14
COROMANDEL LIFE
SUMMER 2014
There lived on Coromandel Peninsula a
settler named Wigmore, a very large man
with feet in pro-portion. Discussing one
day who was the proud possessor of the
largest ‘understandings’ in the province, I
was told that Wigmore was.
One day when Wigmore came visiting
over the sands, some Maori rushed after
him, exclaiming “Oh the Moa, the Moa”.
But, alas, it was only the footprints of
Wigmore.
Phillipps, in his ‘Reminiscences of Early Days’
1897, and quoted from
The Wigmores of
Hahei Beach, Mercury Bay
by J. D. Osborne
The 270 acre Wigmore homestead. The large 5 bedroom
house above was built by Robert Wigmore in 1868.
The famous two-seat loo (turn page for story) is to far right.
The valley of Hahei was purchased in the early 1870s by Robert Wigmore.
Said to be the ‘largest man in New Zealand’, he lived on the homestead with
his wife Fanny and their children until his death in 1890.
R
obert Wigmore was also a man of some connections. He was a good friend of
Auckland’s esteemed founding father, Sir John Logan Campbell, (pictured below
right) and was thought to have collaborated on several Auckland development
projects with him in the 1840s. He was a Freemason of the Grand Lodge of Ireland
and served as the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in NZ from 1876 to 1887.
According to some records, the Irish born Wigmore visited the region as early as 1840
as a land surveyor. He was believed to be the first ‘pakeha’ to walk from Whitianga to
Auckland and apparently walked as far away as Wellington in a six month trek.
Interesting to note that Wigmore left his initial home of Auckland in 1842 bound for
Peru and Chile, posting letters to New Zealand newspapers describing the poor living
conditions of the people there. It may have been his interest in railroads and the timber
industry that drew him there.
Not much is documented, but apparently Wigmore then returned to Ireland and
travelled on to Canada where, in 1849 he married Fanny Willis, an Irish woman from his
hometown (it is believed his parents disapproved of the marriage and disinherited him).
The couple sailed to New Zealand with their five children (they eventually had eight in
all), landing in Auckland in 1866. The family soon moved to Whitianga and later to Hahei
where Wigmore built a cottage on the beach. He then, being a fine carpenter, began
building not only his large Hahei homestead, but the furniture as well.
Although it is said he started the ‘big house’ in 1868, he did not
take ownership of the sections (reported to be over 270 acres
purchases under the Auckland Wasteland’s Act) until the early
1870s. It included all of Cathedral Cove as well as the valley, which
he farmed with his family.
Wigmore died of an apparent heart attack in 1890 (see account in
Horace’s memoirs next page). Fanny remained on the homestead
until her death in 1911. The burial place of Robert and his wife is
marked by a cairn in the Wigmore Historic Reserve, at the end of
Hahei Beach Road by the beach (see next page).
The Harsants and descendants have occupied the big house since
purchasing the homestead in 1915. Vaughan and Dawn Harsant lived in
the homestead since the 1960s and Dawn continued to live there after
her husband’s death.
GIANT
HAHEi
the
of
Robert Wigmore
