Elihu Shaw: a saga from Sussex to Northland to Cabbage Tree Swamp

I first cottoned onto Elihu (pronounced e-LIE-hew, a Biblical name said to mean “My God is Yahweh”) Shaw when doing some digging for information to give to the Mt Albert Historical Society, in terms of the “Shawville” estate. Elihu himself had a fairly ordinary colonial-era career. What happened around him and on his journey from Sussex to Cabbage Tree Swamp, however, was a tad out of the ordinary.

He was the fourth child out of eleven, born 7 June 1806, to Richard and Hetty Shaw of South Malling, in Sussex, England. South Malling is a parish in the district of Lewes, located on the River Ouse. In 1830, Elihu was employed by a distant relative, Squire John Shaw of West Heathley, as a gardener. He ended up marrying the squire’s daughter, Mary, after eloping with her to Lewes, in May 1831.

After making an effort to make ends meet, the couple decided to emigrate. They boarded the Coromandel 14 June 1838 – possibly with the intention of settling in Sydney, the ship’s destination. This was a ship bearing assisted immigrants sponsored by various agents. One was John Marshall (associated by the Shaw family historian with Elihu and his family). Another was a Mr. Beanard, who was presented with a silver snuff box on the ship’s arrival at Sydney by the grateful passengers under his name. Amongst the non-assisted passengers was a trader and timber merchant named Thomas Spencer Forsaith, who apparently accompanied a cargo of trade goods and lumber making machinery on the ship. His business, it seemed, was the provision of kauri spars for the Government, and the source of these was the Hokianga in New Zealand. A partner in this enterprise may have been Rev. William White, who was also on board, with his wife, and bound for the Hokianga with the same spar-provision business in mind.

The Coromandel arrived at Sydney on 2 October 1838. While the family history states that there was a delay due to crew desertion before the ship continued, chartered by Forsaith, to New Zealand, I found by looking at the early Sydney newspapers online that the delay was likely for other reasons, one major reason being Captain Thomas Neale’s declining health. He had consumption, and was too ill to captain the vessel until 16 November when it finally left. (He died at the Hokianga 6 February 1839, and was buried at the Wesleyan Mission Burial Ground).

Along with this, there was a small desertion of crew members (two) who stole one of the ship’s boats while they were at it; Neale, operating the Coromandel on “the Temperance System”, had a shipload of crew who had not had a drop of liquor to drink from June until October, and so ran riot more than a tad once they reached Sydney ("the day after the ship cast anchor, nearly the whole crew abandoned the ship and gave way to the utmost excesses" said the Sydney Gazette); silverware was reported stolen from the Coromandel, ending up in a local hotel called the "Rum Puncheon"; and Capt. Neale warned the Sydnersiders, by public notice, that he would not be responsible for debts run up by the crew. Perhaps, tied in with the captain’s ill-health, it took a while for Neale to find enough sober crew members again to take the ship across the Tasman for Forsaith and White.

The Shaw family history says that Elihu Shaw spent the brief few weeks in New South Wales working as a sawyer. He and his family sailed on the Coromandel finally to the Hokianga on 16 November, arriving 2 December 1838. Once there, they stayed nine months at the Wesleyan Mangungu Mission Station (again, pointing to a possibly Rev. White connection with Forsaith’s business dealings). Rev. White had been recalled to England in 1836, stripped of his mission in Northland, and had been accused of business trading and adultery. Still, he returned to New Zealand regardless. From Murray Gittos’ biography on White:

“The Wesleyan authorities decided in March 1838 to dismiss White from both the ministry and the mission, on the grounds of excessive commercial activity and misapplication of mission property. These activities, although not strictly in accordance with his standing instructions, were probably those least open to criticism if regard was had to Maori interests. Criticisms of his personal temperament were endorsed; on the adultery charges the evidence was persuasive in some cases, though inconclusive.

"While in England awaiting a decision on his future, White was taken up by the New Zealand Company as an expert on emigration prospects. He warmly supported the company until he perceived what he believed was Edward Gibbon Wakefield's hidden agenda of self-aggrandisement and separation of the Maori from their land. On his return to New Zealand in December 1838 White did all he could to discourage the sale of land to the company, including an unsuccessful attempt to forestall the Taranaki purchase.

"Back at Hokianga, White took up residence next to the mission, continued to preach, and remained a figure of considerable consequence to the Maori at Hokianga and Kaipara as both consultant and trader.”

So, it is possible that Rev. White fostered Forsaith’s business, providing accommodation for the Shaw family until Forsaith and Shaw had established a trading post at Mangawhare, Northern Wairoa by 1841. A mill was erected there to produce the spars, and by 1841 Elihu had cleared and fenced 12 acres of 2 blocks purchased by Forsaith. The set-up appeared to be that while Forsaith travelled back and forth across the Tasman, handling the business from Sydney, Shaw and his family managed the trading store.

It was this store which became the catalyst for a grievance by local Maori which was to last over 160 years.

There are two near-contemporary sources for the story of the Skull in the Trading Store: Elihu Shaw’s obituary in 1895, and James Buller’s narrative from 1878, Forty Years in New Zealand. The Waitangi Tribunal in the Kaipara Report this century, also enlisted testimony from the government hearings at the time into the incident.

The Shaws themselves appeared to have a good rapport with local Maori, a vital skill to have while a trader in the area at that time. (Forsaith himself was said to be fluent in both Maori language and customs.) One time when a boat Shaw was using to ferry provisions capsized on a river, it was local Maori who came to his rescue.

The Mangawhare store had previously burnt down, according to Shaw’s obituary, but Forsaith arranged for it to be rebuilt. No one knows exactly how a skull came to be placed in the store. One story says a local Maori found it in a flax bush, and Mrs. Forsaith placed it in the store “out of pity” by hanging it in a kit bag on the wall. Another story about the incident claims the skull was spotted by local Maori in the potato store, even more injurious to the skull’s mana. How the Forsaiths, who were supposed to be familiar with Maori protocol, could have made such an error regarding the placement of so sacred a relic as a human skull has never been determined.

A Maori chief of the area, Tirarau, asked Shaw who put the skull there, and Shaw told him it was Mrs. Forsaith. A raiding party returned shortly after to carry out a taua muru, destroying everything identified with the Forsaiths, including the store itself. The Government enquiry, for what it was (the Waitangi Tribunal have since criticised it for procedural errors) was held at Rev. Buller’s station at Tangitiroria, and the Crown ordered that some of the Maori land be officially confiscated in punishment for the destruction of Forsaith’s store. This land, at Te Kopuru, was a source of local Maori grievance for the next 160 years or so, due to lack of recognition of local iwi land interests, and errors regarding the initial survey by Charles W. Ligar.

Forsaith benefited greatly from the compensation: he went to Auckland, and by 1843 had set himself up as a draper and merchant in the city. From there, he progressed to politics, almost becoming one of the colony’s early premiers.

Shaw, meanwhile, remained in Northland until the Northland War in 1845. The family left the area, travelling by boat (one for the family, towing another for their only cow) to Helensville, then walking the rest of the way to Auckland. They are said to have resided first somewhere in Avondale, then Onehunga, before Shaw finally purchased his Cabbage Tree Swamp land off Sandringham Road in 1851. He followed a number of occupations, apparently. One may have been as a road-maker, like his near-neighbour Mr. Walters at what is now Eden Park, quarrying the necessary rock out of his own landholdings. There are one or two quarry-like depressions close to present-day Shaw Street. Eventually, he turned to his first occupation – gardener – and ended his days market gardening in what is now the Morningside-Kingsland area of Mt Albert.

One of his grandsons, Charles T. Shaw, lived in the New Lynn Hotel for a time, before shifting to Avondale’s Rosebank Road. He was a musician, a member of the Oratia Band, and ran a store in Avondale with his wife for a number of years, close to today’s Ray White building (former National Bank). Another grandchild was Mrs. J. Capes, also of Avondale.

Sources:
Gwen P. Howe, The Gardener and the Squire’s Daughter, 1988
Deeds Indexes for Allotment 153 and 154, Section 10, Suburbs of Auckland, LINZ.
Obituary for Elihu Shaw, NZ Herald, 13 July 1895
Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser, 1838-1839
James Buller, Forty Years in New Zealand: Including a Personal Narrative, an Account of Maoridom, and of the Christianization and Colonization of the Country, 1878, pp. 84-88
Kaipara Report, Waitangi Tribunal