Place:Greymouth, West Coast, New Zealand

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Greymouth (Māori: Māwhera) is the largest town in the West Coast region in the South Island of New Zealand, and the seat of the Grey District Council. The population of the whole Grey District is , which accounts for % of the West Coast's inhabitants. The Greymouth urban area had an estimated population of A large proportion of the District, 65%, is part of the Conservation Estate owned and managed by the Department of Conservation making Greymouth a natural centre for walkers and trampers.

History

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Polynesian settlement

Archaeological evidence shows Māori settlements on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island dating back to 1300–1400 AD. Located at Karamea, Westport (Kawatiri), Bruce Bay (Mahitahi) and Jackson Bay (Okahu), excavations have identified in-ground cooking ovens (hāngī) and middens (rubbish tips). They show that these early Māori ate moa and seals as well as fish from the river and sea. These earliest West Coast people were from east Polynesia. Their stone knives and adzes were made by using the Polynesian flaking method and personal ornaments found on the sites were based on traditional Polynesian shark-tooth designs. These early people were subsumed by later Māori tribes (iwi) who came to the West Coast as population grew and settlement spread.

Ngāi Tahu on Te Tai Poutini

Ngāi Tahu came to Te Tai Poutini (the West Coast) about the start of the nineteenth century. Under Tūhuru Kōkare, a great warrior, they defeated the Ngāti Wairangi in a series of battles for the greenstone (pounamu) coast. The West Coast was one of the principal sources of the highly-prized greenstone which is almost as hard as steel. The Poutini Ngāi Tahu built fortified pā at Māwhera (Greymouth), Ōkārito and Mahitahi (Bruce Bay) and had villages or gardens at other places including Inangahua, Taramakau, Mahinapua, Pouerua, Okuru and Arawhata (Jackson Bay).^[1] The name Māwhera (meaning 'wide spread river mouth', is still an alternative name for the Grey River.

European settlement

The first Europeans to visit the site of what is now Greymouth were Thomas Brunner and Charles Heaphy in 1846. Brunner and Heaphy were detailed by the Nelson Land Company to investigate the country south of the Buller and to report on its resources and potential as a field for further settlement. They set out from Nelson on 17 March 1846 accompanied by a Māori named Kehu, who had previously visited the West Coast and who had agreed to act as their guide. Brunner discovered coal in the Grey Valley, and several places in the region (notably the town of Brunner and Lake Brunner) bear his name. Brunner himself named the Grey River after Sir George Grey, Governor of New Zealand.

As numbers of colonists continued to increase in Nelson and Canterbury, interest grew in settling the West Coast, but the land was still owned by Māori – Poutini Ngāi Tahu. In 1857 Poutini Ngāi Tahu chiefs wrote to Donald McLean, the New Zealand government land purchase officer, offering to sell the land for £2500, as long as some land was reserved for their use and they kept their rights to the pounamu (greenstone) of the Arahura River. In 1859, James Mackay was sent to broker a purchase deal, known as the Arahura Deed. This was signed in Māwhera by leading chiefs on 21 May 1860: it sold the entire West Coast to the Crown for just £300, apart from a scattering of reserves totalling . (Just after the signing, Mackay capsized his canoe in the Grey River, and some of the writing in the document is smudged to this day.)^[2] The reserves included Māwhera, now the centre of Greymouth.

On 22 July 1864 the Nelson became the first steamer to cross the Grey bar and steam up the Grey River. Aboard the 'Nelson' were Matthew Batty and Reuben Waite plus approximately 70 prospectors.^[3] Reuben Waite would open the first store in Greymouth on the banks of the Grey River at the corner of which is now Waite Street and Mawhera Quay. Matthew Batty would become the first European coal miner on the Grey River overseeing a group of Māori digging up the Brunner Seam on the Grey River bank.^[4]

John Rochfort undertook the original survey of the site of the township in 1865. Greymouth was proclaimed a borough on 16 July 1868, and on 26 August 1868 an election was held. On 16 September 1868, the new borough council held its first meeting and unanimously elected Edward Masters as the first mayor of Greymouth.

From 1853 until the abolition of provinces in 1876, Greymouth was first part of Canterbury Province (the West Coast part of the Province was known as West Canterbury) and then part of an independent Westland Province. However Cobden, on the north (or right) bank of the Grey River was a part of Nelson Province from 1853 to 1876. The boundary between the Canterbury and Nelson provinces had been set as a straight line from the head of the Hurunui River to Lake Brunner at a time when the area was virtually uninhabited, but the West Coast Gold Rush straddled that boundary, with a population boom also straddling the boundary. In 1866, there had been a proposal for portions of Canterbury Province, including the urban area of Greymouth and the rural area south, to be annexed and solely administered by Nelson Province. The situation for the citizens of the area was partially alleviated with the creation of the County of Westland – which had all the administrative powers of a provincial council, but saw the legislative powers remain with Parliament in Wellington. Members of Parliament were not happy with having to spend their time on local legislation, and in 1873 the government elevated the county to full provincial status as Westland Province.

Shipwrecks on the Greymouth Bar

The Greymouth Bar is a sandbar at the mouth of the Grey River. It is notorious in New Zealand and more than 44 ships have been wrecked there while entering, leaving or mooring in the harbour. The first shipwreck happened on 13 September 1863 when the schooner Gipsy carrying mostly gold diggers from Sydney, was caught in a northeasterly gale.^[5] Sixteen lives have been lost since 1865, when the Nugget drifted out of the river and across the bar at night.^[5] The cutter was half full of water when the crew came on deck and only one of the two crewmen made it safely to shore.^[5]

They year 1866 was the most dangerous year for shipping in Greymouth, with five schooners and screw steamers being wrecked due to a number of reasons, including getting stranded on the spit, sheered in current, insufficient tug power and the engine stopped.^[5]

On 23 June 1910 the Lauderdale was heading to Greymouth from Nydia Bay and on 27 June struck the north tiphead, ending up stranded on the Blaketown beach after, at one point, being grounded against another shipwreck from 1908, the Hawea. The Lauderdale is one of three wrecks which remain on the Greymouth coastline in the twenty-first century and in April 2016 a local Blaketown family unveiled a commemorative plaque on the West Coast Cycle Trail, telling its story. This plaque is within sight of the wreck remains which appear and disappear on the shoreline with the tides. The Abel Tasman and the Hawea are the other two remaining wrecks.^[6]

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