Trevor Byron - 1856 Hammer Exports

08 - 22 October 2013

Artist statement
The Wellington connection...
My maternal grandfather had his own sheet-metal fabrication business in Molesworth Street until he went to fight in Africa.
His widowed mother had brought the family to New Zealand between wars and I was keen to know more about their journey.
Whilst searching shipping lists I happened upon records for the ship that landed my paternal great-great-great-grandparents here in 1857.

They were 4 months at sea in appalling conditions* and arrived into Wellington harbour in a grey dark blustery southerly.
Their relief at landfall must have been tempered with the stories and evidence of the 1855 earthquake and they soon departed for Kaiapoi, a smallholding, and a blacksmith’s forge.

It seems their waka was primarily transporting timber to England and the passengers on the return to New Zealand were simply back-load.  Intriguingly, to provide stability for the 'cargo' of mobile passengers these ships were often ballasted with flints.
Yes, the same flints that were used to strike steel to light fires and fire muskets.
They were hard, dense, and freely available either from English beaches where they had eroded from the chalk hills or as chippings from larger flints knapped for building material. Thus English flints came to New Zealand with the settlers.

Once here, and with the passengers "unloaded", the flints were no longer needed (the return cargo being of the non-mobile kind and able to be distributed for best stability) so were ejected by the simple expedient of sailing a bay or so away from the port and having the crew shovel them out. These flints can still be found in Wellingtons sheltered bays if you know where and what to look for..