On 28 April 1881 the favourite Union Steam Ship Company vessel Tararua, with 111 passengers, a crew of 40 and a cargo including live geese and pigs, left Port Chalmers for Melbourne. 'The night was dark but clear overhead; a haze hung over the land, the loom of which could be seen, but no distinguishing features could be discerned'. At five next morning the ship struck a reef at Waipapa Point at the entrance to Foveaux Strait A number of people drowned while trying to reach land and, with heavy seas breaking up the stricken craft, those on board climbed into the rigging. At 2.30am on 30 April there were loud screams, a great crash and then silence. So numerous were the bodies which floated ashore that a special cemetery – the Tararua Acre – was established behind the sandhills at Otara, almost opposite the site of the wreck.

Although some passengers had reached shore and raised the alarm, the relief ship Hawea arrived too late and could do little but pick up and dry the mailbags which had spilled into the sea. Some Tararua correspondence yet survives, for example, a letter from Amy Bell of Wellington to her sweetheart, Walter Henry Paterson, an officer on the Coptic. The water-stained envelope is marked 'Salvaged from s.s. Tararua.

On his TV1 programme 'Shipwreck', Paul Gittins has described the country's largest peace-time shipping tragedy in which 131 of the complement of 151 lost their lives. In presenting a stark outline, Gittins had no time to describe the Canterbury personalities who died. These included Colin Campbell, a physician; Elterton Mitchell, who had retired in 1880, after giving 'long, continued and conscientious service' as headmaster of St Albans School; and James Ashworth. An illiterate working man of 'Harleston', North Canterbury, Ashworth had, before the establishment of the railway system, worked in harsh conditions cutting tracks to and provisioning isolated runs. The Wesleyan church took a heavy blow, three ministers and two lay representatives to an Australian conference dying; two ministers, John Armitage and J B Richardson, were from Canterbury.

The captain, Francis George Garrard, 29, was an outstanding officer and stern abstainer; after a Canadian shipwreck, he had saved his drink-befuddled companions by walking through frozen wastes to get help. His fiancee lived in Melbourne and it was planned that the couple should marry when the ship reached port. Francis' Christchurch family included a sister, Sarah Ann Kinsey. Her husband, Joseph, had been Francis' classmate at Greenwich's Royal Navy School, was sole beneficiary under the terms of his will, would become a shipping magnate, be attorney for one of Shackleton's and both of Scott's Antarctic expeditions, receive a knighthood and give his name to Kinsey's Terrace, Sumner. There was also a brother, William Garrard, a gunsmith, who purchased a plot in the Anglican section of the Barbadoes Street Cemetery. The body of the 'dashing', 'gallant' captain was interred there on 21 May 1881. The funeral 'was of a private nature, only relatives and friends of the deceased being present'. Garrard's gravestone, with its impressive anchor-shaped stone, still stands.

A Court of Inquiry determined that fault lay with Captain Garrard. He had not known whether he was at a safe distance out to sea but could easily have gauged this by dropping over the side a heavy lead ball on the end of a rope. Culpability also rested with a seaman, Weston, who failed to keep a proper lookout and note broken water, a sure sign of the vessel's proximity to land.

When setting disaster assignments, teachers have studiously neglected the Tararua; perhaps there will now be change.

Richard L N Greenaway, Genealogy Librarian

Sources

• Ashworth, J (Junior), Papers, Christchurch City Libraries
• Barbadoes Street Cemetery, Christchurch: records, Canterbury Public Library
• Callan, Louise, Shipwreck, 2000
• Garrard, Francis: will, National Archives, Christchurch
• Ingram, C. W. N., New Zealand shipwrecks, 1990
• McIntosh, Joan, Wreck of the Tararua, 1970
• Scholefield, G. H., 'Joseph Kinsey', Dictionary of New Zealand biography, 1940
• Starky, Suzanne, 'James Ashworth', Dictionary of New Zealand biography, Vol. 1, 1990
• Star, 30 April, 2, 3 & 21 May 1881