Gilbert Mair (trader)
Encyclopedia
Gilbert Mair was a sailor and a merchant trader who visited New Zealand for the first time when he was twenty, and lived there from 1824 till his death. He married Elizabeth Gilbert Puckey. They had twelve children. Among them were "famous New Zealanders" like Captain Gilbert Mair and Major William Gilbert Mair. Gilbert Mair senior was "present at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi
in 1840, and he and his family were acquainted with many of the noted men who visited the Bay of Islands
".
and Waikato, the two rangatira
of Nga Puhi (check) that were the first Māori to come to England (check).
In 1823 he made his second trip to New Zealand. This time he bought two preserved heads. In 1824 he made his third visit. He would never sail back to England again.
in the Bay of Islands
. Missionary Henry Williams
laid the keel for the vessel in 1824. He needed a ship to provision the mission stations and to visit the more remote areas of New Zealand to bring the Gospel. When Gilbert Mair visited New Zealand for the third time, Williams asked him to assist in building the ship.
When the Herald was finished in 1826, Mair became the sailing master.
He made a lot of trips. He went to Australia three times. He visited the Bay of Plenty
4 times, and sailed up and down the east coast of the North Island
from the East Cape
to the North Cape
, and on the west coast south to Kawhia.
In 1828 the Herald foundered, while trying to enter Hokianga Harbour. After the Herald was wrecked, Gilbert Mair purchased land from the natives, built his home at Wahapu and carried on the business of merchant and trader.
(1805–1878) and daughter Elizabeth Gilbert (1809–1870). When he had first met Elizabeth she was only 11 or 12, but when he returned in 1824 "she had grown into a 15-year-old woman".
They married on 12 September 1827 in Sydney
, during one of trips of the Herald there.
They would raise twelve children:
, the wars between Māori iwi in the years between 1818 and 1830. He saw for instance the results of a clash at Ohiwa Harbour in 1828, with fifty dead bodies on the shore. And in that same year, he saw the remains of a fight at Te Papa pa at Tauranga Harbour, with "hundreds of bodies of men, women and children, dead animals and human bones, the remnants of a cannibal feast".
He later told his son Gilbert of a visit he had made to the Te Totara Pa site in 1826. Five years before, in 1821, a Nga Puhi taua
(war party), led by Hongi Hika
, had slaughtered the Ngati Maru
, living there. But when Gilbert Mair senior walked there in 1826, he had still found it "... strewn with human bones – a veritable Golgotha".
Shortly after Elizabeth and Gilbert married, in 1828, the famous Ngā Puhi rangatira
Hongi Hika
died. He had provided protection to the missionary community, and the time following his death was of considerable anxiety for the settlers.
). This was the first of a long chain of trading ventures. He purchased the land with goods, including six muskets, many casks of gun powder and hundreds of musket balls and flints. Here he built up a flourishing trading station. He built his home on an elevated site above the trading station.
He was "one of the first to exploit the kauri gum industry, he exported gum to the United States and timber and flax to Sydney.
In that same year of settling at Te Wahapu, the so-called Girls War broke out in Kororareka. Henry Williams
tried to bring peace to the region, but an intervention by Samuel Marsden
was necessary to bring peace for a short time. Seven years later the enmities re-erupted in the area. In 1840 the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi
finally brought a period of peace to the country.
In 1842 Mair sold his business and property at Wahapu. In the beginning of the 1840s he had purchased 728 hectares (7.3 km²) at Whangarei
. The family moved there in 1842, and lived in a house, he called "Deveron". From this base, Mair continued "active trading in a number of fields – kauri timber, kauri gum, whaling, as well as general trading and his own farming venture". In 1845 the situation again became so difficult, that Gilbert Mair asked the governor to send a vessel to take all settlers to Auckland. Mair "only had three peaceful years in his new home in Whangarei, when he and his family were driven out by hostile natives, going to Auckland for some months, then back to the Bay in 1846, finally returning to Whangarei in 1847".
.
Mair was "involved in representations to the British government to have New Zealand declared a British colony, and in the formation of the Kororareka Association, a controversial attempt at settler self-rule".
Gilbert Mair "met and entertained many notable people who visited the Bay. Among them was Bishop Broughton
of Sydney, who consecrated the Church at Russell in 1842; Bishop Selwyn; Charles Darwin
, the celebrated naturalist; Allan Cunningham
, a well-know botanist; Admiral Sir James McClintoch (…) and many others".
Samuel Marsden
introduced the first horses to New Zealand, from Sydney; Gilbert Mair "bought the next lot from a shipment to Kororareka from Valparaíso. He sold one horse which was sent to the East Coast, and the others he took to Whangarei".
Treaty of Waitangi
The Treaty of Waitangi is a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and various Māori chiefs from the North Island of New Zealand....
in 1840, and he and his family were acquainted with many of the noted men who visited the Bay of Islands
Bay of Islands
The Bay of Islands is an area in the Northland Region of the North Island of New Zealand. Located 60 km north-west of Whangarei, it is close to the northern tip of the country....
".
Biography
Gilbert Mair had sailed on the whaling vessel "New Zealander" in 1820. At this occasion he visited New Zealand for the first time. When it returned to England on 2 March 1820, the missionary Thomas Kendell was among the passengers, together with Hongi HikaHongi Hika
Hongi Hika was a New Zealand Māori rangatira and war leader of the Ngāpuhi iwi . Hongi Hika used European weapons to overrun much of northern New Zealand in the first of the Musket Wars...
and Waikato, the two rangatira
Rangatira
Rangatira are the hereditary Māori leaders of hapū, and were described by ethnologists such as Elsdon Best as chieftains . Ideally, rangatira were people of great practical wisdom who held authority on behalf of the tribe and maintained boundaries between a tribe's land and that of other tribes...
of Nga Puhi (check) that were the first Māori to come to England (check).
In 1823 he made his second trip to New Zealand. This time he bought two preserved heads. In 1824 he made his third visit. He would never sail back to England again.
Sailing master of the Herald
The Herald was a 55 ton mission schooner, built at the beach of PaihiaPaihia
Paihia is the main tourist town in the Bay of Islands in the far north of the North Island of New Zealand. It is located close to the historic towns of Russell, and Kerikeri, 60 kilometres north of Whangarei. The origin of the name Paihia is obscure. One, possibily apocryphal, attribution is to...
in the Bay of Islands
Bay of Islands
The Bay of Islands is an area in the Northland Region of the North Island of New Zealand. Located 60 km north-west of Whangarei, it is close to the northern tip of the country....
. Missionary Henry Williams
Henry Williams (missionary)
Henry Williams was one of the first missionaries who went to New Zealand in the first half of the 19th century....
laid the keel for the vessel in 1824. He needed a ship to provision the mission stations and to visit the more remote areas of New Zealand to bring the Gospel. When Gilbert Mair visited New Zealand for the third time, Williams asked him to assist in building the ship.
When the Herald was finished in 1826, Mair became the sailing master.
He made a lot of trips. He went to Australia three times. He visited the Bay of Plenty
Bay of Plenty
The Bay of Plenty , often abbreviated to BOP, is a region in the North Island of New Zealand situated around the body of water of the same name...
4 times, and sailed up and down the east coast of the North Island
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
from the East Cape
East Cape
East Cape is the easternmost point of the main islands of New Zealand. It is located to the north of Gisborne in the northeast of the North Island....
to the North Cape
North Cape, New Zealand
North Cape is located at the northern end of the North Auckland Peninsula in the North Island of New Zealand . It is the northeastern tip of the Aupouri Peninsula and lies 30 km east of Cape Reinga. The name is sometimes used to refer just to the cape which is known in Māori as Otou and which...
, and on the west coast south to Kawhia.
In 1828 the Herald foundered, while trying to enter Hokianga Harbour. After the Herald was wrecked, Gilbert Mair purchased land from the natives, built his home at Wahapu and carried on the business of merchant and trader.
Marriage
On his first visit to New Zealand, Gilbert Mair had been in contact with the Puckey family: William Puckey and his wife Margery, their son William Gilbert PuckeyWilliam Gilbert Puckey
William Gilbert Puckey , born in Penryn, England, was a prominent missionary in New Zealand. He accompanied his parents to New Zealand at the age of 14 and quickly learned the Māori language, speaking it fluently by age 16, and becoming widely regarded as one of the best interpreters of Māori in...
(1805–1878) and daughter Elizabeth Gilbert (1809–1870). When he had first met Elizabeth she was only 11 or 12, but when he returned in 1824 "she had grown into a 15-year-old woman".
They married on 12 September 1827 in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, during one of trips of the Herald there.
They would raise twelve children:
- Caroline Elizabeth, the first born in 1828; she died in 1917
- Robert (1830–1920). His name "is held in high regard at WhangareiWhangareiWhangarei, pronounced , is the northernmost city in New Zealand and the regional capital of Northland Region. Although commonly classified as a city, it is officially part of the Whangarei District, administered by the Whangarei District Council a local body created in 1989 to administer both the...
, his life-long home town, to whose people he gave a beautiful park" - William Gilbert (1832–1912), who would later become a major in the army
- Marianne (1834–1893)
- Henry Abbott (1836–1881)
- Charlotte (1838–1891)
- Jessie Eliza (1840–1899)
- Gilbert (1843–1923): Gilbert Mair junior, or "Te KootiTe KootiTe Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki was a Māori leader, the founder of the Ringatu religion and guerrilla.While fighting alongside government forces against the Hauhau in 1865, he was accused of spying. Exiled to the Chatham Islands without trial along with captured Hauhau, he experienced visions and...
's Nemesis" - Matilda Helen (1845–1927)
- Emily Francis (1848–1902)
- Sophia Marella (1850–1884)
- Lavinia Laura, the last born in 1852; she died in 1936
Death
Gilbert Mair died at "Deveron", Whangarei, on 16 July 1857 (…). He was buried on his own property (…). Many years later his sons removed his remains to the graveyard round the Church, where now only members of the Mair family are laid to rest".Witness of the Musket Wars
During his trips around NZ Gilbert Mair witnessed "the savagery" of the Musket WarsMusket Wars
The Musket Wars were a series of five hundred or more battles mainly fought between various hapū , sometimes alliances of pan-hapū groups and less often larger iwi of Māori between 1807 and 1842, in New Zealand.Northern tribes such as the rivals Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Whātua were the first to obtain...
, the wars between Māori iwi in the years between 1818 and 1830. He saw for instance the results of a clash at Ohiwa Harbour in 1828, with fifty dead bodies on the shore. And in that same year, he saw the remains of a fight at Te Papa pa at Tauranga Harbour, with "hundreds of bodies of men, women and children, dead animals and human bones, the remnants of a cannibal feast".
He later told his son Gilbert of a visit he had made to the Te Totara Pa site in 1826. Five years before, in 1821, a Nga Puhi taua
Taua
A taua is a war party in the tradition of the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. Contemporary knowledge of taua is gleaned from missionary observations and writings during the Musket Wars of the early 19th century and the later New Zealand wars....
(war party), led by Hongi Hika
Hongi Hika
Hongi Hika was a New Zealand Māori rangatira and war leader of the Ngāpuhi iwi . Hongi Hika used European weapons to overrun much of northern New Zealand in the first of the Musket Wars...
, had slaughtered the Ngati Maru
Ngati Maru
Ngāti Maru is a Māori iwi of New Zealand. There are two iwi known as Ngati Maru, one based in Taranaki, the other based in Thames . These two iwi have a common ancestor in Hotunui who had three sons Marukopiri, Maruwharanui and Marutūāhu...
, living there. But when Gilbert Mair senior walked there in 1826, he had still found it "... strewn with human bones – a veritable Golgotha".
Shortly after Elizabeth and Gilbert married, in 1828, the famous Ngā Puhi rangatira
Rangatira
Rangatira are the hereditary Māori leaders of hapū, and were described by ethnologists such as Elsdon Best as chieftains . Ideally, rangatira were people of great practical wisdom who held authority on behalf of the tribe and maintained boundaries between a tribe's land and that of other tribes...
Hongi Hika
Hongi Hika
Hongi Hika was a New Zealand Māori rangatira and war leader of the Ngāpuhi iwi . Hongi Hika used European weapons to overrun much of northern New Zealand in the first of the Musket Wars...
died. He had provided protection to the missionary community, and the time following his death was of considerable anxiety for the settlers.
Trader
In February 1830 Gilbert Mair purchased 159 hectares (1.6 km²) of land at Te Wahapu Point, some four km south of Kororareka (nowadays RussellRussell, New Zealand
Russell, formerly known as Kororareka, was the first permanent European settlement and sea port in New Zealand. It is situated in the Bay of Islands, in the far north of the North Island. As at the 2006 census it had a resident population of 816, an increase of 12 from 2001...
). This was the first of a long chain of trading ventures. He purchased the land with goods, including six muskets, many casks of gun powder and hundreds of musket balls and flints. Here he built up a flourishing trading station. He built his home on an elevated site above the trading station.
He was "one of the first to exploit the kauri gum industry, he exported gum to the United States and timber and flax to Sydney.
In that same year of settling at Te Wahapu, the so-called Girls War broke out in Kororareka. Henry Williams
Henry Williams (missionary)
Henry Williams was one of the first missionaries who went to New Zealand in the first half of the 19th century....
tried to bring peace to the region, but an intervention by Samuel Marsden
Samuel Marsden
Samuel Marsden was an English born Anglican cleric and a prominent member of the Church Missionary Society, believed to have introduced Christianity to New Zealand...
was necessary to bring peace for a short time. Seven years later the enmities re-erupted in the area. In 1840 the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi
Treaty of Waitangi
The Treaty of Waitangi is a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and various Māori chiefs from the North Island of New Zealand....
finally brought a period of peace to the country.
In 1842 Mair sold his business and property at Wahapu. In the beginning of the 1840s he had purchased 728 hectares (7.3 km²) at Whangarei
Whangarei
Whangarei, pronounced , is the northernmost city in New Zealand and the regional capital of Northland Region. Although commonly classified as a city, it is officially part of the Whangarei District, administered by the Whangarei District Council a local body created in 1989 to administer both the...
. The family moved there in 1842, and lived in a house, he called "Deveron". From this base, Mair continued "active trading in a number of fields – kauri timber, kauri gum, whaling, as well as general trading and his own farming venture". In 1845 the situation again became so difficult, that Gilbert Mair asked the governor to send a vessel to take all settlers to Auckland. Mair "only had three peaceful years in his new home in Whangarei, when he and his family were driven out by hostile natives, going to Auckland for some months, then back to the Bay in 1846, finally returning to Whangarei in 1847".
Other occupations
Gilbert Mair was appointed Justice of Peace by Governor William HobsonWilliam Hobson
Captain William Hobson RN was the first Governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi.-Early life:...
.
Mair was "involved in representations to the British government to have New Zealand declared a British colony, and in the formation of the Kororareka Association, a controversial attempt at settler self-rule".
Gilbert Mair "met and entertained many notable people who visited the Bay. Among them was Bishop Broughton
William Grant Broughton
William Grant Broughton was the first Bishop of Australia of the Church of England....
of Sydney, who consecrated the Church at Russell in 1842; Bishop Selwyn; Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, the celebrated naturalist; Allan Cunningham
Allan Cunningham (botanist)
Allan Cunningham was an English botanist and explorer, primarily known for his travels in New South Wales to collect plants.- Early life :...
, a well-know botanist; Admiral Sir James McClintoch (…) and many others".
Samuel Marsden
Samuel Marsden
Samuel Marsden was an English born Anglican cleric and a prominent member of the Church Missionary Society, believed to have introduced Christianity to New Zealand...
introduced the first horses to New Zealand, from Sydney; Gilbert Mair "bought the next lot from a shipment to Kororareka from Valparaíso. He sold one horse which was sent to the East Coast, and the others he took to Whangarei".
Literature
- Cowan, James (1933) – 'The Mair Brothers, soldiers and pioneers'; in: New Zealand Railways Magazine, Vol. 8, Issue 8 (1 December 1933) – online available at New Zealand Electronic Text CentreNew Zealand Electronic Text CentreThe New Zealand Electronic Text Centre is a unit of the library at the Victoria University of Wellington which provides a free online archive of New Zealand and Pacific Islands texts and heritage materials. The NZETC has an ongoing programme of digitisation and feature additions to the current...
(NZETC) - Crosby, Ron (2004) – Gilbert Mair, Te Kooti's Nemesis. Reed Publ. Auckland. ISBN 0790009692
- Jackson, Lavinia Laura (Mair) (1935) – Annals of a New Zealand Family; The Household of Gilbert Mair, Early Pioneer. Publ. A.H. & A.W. Reed, Dunedin / Wellington
- Smith, S. Percy (1910) – Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century. Christchurch. online available at NZETCNew Zealand Electronic Text CentreThe New Zealand Electronic Text Centre is a unit of the library at the Victoria University of Wellington which provides a free online archive of New Zealand and Pacific Islands texts and heritage materials. The NZETC has an ongoing programme of digitisation and feature additions to the current...