gloomily, the visit meant that they would be obliged also to travel into the hinterlands of Marlborough and Nelson.

Apart from Wellington, Wanganui was the only contender north of the strait, a burgeoning garrison town in the build-up for Cameron’s later ‘advance’ up the coast. The Chamber of Commerce, buoyant in the expectation of profit from supply and other benefits, was metaphorically reaching for the sky in the mood ofits jumbo-jet candidature a century later. The chance of being the capital, however remote, was worth some effort and a fillip to its curious struggle for independence from the Wellington Provincial Council. 26 This campaign, an annoyance, if not a worry to Featherston, would doubtless have prompted him to persuade Murphy to give the town the honour of an examination. For Docker and Gunn it was to be the highlight of the tour.

Accordingly, a week after their arrival, early one afternoon, they left for Otaki and places north ‘in a carriage with an American van to carry all our luggage’, Docker again regretting the constraints of travel and duty while his ‘apparatus’ rolled unused amongst the baggage. Five hours later, ‘after a most romantic drive... which made me disgusted that I had not time to stop... ’, the party arrived at ‘Horokiwi’ (Pauatahanui) where they dried out ‘and slept in a middling inn’. Next morning, after Docker had secured one picture, they set off‘up a very beautiful gorge’ to the extensive view from the Paekakariki summit, everything from Queen Charlotte Sound to Egmont, which, at Featherston’s request, Docker took in ‘three views... but they were not well suited [to] the camera being too extensive’. The zigzag descent ‘without the slightest protection on the outside where the hill went almost sheer down’, was not a time for photography. 27

After lunch at Waikanae, Docker and Gunn rode ahead with Featherston to take pictures at Otaki ‘with some Maoris to carry the camera to the pa of a famous chief called Wi Tako who had lately made his submission and who Dr F. was very anxious I should take’:

I told him I was afraid it was no use trying with a dry plate; however he [Wi Tako] stood very well and I think it would have been very fair only I found on developing it in the evening that I had put in the plate with its back foremost, so that it had got scratched & going through the glass was out of focus.

Featherston also ‘paraded’ before him other notable chiefs, including Tamihana Te Rauparaha and an unidentified sister of the great Te Rauparaha himself. ‘As I could work wet collodion here I got two groups of them on negatives.’ The party then visited the Maori church, called on Mrs Hadfield (the Archdeacon was away) and continued on to the ferry at the mouth of the Manawatu. Here, by arrangement, was the Resident Magistrate, Walter Buller, to escort them up-river in canoes, but heavy rain, an unpromising outlook —‘and Sir Francis... very complaining’ —prompted their withdrawal from the Gorge purchase ceremony to which Featherston and Buller with the golden bags continued separately.

The commissioners continued up the beach to Scott’s Ferry at the Rangitikei where they crossed ‘squatting down in a Maori canoe’. In the morning there were striking views of both Egmont and Ruapehu, i.e. ‘Tongariro the great mountain in the interior covered with snow... there seemed to be on its side an open crater for a cloud would constantly form and disappear upwards, shortly afterwards again forming.. .’. 2S Lunch was twelve miles on, inland at Te Arataumihi 29 ‘on the middle Rangitikei’, after which Docker, who had been on horseback for the two preceding days, took to the van; the carriage seems to have been left at Pauatahanui. A further fifteen miles saw them at Turakina for the night, from where, next day, they proceeded, partly by a ‘fine macadamised road’, to the Wanganui River and another ferry into town.

Here, as Docker noted with amusement, ‘the distinguished individuals’, in the words of the Chronicle, were received only by Colonel Logan, commander of the 700 men of the 57th Regiment stationed there, and the Police Magistrate, Major Durie. ‘We have to stay here a few days to investigate their claim to the seat of Government which I do not think will take long to dispose of but we must go through the form.’

Sir Francis, however, ‘being in a very restless humour & dissatisfied with our stay in Wanganui... said he would go up the river in the steamer’. 29 It will be recalled that the Rangatira was at their disposal and although a perusal of the passenger lists makes it clear that the ordinary traveller could take advantage of her presence in Wellington, Wanganui or Picton to hitch a crossing, the Chairman’s wishes would naturally have had priority.

On two counts this was the day of the young secretary from the Defence Office, Fred Eaton. Instructed by Sir Francis to discuss the practicability of the up-river excursion with Captain Mundle and find out ‘when the tide would suit’, Eaton sensibly thought it politic ‘to ask a few of the principal people to go with us...’. Flowever, without further consultation, Eaton ‘in our name’ invited over a hundred and ordered ‘a magnificent luncheon’. As most of the invi-

tations had been written by Colonel Logan and Sir Robert Douglas, 30 the band of the 57th came along too ‘so that we were not so compromised as we might have been’. Despite rain the trip up to Parikino (not named) and back went off very well. The Reverend Richard Taylor, one of the ‘principal people’ invited, was a little more critical having been told to be at the wharf at 8 a.m. and the eventual time of departure, perhaps because of tide, being over two hours later. It is clear, too, that Taylor’s knowledge of the river was of some value in Mundle’s handling of the vessel. The extemporised ball that evening, which neither Taylor nor Docker attended, had its moments. Coincidentally, a lady friend of Docker’s son was in Wanganui with her sister. As Docker described the incident:

Miss Reed introduced herself to me on board and then ended by asking me to be her partner in the first quadrille and would not hear of my declining. However although the ball was only next door I did not go down to the ballroom so a pair of white gloves were sent up to me which equally failed in moving me.

He missed the climax: Mr Eaton made a sad faux pas... He had taken too much champagne, as had some of the officers, and dancing with a young lady he fell and pulled her down either under or upon him and as, most unaccountably, she wore no drawers, there was a most fearful expose.

At this point, as an interlude, there was a little work. Sir Francis, in a later press interview, was at pains to point out that in Wanganui ‘Several deputations waited on the Commrs. prepared with information setting forth the claims of the district... and the river was inspected.’ 31 From Eaton’s minutes, evidence was heard on 22 August from ten persons including Major Durie and John White (the magistrates), the Reverend Richard Taylor and his son the Reverend Basil Taylor. The secretary duly recorded that the bar was ‘continually shifting’ but ‘might be removed at great cost’. Coal of ‘a fair quality’ had been found up river but timber ‘is at present obtained from Nelson and Picton at cheaper rates than the district timber could be supplied’. The claim that ‘Whanganui is the centre of all available land in the North Island’ ignored the implications of the Confiscation Act and was perhaps as tendentious as the belief that ‘Several fine specimens of g01d... [had been] taken from the bed of the river’. The efforts of the next 20 years were to collect but little more.

It is clear from Taylor’s evidence that Eaton did not count the Maori deputation who attended. Docker thought it ‘a good opportunity to photograph’ but the room was too dark. The Maoris

naturally ‘thought this rather an extraordinary way of receiving them’ and Taylor’s suggestion that it would be better to have a special photographic session in Maori costume at Putiki was arranged. They were all grouped near Taylor’s house, ‘when, 10, some slide had been left behind’, the interval till it had been collected being occupied by the chiefs ‘drawing an outline of New Zealand on the ground... pointing out the different provinces and showing how central was the position of Wanganui’. 32 Not unexpectedly all spent the day with Taylor who, as so often, had to feed the multitude.

Within a day or so, when Featherston arrived from his Manawatu function, the long anticipated up-river journey by canoe to Moutoa and Ranana went ahead. Sir Francis, meanwhile, had seen enough of Wanganui and took the Rangatira over to Picton to savour what Marlborough had to offer. There was clearly a tiff over this breakaway step, for months later, back in Australia, Murphy, in acknowledging some photographs which Docker had sent him ‘had the grace to apologise for the Wanganui business’. 33 It was left to the most willing photographer Docker and botanist Gunn to make the most of the excursion.

The journey was, of course, only three months after the battle of Moutoa Island, when a large Hauhau party under Matene Rangitauira had been narrowly defeated by Wanganui ‘friendlies’. Many of the contestants on both sides were closely related. Docker’s account of the expedition extended over two letters only one of which has survived but the main details appear to be in the one available. Photographically, it was his most successful excursion to date:

The scenery was most exquisite and I got about 18 plates wet and dry, some of them good and others bad, chiefly from the collodion which has a most extraordinary propensity to split and crack all over, even before developing. I had some provoking mishaps too, one especially; I had taken a capital plate of the War Dance & had got safely transferred to a large pan of water when being obliged to go to set the camera for another scene, although I had urged the interpreters to let no men into the dark room, on coming back I found a Maori emptying a pot of sweet potatoes into the pan right on the face of the negative which was of course completely spoiled.

He had got a good one of the presentation of the address of the General Assembly to the heroes of the battle of Moutoa ‘which is to go to the Illustrated London News. I have got myself in it.’ Regrettably a search has not found it in the paper. There were some interesting first-hand stories of the battle itself:

About 300 Maories accompanied us to the Island of Moutoa and there acted the battle with all the previous incantations of the fanatics knocking each other down

and striking with their spears and muskets and leaving the pretended dead lying about as they charged over the Island. It was a most extraordinary scene. I then went to the rebel part & got a view of the Island. In the Council house or runanga was a depression in which they had placed Capt Lloyds head out of the skull of which they all drank and which they pretended spoke to them. We had with us the policeman [probably Te Moro] who killed the false prophet Mateni [Matene Rangitauira] and we stood on the stone on which he was tomahawked. We had also with us the man whose leg was afterwards amputated [Tamehana Te Aewa], at every pa we came to, he was seated with his wife at his knee and all the women came and stood in a half circle before him making “tangi”, the most melancholy sound you can imagine and the tears streaming in torrents; the sound at a distance resembled an Aeolian harp. They then commenced rubbing noses or rather glueing them for they would keep them in contact for half an hour. I am sure no leg was ever so mourned over before... We have seen more pure Maori life and customs than we could possibly have done in any other manner and at the pah above Moutoa we saw the two large ovens which the fanatics had prepared to bake their adversaries who they fully expected to mesmerise by their incantations and in which they are themselves buried... A girl was standing on the verandah (of the house I used) during the battle when a chance ball came from the Island and struck her in the forehead killing her instantly

The press added a detail. At the Catholic Mission they were hospitably entertained by Father Lampila who provided home-made claret which they pronounced ‘to be of a very superior kind’. Lampila’s lay brother, Father Euloge, had been an accidental victim of the battle. 34 There was promise of another excursion to the interior, with magnificent scenery, ‘so the camera goes too’; however these plans fell through and the two men returned to Wellington by the Rangatira on 6 September. Sir Francis’s crossing to Picton had been marred by a south-easterly gale which had obliged the vessel to seek shelter in Pelorus Sound before making port.

In Wellington there was time only for one more excursion before crossing to the South Island. On Thursday 10 September the Commissioners ‘ascended the Rimutaka’ to snatch a glimpse of Wairarapa. Whether anyone told them of H.S. Wardell’s ironic plans for a new capital beside the lake is unknown. 35 Once over the strait, with word of a vessel leaving Nelson for Sydney on 3 October, Docker had time for only one last hasty note home with passing reference to yet ‘another escapade of our Secretary. .. In the event they signed their report on 3 October and sailed the same day. The Nelson Examiner, however, fully covered the operation and pending the discovery of further primary source material the party’s movements may be summarised. They reached Picton from Wellington on the 13th 36 and next day went ‘towards the Grove’ with the Superintendent, A.P. Seymour, and Messrs Baillie and Godfrey. Readers were reminded that many years ago the Valley of the Grove had been pointed out ‘by parties well qualified to judge, and by men holding high official positions,

as the best site in New Zealand for the seat of the General Government’. If this was the strongest statement worthy of report the case must have been weak indeed; nevertheless there were visits to Blenheim and the formal hearing of the usual submissions.

The Rangatira brought the party round to Nelson on the 22nd 37 where Dr David Monro, a prominent Nelson citizen, did his best, although a representative of Picton in the House of which he was Speaker. He missed a cruise round the bay on Saturday with the Superintendent, J.P. Robinson, and J.C. Richmond, briefly Provincial Secretary. The vessel went first to the Croisilles, before crossing over to Collingwood where she anchored for the night. Docker managed to take some photos when the party landed next morning, before a return to Nelson by Separation Point and Kaiteriteri. 3 * In slight variation of its formulae the press noted that the subjects on which the commissioners laid most stress were the present harbourage and the possibility of extending it, the quantity of land still available for settlement ‘... the present area of the city... drainage, sewerage, the visitations of earthquake... and the general capabilities of the place, including the manufacture of bricks’. 30 The Examiner, to emphasise the town’s relative stability, gave a most detailed history of Wellington’s convulsions, which, if somewhat overplayed, were perhaps the most comprehensive summary so far printed.

On Monday it was the turn of the Chamber of Commerce and the customary hospitality. Monro had problems arranging a return dinner —‘great difficulty in getting poultry and everything very awkward in consequence’. 40 The event preceding this occasion was an excursion towards the province’s mineral hope by the Dun Mountain railway. At the lower levels Docker got some shots but at the saddle mist rolled out and the weather ‘turned out badly’. Docker’s disappointment was probably mitigated by the gift of views taken by a local photographer, for Monro noted on 1 October that ‘Mr Docker has had all the photographs’.

Towards the end of the stay, J-C. Richmond and his wife Mary attended ‘a grand dinner and evening party for the Commissioners’—one can almost feel Docker’s groans. Mr Gunn, however, was ‘a very pleasant intelligent man’ whom Richmond, according to his wife, ‘likes the best. He is a scientific man,’ 41 an echo of Taylor’s opinion in Wanganui, namely that ‘Mr Gunn is a great botanist and a very intelligent man.’ 42 What, if anything, was said between Richmond and Gunn about William Colenso, the former’s parliamentary colleague and bete-noir but at least a scientific colleague and correspondent of Gunn’s, is not recorded. The three men professed themselves ‘delighted with the beauty and pleasantness of Nelson’ but gave no clue as to their decision;

nor, understandably, had they done so before leaving for Sydney two days later on the S.S. Otago. The report to Grey, dated 3 October, set out the principles of their enquiry, as already given, which they had followed ‘in the examination of every site submitted to their examination’. Then followed their itinerary and the judgement:

Having thus made themselves acquainted, as far as was practicable, with the character and capabilities of both shores of Cook’s Strait, the Commissioners have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that Wellington, in Port Nicholson, is the site upon the shores of Cook’s Straits which presents the greatest advantages for the administration of the Government of the Colony.

The Examiner, in noting the Commission’s departure and the sealed envelope as its only visible legacy, speculated that on arrival in Sydney members ‘may not consider themselves bound’ to secrecy. 43 The Wakapuaka-Sydney cable link was still twelve years in the future but a steamer could bring back such news from Sydney in less time than it would be received from Auckland. The expectation was in vain as the commissioners naturally respected the confidentiality of their decision.

So until the S.S. Wellington crossed the Manukau bar in the dawn of 14 October, eleven days later, speculation was rife. Many Nclsonians were taking optimistic bets on their chances but the Wellington correspondent of the Southern Cross had a contrary impression—‘lt was understood at Nelson that Wellington had been chosen.’ Confirmation the following day was taken on the chin, the New Zealand Herald being quite philosophical: ‘Few people will be surprised nor can we recognise in it any serious injury to the real capital of the Colony. ’ It was impossible, in any case, that it be moved ‘so long as the native rebellion remains unsuppressed’. 44

In the short term, at least, both decision and commitment were irreversible. The move was very much part of the policy of the man about to be Premier who gave cogent reasons for proceeding. 45 Not unexpectedly a petition signed early in 1865 by 7,920 devout Aucklanders ‘earnestly praying that the Northern Portion of these Islands may be temporarily erected into a separate Colony’ was submitted for transmission to the Secretary of State. But first ministers, and then a reluctant Grey, were in Wellington soon after. 46 The last milestone, the great ‘Separation’ debate in September, concluded with a victory for unity by 31 votes to 17.

REFERENCES 1 I am greatly indebted to Mrs Constance Leask of Murwillumbah, N. S. W., for arousing my interest in the letters of her great-grandfather, and to her son Mr A.G. Leask, with Mr & Mrs Peter Docker of Sydney, for most generously making copies available to me. Copies are also held in the McLeay Museum, Sydney, with plates of Australian scenes. More recently Mr Docker has kindly given me a copy of Margaret Piddington’s Joseph Docker, a booklet privately printed for the family’s sesquicentennial reunion in Sydney in 1984. 2 Alexander Turnbull Library (qMS 1864, N.Z. Seat of Government Commission), accessioned in 1933 and comprising some eleven documents, the first four of which supplement the official record in National Archives (I. A. 64/ 2174). The following five are minutes of meetings with copies of some of the evidence submitted. An amended draft report and Docker’s expenses-claim voucher complete the file. Alexander Turnbull acquired the papers in 1907 from the family of R.C. Gunn, the Commissioner from Launceston. A lengthy article on the papers in the New Zealand Times (4 September 1907, p. 5) referred discreetly to their acquisition by ‘a well-known private collector of New Zealand literature’.

3 The Journal of Henry Sewell, 1853-7, edited by W. David Mclntyre, 2 vols (Christchurch, 1980), I, 104; 11, 245. 4 Alfred Saunders, History of New Zealand, 2 vols (Christchurch, 1896-99), 11, 23. 5 AJHR (N.Z. Parliament. Appendix to the Journal of the House of Representatives) 1862, D. —11, ‘Return of the Public Records, &c., lost in the Wreck of the Steamer “White Swan”’. 6 Saunders, I, 325. 7 Charles Rooking Carter, Life and Recollections of a New Zealand Colonist, 3 vols (London, 1866-75), 11, 202. Carter’s book, although printed in 1866 and 1875, was not released until 1909. See New Zealand National Bibliography to the Year 1960, I, 179 (Bagnall 1002). Carter’s report of the debate and analysis was, however, published in the Wellington Independent, in part, 24 November etc. 8 Carter, 11, pp. 203-207. 9 Extract from Journals, House of Representatives, on I. A. 63/3337 (National Archives). 10 Carter, 11, 207. 11 On I. A. 63/3337. 12 Auckland Provincial Council, Votes & Proceedings, 1863/64,67-70. 13 AJHR, 1864, D.—2, ‘Papers Relative to the Removal of the Seat of Government to Cook’s Straits’. 14 Ibid, p. 9. The delay by Gore Browne advising the nomination may have been due to his own doubts about the propriety of the state’s involvement. The curious story allegedly told by a Commissioner to an Auckland journalist about an unidentified Governor being ‘most unwilling to interfere’ could have emanated from Gunn. (New Zealand Herald, 15 October 1864).

The Australian Dictionary of Biography entry (V.2) for Sir Edward Thomson states that in TB66’ he was asked by Young to act as a Commissioner for the New Zealand Government ‘in reorganising its civil service’ but declined. This is probably a confusion with the 1864 invitation. Thomson, in a letter to Gunn (11 June 1864), states that he declined the mission as his health would not permit such a commitment during the winter (Mitchell Library, Gunn Papers MS A 247). 15 The difficulties of using the wet plate process with the bulky equipment necessary are explained in Hardwicke Knight, Photography in New Zealand (Dunedin, 1971), p. 21 and elsewhere. Docker, who also used dry plate, does

not seem to have met any other collodion photographer in either Wellington or Wanganui although W.J. Harding was supposedly in business in Wanganui by this time. It is possible that some prints attributed to Harding may have been from Docker’s plates. 16 General detail on the commissioners from the Australian Dictionary oj Biography. Gunn to Hooker, 12 March 1847, on Australian Joint Copying Project microfilm of Kew Archive (ATL Micro MS Coll. 10, reel 20). To date, no letter from Gunn describing the visit has been found, and efforts to locate a diary have failed.

17 C.D. 64/2178 (National Archives). 18 AJHR, 1864, D.—2, Enclosure no. 24; ATL qMS 1864. 19 Daily Southern Cross, 29 July 1864. 20 New Zealand Herald, 4 August 1864. 21 Joseph Docker to Ernest Docker, 12 August 1864. 22 New Zealand Spectator, 10 August 1864. 23 William Gisborne, New Zealand Rulers and Statesmen (London, 1886), p. 85. 24 Docker to Docker, 12 August. 25 Evidence, 10 August 1864, witness no. 5 (ATL qMS 1864). 26 Two examples of the pamphlet campaign have been seen: the first a 23-page publication, The Separation Movement... by One of themselves... (Wellington, 1864) (Bagnall 4354), and a broadside, Wanganui Separation, reprinted from the Daily Southern Cross, 26 August 1864. 27 Docker to Docker, 21 August. 28 Ibid. The author of this paper discusses this significant sighting in Tongariro and the Ways to it (in ms). 29 Te Arataumihi, probably inland from Santoft, has not been pinpointed. 30 Sir Robert Douglas, 3rd Baronet, was then an officer in the 57th Regt. He later settled in Northland and was for one term the member for Marsden (1876-9). 31 New Zealand Advertiser, 30 August 1864. 32 Richard Taylor , Journal 1833-73, 22 August 1864 (Typescript, ATL qMS). 33 Gunn to Docker, 6 February 1865 (Mitchell Library, Gunn MS A 251). I am much indebted to Ms Jane Wild and Mr P.M. Clarke for checking Gunn material in the Mitchell Library.

34 New Zealand Advertiser, 30 August 1864. 35 A.G. Bagnall, Wairarapa (Masterton, 1976), p. 518. 36 Nelson Examiner, 20 September 1864, from Marlborough Express, 16 September. Docker to Docker, 13 September. Curiosity, only partially satisfied, impels us to follow Mr Eaton a little further. He was probably the unsung courier of the final document for he reported back in Auckland the day the despatch arrived with, despite Docker’s reservations, a satisfactory letter of commendation. (National Archives, I. A. 64/3309). Some years later he went to Australia, entered the Church, fell ill and died at the age of 42. A coincidental but pleasing result of research on the letters was to satisfy an Australian descendant of the Reverend J.F. Eaton about hitherto unknown aspects of his great-grandfather’s career in New Zealand. 37 Nelson Examiner, 24 September 1864. 38 Ibid, 27 September. 39 Ibid. 40 David Monro, Diary, 28 September 1864. By courtesy of the Nelson Provincial Museum. 41 Letter to Jane Maria Atkinson, 30 September 1864; Richmond/Atkinson Papers (ATL MS Coll.) and The Richmond-Atkinson Papers, edited by G.H. Scholefield, 2 vols (Wellington, 1961), 11, 123. 42 Taylor, Journal, 22 August.

43 Nelson Examiner, 4 October 1864. 44 New Zealand Herald, 15 October 1864. 45 AJHR, 1865, A. —1, ‘Memoranda Relative to the Seat of Government, Native Affairs, See. Jeanine Graham, Frederick Weld (Auckland, 1983), pp. 89-90. 46 AJHR, 1865, A. — ‘Despatches from the Governor of New Zealand...’ schedule item no. 16. AJHR, 1865, B. —9, ‘Return showing the Cost of Removal. . . ’ shows that the total cost of removing the seat of government from Auckland to Wellington was £54,665 55 9 d of which £4,085 55 Id was the cost of the Commission. Compensation totalling £9,497 85 8 d was paid to 72 officers who were obliged to move south, headed by Sir George Grey, who received £1,125.