The 3d stamp of the New Zealand centennial set, depicts the landing of the first New Zealand settlers at Petone Beach, Port Nicholson (now Wellington) in 1840. Anchored under Somes Island, seen in the background, are the vessels Aurora, Eleanor and Cuba.
In 1881 the New Zealand Association was formed in London to buy land from the Maoris for the settlement of emigrants from England, though the scheme was not in
favour with the British
Government.
After various objections had been overcome, the Association sent out one of its principal supporters, Col. Wakefield, in the brig Tory, of 382 tons. She left England in May 1839 arriving on September 20 at Port Nicholson, where the colonel successfully completed the purchase of a site at Petone for the Association's emigrants. The Tory was lost the following year while voyaging between Singapore and China.
An advance party of artisans, surveyors and Association officials embarked in the wooden vessel Cuba, 273 tons, at Gravesend on July 31, 1839. Although described as "a fast sailing barque," she was actually ship-rigged and was built at Liverpool in 1824 for Kinnear, of Glasgow. In 1851 she was sold to Tindall and Company, of London, and her fate is unknown.
The advance party reached New Zealand on January 4, 1840, two of the 30 passengers having died of yellow fever during the 157-day voyage. Shortly after the advance party had completed the necessary pre liminaries for the new settlement, the main body of emigrants arrived in the Aurora, a wooden barque of 550 tons. She was built at Chittagong in 1817 and was originally owned by Joseph Somes, of London; in 1838 he sold her to J. A. Cox, of London. She sailed for New Zealand with 148 emigrants on September 18, 1839, arriving off Port Nicholson Heads on the evening of January 21, 1840. Her master, decided not to enter the harbour until daylight, and next morning she beat up the Heads, accompanied by the barque Eleanor, 156 tons, out of Sydney, under the command of Capt. W. H. Rhodes.
The scene as both vessels joined the Cuba at Somes Island and dropped their first boatloads of passengers is the subject of the stamp design. A small jetty had been run out by the advance party, and the first settlement, then called Britannia, was formed. Other settlers arrived in the following few weeks in the Oriental, Duke of Roxburgh and Bengal Merchant. An enlargement of the stamp shows that the artist has drawn the Cuba, Aurora and Eleanor as threemasted ships. Except in the case of the first-named, this is incorrect. Likewise the vessels have four spars on each mast, implying double topsails, but it is most unlikely that New Zealand emigrant ships of 1840 carried double topsails. The Aurora was wrecked on the Northern Head, Kaipara Harbour, while starting her return voyage to England in April 1840.
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