William Tucker (settler)
Encyclopedia
William Tucker was a British
convict
, a sealer
, a trader in human heads, an Otago
settler, and New Zealand
’s first art dealer.
Tucker is remembered in New Zealand as the man who stole a preserved Māori head
and started the retail trade in them. The recent discovery of an old document has now revealed his place in New Zealand history.
He was baptised on 16 May 1784 at Portsea
, Portsmouth
, England
, the son of Timothy and Elizabeth Tucker, people of humble rank. In 1798 Tucker and Thomas Butler shoplifted goods worth more than five shilling
s from a ‘Taylor’ William Wilday or Wildey, and were convicted and sentenced to death. They were then reprieved and sentenced to seven years’ transportation to New South Wales
. They left Portsmouth on the Hillsborough on 20 December 1798.
The voyage was one of the worst in the history of transportation. ‘Jail Fever’ (typhus
) raged through the ship, which lost 95 convicts before arriving at Sydney on 26 July 1799. It is not known where Tucker was assigned.
In January 1803, he and Anthony Rawson stowed away on the Atlas, visiting China before reaching Deal
in England on 13 December 1803. The stowaways were sent under escort to Portsmouth to return to New South Wales on the Experiment. They were fortunate, as many other returnees were hanged. They arrived back in Sydney on 24 June 1804.
In March 1805, shortly after his term expired, Tucker was advertised as shipping out on the Governor King for the coast of New Zealand. She was one of the ships of Lord, Kable and Underwood, a group formed by Simeon Lord
, Henry Kable
and James Underwood to exploit the sealing grounds at the Antipodes Islands to the south and east of New Zealand’s South Island
. She probably landed men at Dusky Sound
on the South Island’s south west coast. Tucker was probably later at the Antipodes Islands
.
In New Zealand, there were virtually no Europeans living ashore and Māori still lived much as they had for centuries. Maori society was tribal and based on the maintenance of honour, war being recurrent and often fought to get revenge, or 'utu
', for an insult. The Māori had developed tattoo
ing and moko
to a greater extent than any other society and high born males wore full facial adornment unique to the individual. Some Māori preserved the heads of enemies and loved ones. These relics had interested the first European visitors, as had their carved jade ornaments.
Tucker may have left Sydney for England in 1807 in the Sydney Cove whose command was taken over by Daniel Cooper en route. If so, he would have returned to New South Wales either in her, or the Unity, Cooper’s next command.
In April 1809, he was advertised to leave Sydney in the Pegasus. Instead, he left on the Brothers, a ship chartered by Robert Campbell
and probably intended for the Solander Islands
in Foveaux Strait
, between New Zealand’s South Island and Stewart Island. In early November, he was one of eleven men landed at the ‘Isle of Wight’ and ‘Ragged Rock’ on what is now the Dunedin coast on the South Island’s southeast coast. When Captain Mason returned to Port Daniel, now called Otago Harbour
, on 3 May 1810, he found only Tucker and Daniel Wilson.
Tucker was sent to look for the missing men first on the Isle of Wight and then to ‘Ragged Point’, apparently the headland on Stewart Island at the western entrance to Foveaux Strait. It was probably then he stole a preserved Māori head, whose owners, discovering the loss, pursued the departing sealers. When they failed to find the missing men, Tucker rejoined the Brothers at Otago Harbour and returned with her to Sydney on 14 July 1810.
Later that year, at Otago Harbour, a Māori chief’s theft of a red shirt and knife from a man from the Sydney Cove started a rolling feud which soon took the lives of some of the Brothers’ missing men and soured Māori/Pākehā
relations in the south. It was called The Sealers' War
, also 'The War of the Shirt’, and continued until 1823.
Tucker left Sydney again on the Aurora, on 19 September 1810 for the newly discovered Macquarie Island
far to the south of New Zealand. At Campbell Island
in early November, the location of Macquarie was obtained by bribing one of Campbell and Co’s men. The Aurora landed a gang at Macquarie which would have included Tucker. She left, returned and brought her gang back to Sydney on 19 May 1811. It was presumably shortly after this that Tucker offered the Māori head for sale, inaugurating their retail trade and earning him the condemnation of ‘Candor’ in the Sydney Gazette
, which called him ‘a wild fellow’ and a 'villain'.
He then spent time ashore, where, by August 1812, he was a labourer living with old shipmates in poor lodgings in Phillips Street. On 21 August he and Edward Williams stole a woman’s fancy silk cloak for which they were convicted in November, sentenced to a year’s hard labour and sent to Newcastle
along the coast. By October–November 1814, he had left New South Wales, perhaps for Tasmania
.
In 1815, he returned to Otago, perhaps in the Governor Bligh and took up residence at Whareakeake, later called Murdering Beach, a little to the north of Otago Heads. There he built a house and lived for a time with a Māori woman, keeping goats and sheep. There were no children. The site has long been known for its large quantities of worked greenstone, called pounamu in Māori, a variety of Nephrite jade. This took the form of adzes made over with iron tools into pendants, or hei-tiki
. Archaeologists have identified these as being produced for a European export trade. An 1819 editorial in the Sydney Gazette described it, saying it was carried on by ‘groupes of sealers’. It seems clear this was part of Tucker’s enterprise. Māori called him ‘Taka’ adapting his surname, also ‘Wioree’, perhaps from the diminutive of his first name ‘Willy’. More formally and inaccurately, he was also styled ‘Captain Tucker’.
He left, went to Hobart
and returned on the Sophia with Captain James Kelly
, bringing other European settlers, according to Māori sources. The Sophia anchored in Otago Harbour on 11 December 1817.
‘Taka’ was welcomed by Māori of the harbourside settlement, but unknown to the visitors, the chief Korako, father of Te Matenga Taiaroa, refused to ferry across Māori from the north, Whareakeake, who had come to see Tucker and receive presents.
When Kelly, Tucker and five others took a longboat to Whareakeake a few days later, they were at first welcomed. But while Tucker was absent in his house, the others were set upon by Māori. Veto Viole and John Griffiths were killed, but Kelly escaped back to the longboat as did Tucker. He lingered in the surf, calling on Māori not to hurt Wioree, but was speared and knocked down. He called ‘Captain Kelly for God’s sake don’t leave me,’ before being killed. Kelly saw him ‘cut limb from limb and carried away by the savages!’ Tucker’s killer was Riri, acting on chief Te Matahaere’s orders. Taiaroa allegedly killed the others. All the dead were eaten. A Māori source gave the immediate cause as dissatisfaction at not having the first opportunity to receive Tucker’s gifts, but it was also said it was an unhappy consequence of the theft of the shirt in 1810 and its owner’s savage reaction.
Returning to his ship in the harbour, Kelly took revenge, by his account killing some Māori, destroying canoes and firing ‘the beautiful City of Otago’, a harbourside settlement, probably on Te Rauone beach near modern Otakou
.
Tucker has been remembered for stealing the head and inaugurating their divisive trade. It was banned in New South Wales in 1831, but continued anyway. Ten were sold by a single Māori vendor later in the 1830s, apparently at Otago
. Tucker has also been remembered for his dramatic death, which was reported in the Australian newspapers. The theft inspired Shena Mackay’s 1993 novel Dunedin reflecting his role as a minor legend.
However, the Creed manuscript, written by the Reverend Charles Creed in the 1840s recording the information of two Maori informants and discovered in 2003, shows Tucker in a new light. His theft was not responsible for the war in the south; he was generally liked by Māori and welcomed as a settler. In fact, he was the first European to settle in what is now the city of Dunedin
, as distinct from sojourning, jumping ship or being held as a captive. While his inauguration of the trade in heads has been condemned even by his own countrymen, since that time his fostering of the trade in tiki has revealed him as an enterprising art dealer, in fact New Zealand’s first.
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
convict
Convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...
, a sealer
Seal hunting
Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. The hunt is currently practiced in five countries: Canada, where most of the world's seal hunting takes place, Namibia, the Danish region of Greenland, Norway and Russia...
, a trader in human heads, an Otago
Otago
Otago is a region of New Zealand in the south of the South Island. The region covers an area of approximately making it the country's second largest region. The population of Otago is...
settler, and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
’s first art dealer.
Tucker is remembered in New Zealand as the man who stole a preserved Māori head
Mokomokai
Mokomokai are the preserved heads of Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, where the faces have been decorated by tā moko tattooing. They became valuable trade items during the Musket Wars of the early 19th century.-Moko:...
and started the retail trade in them. The recent discovery of an old document has now revealed his place in New Zealand history.
He was baptised on 16 May 1784 at Portsea
Portsea
Portsea is an area of the English city of Portsmouth, located on Portsea Island, within the ceremonial county of Hampshire.The area was originally known as the Common and lay between the town of Portsmouth and the nearby Dockyard. The Common started to be developed at the end of the seventeenth...
, Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the son of Timothy and Elizabeth Tucker, people of humble rank. In 1798 Tucker and Thomas Butler shoplifted goods worth more than five shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s from a ‘Taylor’ William Wilday or Wildey, and were convicted and sentenced to death. They were then reprieved and sentenced to seven years’ transportation to New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
. They left Portsmouth on the Hillsborough on 20 December 1798.
The voyage was one of the worst in the history of transportation. ‘Jail Fever’ (typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
) raged through the ship, which lost 95 convicts before arriving at Sydney on 26 July 1799. It is not known where Tucker was assigned.
In January 1803, he and Anthony Rawson stowed away on the Atlas, visiting China before reaching Deal
Deal, Kent
Deal is a town in Kent England. It lies on the English Channel eight miles north-east of Dover and eight miles south of Ramsgate. It is a former fishing, mining and garrison town...
in England on 13 December 1803. The stowaways were sent under escort to Portsmouth to return to New South Wales on the Experiment. They were fortunate, as many other returnees were hanged. They arrived back in Sydney on 24 June 1804.
In March 1805, shortly after his term expired, Tucker was advertised as shipping out on the Governor King for the coast of New Zealand. She was one of the ships of Lord, Kable and Underwood, a group formed by Simeon Lord
Simeon Lord
Simeon Lord was a pioneer merchant and a magistrate in Australia. He became a prominent trader in Sydney, buying and selling ship cargoes. Despite being an emancipist Lord was made a magistrate by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, and he became a frequent guest at government house. His business...
, Henry Kable
Henry Kable
Henry Kable was born in Laxfield, Suffolk, England. Kable was known for being a businessman, but was convicted of burglary at Thetford, Norfolk, England, on 1 February 1783 and sentenced to death. This was commuted to transportation for fourteen years to America, but the American Revolution meant...
and James Underwood to exploit the sealing grounds at the Antipodes Islands to the south and east of New Zealand’s South Island
South Island
The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...
. She probably landed men at Dusky Sound
Dusky Sound
Dusky Sound is a fiord on the south west corner of New Zealand, in Fiordland National Park.-Geography:One of the most complex of the many fjords on this coast, it is also one of the largest, 40 kilometres in length and eight kilometres wide at its widest point...
on the South Island’s south west coast. Tucker was probably later at the Antipodes Islands
Antipodes Islands
The Antipodes Islands are inhospitable volcanic islands to the south of—and territorially part of—New Zealand...
.
In New Zealand, there were virtually no Europeans living ashore and Māori still lived much as they had for centuries. Maori society was tribal and based on the maintenance of honour, war being recurrent and often fought to get revenge, or 'utu
Utu (Maori concept)
Utu is a Māori concept of reciprocation, or balance.To retain mana, both friendly and unfriendly actions require an appropriate response - hence utu covers both the reciprocation of kind deeds, and the seeking of revenge....
', for an insult. The Māori had developed tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
ing and moko
Ta moko
Tā moko is the permanent body and face marking by Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. Traditionally it is distinct from tattoo and tatau in that the skin was carved by rather than punctured...
to a greater extent than any other society and high born males wore full facial adornment unique to the individual. Some Māori preserved the heads of enemies and loved ones. These relics had interested the first European visitors, as had their carved jade ornaments.
Tucker may have left Sydney for England in 1807 in the Sydney Cove whose command was taken over by Daniel Cooper en route. If so, he would have returned to New South Wales either in her, or the Unity, Cooper’s next command.
In April 1809, he was advertised to leave Sydney in the Pegasus. Instead, he left on the Brothers, a ship chartered by Robert Campbell
Robert Campbell
-Politicians:*Robert Campbell , Australian merchant/politician from New South Wales*Robert Campbell , New South Wales politician, son of the above*Robert Campbell , New York politician...
and probably intended for the Solander Islands
Solander Islands
The Solander Islands are a small chain of uninhabited volcanic islets lying at , close to the western end of the Foveaux Strait in southern New Zealand...
in Foveaux Strait
Foveaux Strait
Foveaux Strait separates Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand's third largest island, from the South Island. Three large bays, Te Waewae Bay, Oreti Beach and Toetoes Bay, sweep along the strait's northern coast, which also hosts Bluff township and harbour. Across the strait lie the Solander...
, between New Zealand’s South Island and Stewart Island. In early November, he was one of eleven men landed at the ‘Isle of Wight’ and ‘Ragged Rock’ on what is now the Dunedin coast on the South Island’s southeast coast. When Captain Mason returned to Port Daniel, now called Otago Harbour
Otago Harbour
Otago Harbour is the natural harbour of Dunedin, New Zealand, consisting of a long, much-indented stretch of generally navigable water separating the Otago Peninsula from the mainland. They join at its southwest end, from the harbour mouth...
, on 3 May 1810, he found only Tucker and Daniel Wilson.
Tucker was sent to look for the missing men first on the Isle of Wight and then to ‘Ragged Point’, apparently the headland on Stewart Island at the western entrance to Foveaux Strait. It was probably then he stole a preserved Māori head, whose owners, discovering the loss, pursued the departing sealers. When they failed to find the missing men, Tucker rejoined the Brothers at Otago Harbour and returned with her to Sydney on 14 July 1810.
Later that year, at Otago Harbour, a Māori chief’s theft of a red shirt and knife from a man from the Sydney Cove started a rolling feud which soon took the lives of some of the Brothers’ missing men and soured Māori/Pākehā
Pakeha
Pākehā is a Māori language word for New Zealanders who are "of European descent". They are mostly descended from British and to a lesser extent Irish settlers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some Pākehā have Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Yugoslav or other ancestry...
relations in the south. It was called The Sealers' War
Sealers' War
The Sealers' War, also known as the "War of the Shirt", was a conflict in southern New Zealand started in 1810 by a Māori chief's theft of a red shirt, a knife and some other articles from the sealing vessel the Sydney Cove in Otago Harbour, and the excessive revenge of unidentified Europeans from...
, also 'The War of the Shirt’, and continued until 1823.
Tucker left Sydney again on the Aurora, on 19 September 1810 for the newly discovered Macquarie Island
Macquarie Island
Macquarie Island lies in the southwest corner of the Pacific Ocean, about half-way between New Zealand and Antarctica, at 54°30S, 158°57E. Politically, it has formed part of the Australian state of Tasmania since 1900 and became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978. In 1997 it became a world heritage...
far to the south of New Zealand. At Campbell Island
Campbell Island, New Zealand
Campbell Island is a remote, subantarctic island of New Zealand and the main island of the Campbell Island group. It covers of the group's , and is surrounded by numerous stacks, rocks and islets like Dent Island, Folly Island , Isle de Jeanette Marie, and Jacquemart Island, the latter being the...
in early November, the location of Macquarie was obtained by bribing one of Campbell and Co’s men. The Aurora landed a gang at Macquarie which would have included Tucker. She left, returned and brought her gang back to Sydney on 19 May 1811. It was presumably shortly after this that Tucker offered the Māori head for sale, inaugurating their retail trade and earning him the condemnation of ‘Candor’ in the Sydney Gazette
Sydney Gazette
The Sydney Gazette was the first newspaper in Australia. Governor King authorised the publication of what was initially called 'The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser in 1803. Subsequently the first edition was published 5 March...
, which called him ‘a wild fellow’ and a 'villain'.
He then spent time ashore, where, by August 1812, he was a labourer living with old shipmates in poor lodgings in Phillips Street. On 21 August he and Edward Williams stole a woman’s fancy silk cloak for which they were convicted in November, sentenced to a year’s hard labour and sent to Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
along the coast. By October–November 1814, he had left New South Wales, perhaps for Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
.
In 1815, he returned to Otago, perhaps in the Governor Bligh and took up residence at Whareakeake, later called Murdering Beach, a little to the north of Otago Heads. There he built a house and lived for a time with a Māori woman, keeping goats and sheep. There were no children. The site has long been known for its large quantities of worked greenstone, called pounamu in Māori, a variety of Nephrite jade. This took the form of adzes made over with iron tools into pendants, or hei-tiki
Hei-tiki
The hei-tiki is an ornamental pendant of the Māori which is worn around the neck. Hei-tiki are usually made of pounamu which is greenstone, and are considered a taonga . They are commonly referred to as tiki, a term that actually refers to large human figures carved in wood, and, also, the small...
. Archaeologists have identified these as being produced for a European export trade. An 1819 editorial in the Sydney Gazette described it, saying it was carried on by ‘groupes of sealers’. It seems clear this was part of Tucker’s enterprise. Māori called him ‘Taka’ adapting his surname, also ‘Wioree’, perhaps from the diminutive of his first name ‘Willy’. More formally and inaccurately, he was also styled ‘Captain Tucker’.
He left, went to Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
and returned on the Sophia with Captain James Kelly
James Kelly (Australian explorer)
James Kelly , Australian mariner, explorer and port official, was born on 24 December 1791 at Parramatta, New South Wales. He was probably the son of James Kelly, a cook in the convict transport Queen, and Catherine Devereaux, a convict transported for life from Dublin in the same ship.Kelly was...
, bringing other European settlers, according to Māori sources. The Sophia anchored in Otago Harbour on 11 December 1817.
‘Taka’ was welcomed by Māori of the harbourside settlement, but unknown to the visitors, the chief Korako, father of Te Matenga Taiaroa, refused to ferry across Māori from the north, Whareakeake, who had come to see Tucker and receive presents.
When Kelly, Tucker and five others took a longboat to Whareakeake a few days later, they were at first welcomed. But while Tucker was absent in his house, the others were set upon by Māori. Veto Viole and John Griffiths were killed, but Kelly escaped back to the longboat as did Tucker. He lingered in the surf, calling on Māori not to hurt Wioree, but was speared and knocked down. He called ‘Captain Kelly for God’s sake don’t leave me,’ before being killed. Kelly saw him ‘cut limb from limb and carried away by the savages!’ Tucker’s killer was Riri, acting on chief Te Matahaere’s orders. Taiaroa allegedly killed the others. All the dead were eaten. A Māori source gave the immediate cause as dissatisfaction at not having the first opportunity to receive Tucker’s gifts, but it was also said it was an unhappy consequence of the theft of the shirt in 1810 and its owner’s savage reaction.
Returning to his ship in the harbour, Kelly took revenge, by his account killing some Māori, destroying canoes and firing ‘the beautiful City of Otago’, a harbourside settlement, probably on Te Rauone beach near modern Otakou
Otakou
The settlement of Otakou lies within the boundaries of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. It is located 25 kilometres from the city centre at the eastern end of Otago Peninsula, close to the entrance of Otago Harbour.-Overview:...
.
Tucker has been remembered for stealing the head and inaugurating their divisive trade. It was banned in New South Wales in 1831, but continued anyway. Ten were sold by a single Māori vendor later in the 1830s, apparently at Otago
Otago
Otago is a region of New Zealand in the south of the South Island. The region covers an area of approximately making it the country's second largest region. The population of Otago is...
. Tucker has also been remembered for his dramatic death, which was reported in the Australian newspapers. The theft inspired Shena Mackay’s 1993 novel Dunedin reflecting his role as a minor legend.
However, the Creed manuscript, written by the Reverend Charles Creed in the 1840s recording the information of two Maori informants and discovered in 2003, shows Tucker in a new light. His theft was not responsible for the war in the south; he was generally liked by Māori and welcomed as a settler. In fact, he was the first European to settle in what is now the city of Dunedin
Dunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...
, as distinct from sojourning, jumping ship or being held as a captive. While his inauguration of the trade in heads has been condemned even by his own countrymen, since that time his fostering of the trade in tiki has revealed him as an enterprising art dealer, in fact New Zealand’s first.