William Vance, What would Sam Williams think?: Whale Creek on Bay Being Imprisoned, Water from Stream Attracted Early Whalers to Timaru (Nov 1959). Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 21/04/2025, https://aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/6197
Whale Creek on Bay — Being Imprisoned
Water from Stream Attracted Early Whalers to Timaru
By William Vance
Day by day, Whale Creek, the creek that flows into Caroline Bay, is being imprisoned.
Bulldozers are trapping into a concrete drain this creek which played so important a part in the early history of Timaru.
I wonder what Sam Williams, Timaru’s first citizen, would have to say about this.
It was this creek, as much as anything else, that decided the Weller Brothers to start their whaling station here.
In 1855 the ship Harriet sailed into Caroline Bay and set down a number of men and equipment from the Blueskin whaling station, Otago.
That was the beginning of the Timaru whaling station.
Thirty other shore-whaling stations, employing 700 men and 90 boats, were working along the New Zealand coast.
These stations produced an annual amount of 1,000 tons of oil, valued at £25,000.
Whalers did their work too well, for within 15 years, the number of whaling stations had dwindled to five, producing 100 tons of oil a year.
There She Blows
Good seamanship was needed to bring a boat within the hand-flung harpoon shot of one of these 70-foot mammals.
When struck, the whale sounded. Two hundred fathoms of rope was briskly played out to stop the boat from being towed under by the whale.
Fouling of the rope-line could cause dangerous accidents—capsize the boat, take off a man’s leg, or twist around his neck and strangle him.
But a whale must come to the surface to breathe—and these men knew just when this would happen.
Then the whale raced across the ocean surface, sometimes for two miles, dragging the boat with it until exhaustion slowed down this giant of the sea.
Gradually the boat came up to the spent whale.
The skilled harpooner threw a sharp spade which cut the sinews of the whale’s back and so quietened the great lashing tail which could smash a boat to matchwood.
With the whale in tow, tired boatmen then began the long row back to shore.
For two days the men, wearing long, spiked boots, cut off strips of flesh from the whale.
These long strips of whale-flesh were cut into smaller pieces to fit the try-pots built into the bank near the Bay tennis courts.
Oil from the boiled-down blubber was poured from the try-pots into the casks, which were ranged along the beach, awaiting the coming of the supply-ship.
Whaling Profits
A whaling station employed about 30 men, the season lasting from May to October, when the men were paid their share of the profits.
Total profits usually amounted to about £1,000, and ordinary boatmen got about one-hundredth share of this.
However, when deductions were made for gear, food and grog, the whaler usually found himself in debt to the company.
The strong-smelling, boiling-down process attracted scores of wild pigs.
From the fern and scrub of the Timaru gullies they stole down at night to the whaling station to feed on whale-blubber.
The supply ship brought a motley cargo of tobacco, soap, twilled shirts, boots, flushing trousers, blankets, twine, pocket-knives, playing cards, pipes, pannikins, sugar, tea and jew’s harps.
The coming of the supply ship was occasion for a party.
Round a hogshead of rum, carefree sailors and whalers sat, drinking till they drank the barrel dry.
Ship Caroline
The supply ship that came most was the Caroline, which gave its name to the Bay.
Captain Blenkinsopp of Port Underwood was her captain in the early thirties.
This same gentleman sold the famous cannon to the Maoris for the Wairau Plains, the questionable purchase of which led to the “Wairau Massacre.”
The historic cannon is now mounted on a concrete block in Seymour Square, Blenheim, and the inscription beneath mentions the ship Caroline.
Johnny Jones of Waikouaiti, Otago, bought the Caroline, and this is probably the same ship which was wrecked at New River Heads, near Invercargill in 1860.
Beverley Gully
Supply ships did not often bring vegetables, but the Maoris made up for this deficiency.
The Maoris had huts and gardens in Beverley Gully, from which place they traded potatoes and pigs for tools and clothing.
Beverley Gully ran across the Main South Road, ending in a small cliff near the tennis courts.
Here the whalers had roaring campfires around which they sat, singing, storytelling, drinking.
The great storm of 1882 washed away part of the cliff, together with the old whaling fireplace.
Water was drawn from Whale Creek, which flowed down Nelson Terrace gully, across Hewlings Street, into Caroline Bay near the Viaduct.
High tide caused a backwash, salting the water as far up as the corner of Hewlings Street and Nelson Terrace.
Hot weather sometimes dried up the creek, forcing the whalers to rely on a water-hole, which was afterwards dammed up and became Perry’s Pond at the foot of Beverley Road.
As whales became less plentiful, the station was transferred to Patiti Point.
But whales were becoming scarcer all along the New Zealand coast.
Added to this, the owners of the station, Weller Brothers, Sydney, were finding themselves in financial difficulties, which ended in bankruptcy.
Station Abandoned
Timaru whaling station was evidently abandoned about the middle of 1840, for the log-book of the Piraki whaling station, Banks Peninsula, records:
“July, Wednesday first, 1840— Thick weather throughout with a strong breeze from S.E.
Three boats out to try and tow the whale, but were forced to quit her, the breeze and swell being too strong.
Miller went to Price’s fishery and got a boat’s crew, who left a fishery at Timaroo.
At 11 a.m. sent our own crew over the hill and brought the strangers round with him.”
“Thursday, 2nd. Strong wind from S.E. No boats out. This day the boat’s crew signed articles.”
The same log notes that huts were still standing there, which, with casks, rusty iron hoops, and decaying ropes, lying about in all directions, told a tale of the waste and destruction that so often fall on a bankrupt’s property.
After the station was abandoned, whaling ships still operated in these waters.
The New Zealand Colonist, Wellington, reported in 1842 that a French whaling ship was “wrecked at Timaru, on the long beach about 90 miles south of Akaroa.
It is said that she had a large quantity of oil on board.”
The whaling station was in operation again in 1848, according to the New Zealand Spectator, which included “Timouru,” operated by Mr. Chasland, in its list of whaling stations.
Great Tract of Land
Not all of the Timaru whalers went to Peraki.
One of them, Sam Williams, boat steerer and harpooner, and runaway sailor from an American whaling ship, found work at the Rhodes Island Bay whaling station at the head of Akaroa Harbour.
Williams told George Rhodes about the great tract of sheep country around the old Timaru whaling station.
The Rhodes brothers became interested. They came, they saw, they conquered.
They took up all the land between the Opihi and the Pareora rivers, and back to the Snowy Mountains.
They bought all the property between North Street and Wai-iti Road and back to Grey Road—practically the whole of the business area of Timaru—180 acres, for £180.
Sam Williams also came back to Timaru to become mine host of the Timaru Hotel.
Sam died practically penniless.
But the ghost of Sam Williams, as he takes his watch on top of Benvenue Cliffs, will still be able to see a bit of Whale Creek as it flows into the sea.