Kororāreka

Russell is a historic spot, dating from the early 19th century and known until the early 1840s as Kororāreka. Word had spread about what Captain Cook had declared a “most noble anchorage” with its good, deep-water harbour. Foreign ships started arriving in numbers, especially British and American whalers stopping in for supplies, repairs and time ashore. Whaling became a major industry, and continued so for the next hundred years.

In the 1830s Kororāreka was a lawless trading centre where whalers, seafarers and merchants mixed with adventurers, deserters and escaped convicts from Australia. Entrepreneurial local Māori traded energetically with the newcomers providing fish, greens, pork, kumara, flax, fresh water as well as a less savoury trade – women. When the ships were in port and their crews loose on shore-leave, grogshops and brothels did a roaring trade. Life on the waterfront was rough, rowdy and sometimes violent, earning Kororāreka the nickname “hellhole of the pacific”.

The importance of trade to Māori is illustrated by the “Girls’ War” of 1830. Two Māori women from different tribal groups and both favourites of a whaling captain got into an argument. The conflict spread and Kororāreka beachfront soon erupted into a battle between two large groups, ending with many deaths. The fight was not really about any slight to either woman but about one group wanting to dominate the trade with visiting shipping. From 1833 there were attempts to impose British law, culminating in the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.

Few early buildings have survived fire and war, but along its tree-shaded beachfront road there is a hotel that holds the country’s oldest license, a quaint old police station, and several restaurants that claim historic origins. Towering above the township is Maiki Hill, topped by a flagstaff. In 1844–45 its signal flagstaff was cut down by Māori four times as a protest against the government. In 1845, war broke out when Kororāreka was attacked and many buildings were destroyed. The flagpole was eventually re-erected by Maihi Parāone Kawiti in 1858.

One of the oldest church sites in the country is Christ Church. First built in 1836, it survived the sacking of Kororāreka in 1845. It was transformed to its current design in 1871. The churchyard has been used since 1836 and some well-known people are buried there. They include the Hokianga chief and government supporter, Tāmati Wāka Nene, and naval personnel killed during the 1845 war. Another early building is the Marist mission printery, known as Pompallier. In 1839 Bishop Jean Baptiste François Pompallier established the headquarters of what was known as the Catholic mission to Western Oceania at Kororāreka. His Marist priests built a two-storeyed printery, which also operated as a tannery and storehouse, in the mission compound. But in 1850 Pompallier’s priests were assigned to work elsewhere and in 1856 the building passed to James Callaghan, a tanner. It was used as a grand private home from the late 1870s. Thought incorrectly to be a bishop’s palace, the house was bought by the government in 1943. In the 1990s it was restored as a printery.