Colonial Despatches

Charles Enderby, business man and lieutenant-governor of the Auckland Islands, was born on 21 November 1797. The Enderbys were whale oil merchants and patrons of Antarctic exploration.

Enderby was, like many of his contemporaries in his business, concerned about the decline of the British whaling fleet and the strategic whale oil it supplied. He was convinced that this industry could be revived with the establishment of a British whaling colony on the Auckland Islands, hundreds of miles south of New Zealand. He, and a group of investors, convinced the British colonial office in 1847 to grant their British Southern Whale Fishery Company the Auckland Islands with Enderby himself as lieutenant governor. Enderby also wrote to Sir J. H. Pelly and Secretary of State Grey on the possibilities of allowing a whaling station on Vancouver Island, arguing that it would serve both the interests of his company, by providing a base of operation and supply, as well as colonization, by providing an attraction to colonists to come to the distant Columbia. Nothing ever came of this. 1

Enderby arrived in the Aucklands in 1849. Despite high hopes, few whales were caught and the colony proved too desolate and remote to support many people. This, and Enderby's inept leadership, caused the colony to be abandoned in 1852. 2

Enderby died on 31 August 1876.

• 1. Galbraith, John S. The Hudson's Bay Company as an imperial factor, 1821-1869. New York : Octagon Books, 1977, c1957.