Fire in Kororareka

Joel Polack

An outsider in pre-colonial New Zealand

Kororareka

Ngapuhi and other Maori tribes in Northland were in turmoil after the capital of New Zealand was moved in 1841 from Kororareka in the Bay of Islands to Auckland. The number of ships coming to the Bay of Islands declined, the dues the Maori tribes collected from these were reduced, profitable trade with the whaling ships was lost, and the new government imposed duties on spirits, tobacco tea, sugar, flour, and firearms, goods that Maoris purchased. There was a vague but widely diffused belief that the Treaty of Waitangi was merely a ruse of the pakeha, and that it was the secret intention of the whites, so soon as they became strong enough, to seize upon the lands of the Maori1.

Hone Heke, a Ngapuhi Chief, was a reluctant signatory of the Treaty of Waitangi. He remembered the dying words of his uncle, Hongi Ika, the great warrior chief 2

“Children and friends, pay attention to my last words. After I am gone be kind to the missionaries, be kind also to the other Europeans; welcome them to the shore, trade with them, protect them, and live with them as one people; but if ever there should land on this shore a people who wear red garments, who do no work, who neither buy or sell, and who always have arms in their hands, then be aware that these are a people called soldiers, a dangerous people, whose only occupation is war. When you see them, make war against them. Then, O my children, be brave then, O friends, be strong! Be brave that you may not be enslaved, and that your country may not become the possession of strangers. “3

Hone Heke saw the flagstaff erected on the hilltop overlooking Kororareka as the manifestation of the threats that Hongi Ika warned him about. He cut down the flagstaff, the symbol of British occupation. After the British replaced it, he cut it down again and cut it down yet again a third time. The British tried to assert their authority. Confrontation ensued. Shortly before dawn on 11 March 1845, Heke and about 450 warriors moved on Kororareka. One group, led by Te Ruki Kawiti, 4 the notable Nga Puhi chief, warrior and a skilled military tactician. created a diversion enabling Heke to seize the blockhouse that defended the flagstaff. The offending pole was cut down for the fourth and final time.5

Some weeks before the conflict, the Chief Police Magistrate of Kororareka, Thomas Beckham, asked Joel Polack, a Jewish merchant of the Bay of Islands, to allow his premises to be used for the protection of the inhabitants of the town, (by then renamed Russell) in case the town was attacked. These premises, located on the foreshore, comprised a large house with 2 upper rooms and 12 lower rooms, a cottage with 2 upper rooms and 4 lower rooms, which housed a ship chandlery, a brewery, and a cellar. This, apart from Government House in Auckland, was the largest building complex in the colony. It had been the headquarters of the Kororareka Association in 1838, the first organisation to attempt to enforce law and order in the lawless settlement. In the 1840s, at the time of Hone Heke’s and Te Ruki Kawiti’s attack, it housed the Supreme County Court, with a Grand Jury room, a Petty Jury room, and rooms for the magistrate. In its way, it embodied Joel Polack’s vision of an orderly civil society governed by the rule of law in that beautiful remote corner of the world.

It was ironic that it was Hone Heke who launched the attack on Kororareka that ultimately led to the destruction of Polack’s property. Polack’s association with Heke went back many years. He bought the land, a 9-acre strip on the beach he called Parramatta, on which his premises were located, from Heke and others on 30 August 1833, and Heke’s signatures appeared on most of Polack’s land purchases. Heke and Polack did a lot of business with each other, and it is likely that when Heke wanted to purchase some significant items from Polack he offered to sell land to him, land that he had acquired through conquest, in exchange for goods.6 Polack paid Heke and the others who had claim to the strip of land on the Kororareka foreshore, four muskets, two 25 lb. casks of gunpowder, eight blankets, four cartouche boxes and belts, six clasp knives, two pairs of scissors, two head combs, two tack combs, two large iron pots, and thirty large sheets of paper.

Polack was a prominent advocate of colonization. He believed that a well functioning, law-abiding society could evolve only through British rule. He argued this in the two books he published while in England from 1837 to 18427, and in his submission to the Select Committee of the British House of Lords on the expediency of regulating the settlement of British subject in New Zealand8. The Bay of Islands that in the early 1830s was regarded as the hellhole of the Pacific, a dangerous place where Europeans lived with the threat of unpredictable attacks by savage cannibals. It was home for only a few Europeans, mainly of the lowest sort, escaped convicts, unruly seamen, apart from the missionaries. The place changed significantly after the ‘Girls War‘ of 1830. This was the last notable tribal conflict in the Bay of Islands. With the arrival of resident traders, Polack among them, a middle class began to develop, for whom law and order was essential if their newly acquired estates were to be protected and allowed to prosper9.

In this evolving small community, Polack endeavored to be a model citizen. He donated land for the erection of a church to serve the settlers10. When the settlement was threatened he considered it appropriate to put his premises at the disposal of the Government without stipulating (sic) for any remuneration for their use, [his] sole desire being to render what [he] possessed serviceable to the Government and the inhabitants of Russell11.

During the confrontation with Hone Heke’s fighters, there were a hundred armed civilians in Polack’s stockade, as well as women and children12. Polack himself had spent much of his time in Auckland, pursuing his business interests there, but at that time in 1845, he happened to be in Russell, the former Kororareka. In the early afternoon of the day of Hone Heke’s attack, the powder magazine that was stored at Polack’s Stockade exploded, possibly because one of the armed volunteers lit his pipe. Surrounding buildings caught fire.13 Two people were killed; Polack himself was injured in the explosion and all his possessions were lost.

The estimated value of his losses was £2600.14 It was possible to put a value on the cost of the buildings, the furniture and other chattels, the £600 in cash and scrip, which had to be stored on the premises as there was no bank in Russell, but no value could be put on his manuscripts, his own writing, and his works of art, including his own sketches.

He had two polished cedar bookcases each 8 feet by 4 feet on which he had numerous literary works. These included in manuscript a History of Mauritius and Madagascar collected from his personal travels, 700 papers, drawings from his own sketches in two volumes, accounts of his journeys in New Zealand, United States and various parts of the world, including some 30 voyages with nearly 1000 drawings in 3 thickly bound volumes, the manuscript of his work on the Australasian Islands published for him by chapters in the Colonial Magazines of 1839, 40, and 4115. The books that were lost reflected his wide reading: Shakespeare, Byron, Pope, Guizot, Voltaire, Feilding, Smollett and Marriot, a Hebrew library of 12 volumes, books in Latin and French, several dictionaries, not to mention the Builder’s Almanac.16

He also lost his collection of art works and artist’s material, which included a small portfolio of drawings and etchings in copper, several miniatures, including one by Samuel Oliver (1648), who was renowned for his portrait of Oliver Cromwell, and miniatures and by Polack’s father, also a successful painter of miniature portraits, and by his grandfather, several sketchbooks and tracings, a portfolio of engravings by the eighteenth century artist, William Wollett, and more recent artists, L’Estrange, Henry Bryan Hall, James Heath, Charlton Nesbit and others, numerous charts and maps and engravings within Lizar’s Edinburgh Geographical General Atlas, and architectural drawings. Polack was the son and grandson of artists. He was also a discerning collector. As an artist himself, he would have greatly regretted the loss of his artist’s material, Bookmans pencils — oil and watercolour brushes, drawing instruments, drawing papers and quills17. Such essential material for an artist would have been hard replace.

Polack was 38 years old. His lifetime’s work had gone up in flames. He saw himself as a writer, traveller, artist, scholar, and incidentally, a successful businessman. Others might have thought of him as a land speculator, a grog seller, a Jew and a person who was not to be trusted. He was an oddity in the rough colonial frontier society, but he was almost certainly the most widely read, educated person in the land, with his own clear view of the future of the settlement. With the destruction of his writings, his works of art, the accumulated records of his many years of travel and adventure, his losses were devastating.

Polack applied for compensation and pursued his claim for years. His claim was not even acknowledged until he sent several insistent reminders some time later. The Governor, Sir George Grey, and Beckham, the Police Magistrate, who had first had knowledge of the incident, agreed that Polack had a sound case for compensation, but the matter was referred to the newly formed Legislative Council where the question of whether the loss was due to the actions of the British armed forces or a drunk local armed volunteer was debated. Twenty years later, in 1865, the issue still remained unresolved. Polack was greatly aggrieved.

It was not surprising that he considered that he had deserved better, that his losses, which were incurred because of his willingness to help the settlers of Russell, warranted not only compensation, but also perhaps recognition of his civic mindedness. He was a substantial property owner and the biggest taxpayer in his time, but twenty years on, Kororareka was seen as a distant backwater by the legislators in Auckland, the first skirmishes of the Maori Wars in the Bay of Islands paled into insignificance compared with other the battles of the time, and the Jewish trader, writer, artist and his eccentric personality faded from memory.

Joel Samuel Polack

Joel Samuel Polack had first arrived in New Zealand in 1831. He was 24, an artist who at sixteen was exhibiting miniature paintings at the Royal Academy18 and something of an adventurer, who had already seen a good deal of the world. As a teenager, he had served in the War Office (Commissariat and Ordnance) in South Africa and Mauritius. After four years he left Africa to travel in America, and in 182619 joined his brother, Abraham, in New South Wales, Australia20. ‘Mr. Abraham Polack’s brother has arrived in The Elizabeth’ reported the Sydney Monitor21 ‘He is an artist of great promise. His forte — we understand lies in landscape and architectural; sketching: and painting’.

Abraham had been transported to New South Wales at the age of 21, one of 179 convicts who arrived on the Agamemnon, on 22 April 1820. He was indicted for stealing a watch.22 The charge was possibly spurious. The woman who accused him appeared to have had a dubious reputation, a single woman who entertained men at her place after the theatre on a Saturday night. The evidence presented was rather flimsy23. The incident occurred at a time when the authorities were clamping down on political radicals in the wake of the meeting that lead to the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester and just after the leaders of that assembly were tried. Perhaps the Jewish young man of Dutch origin, just back from Gibraltar, had some dangerous ideas.

In Australia Abraham Polack landed on his feet. Once emancipated, he prospered, becoming a publican, an auctioneer, and one of the leaders of the New South Wales Jewish community.24

Joel, soon after landing in Australia, requested a grant of land in N.S.W. amounting to 2560 acres25, but he didn’t stay around to hear the outcome of his application. The Sydney Monitor reported on 12 November 1827 that ‘The brother of Mr. Polack (Abraham of Sydney), an artist … left this colony lately for the Isle of France (Isle de la Réunion), [and] has accepted the office of Painter and Designer to his Majesty, the King of Madagascar26. He could not have held the position very long, as the King died in 182827 and he returned to Sydney.

Joel Polack’s background was different from other early visitors to New Zealand. He was part of the Jewish Diaspora, moving from place to place in search of new opportunities, but clearly, also in search of adventure. He came from a Dutch Jewish family, the son of a highly regarded miniature portrait painter,28 Solomon Polack, who moved from The Hague to Dublin and ultimately to London. When Casanova wanted his mistress painted, his friend sent him the best miniaturist in London, a Jew, Solomon Polack,29 Joel Polack had received a broad education in England and on the Continent. This is evident from the range of references in his books. He was conversant with the classics as well as contemporary writing about travel and exploration, and he illustrated his books with his own drawings and paintings.

The Polacks were a talented and interesting family. Joel was probably the youngest of at least nine children30. His sister, Elizabeth, was a successful playwright.31 Rebecca, another sister, had a son who married Arritaumau, a Tahitian princess, one of whose daughters married King Pomare V, thus Joel Polack was the great uncle of the last Queen of Tahiti.32

Within the small Sydney Jewish community Joel would have known Joseph Montefiore, who had trading posts in New Zealand, in Poverty Bay and Hokianga33 He could have found the services of a reliable young man useful. He sent Joel Polack, footloose and always ready for new adventure, to Hokianga and from there Polack travelled to the Kaipara to find out whether the Kaipara River, which was known to have several shifting bars at its entrance, had a channel of sufficient depth for the navigation of large vessels34. The Hokianga and Kaipara regions were lucrative sources of timber and flax and bringing ships up the river, closer to where these were harvested would have made a big difference to their accessibility.

The following year Polack returned to the same region to purchase flax and spars for shipping and travelled extensively across the region. But the market for timber and flax trade was unpredictable. An enterprising young man, not afraid of facing the dangers of the unknown, could do better as a merchant.

Move to the Bay of Islands

The Bay of Islands presented new commercial opportunities. The intertribal wars that bedeviled New Zealand and Maori society were coming to an end. More and more whalers and trading ships visited the Bay of Islands, which provided a sheltered deep-water harbour. There they could obtain provisions: pork, fish, potatoes, onions, water, wood, and chandlery. Ships could be refitted if necessary. Maori women were available for the crew, who had been at sea for months, deprived of female company35. 29 ships visited the Bay of Islands in 1830, by 1833 this number increased to 96, and from then on the numbers grew, until by the end of the decade, 1840, there were 212 ship visits.36

Polack saw that the money to be made was in supplying the needs of visiting ships, and more and more, as the European settlement grew, the needs of settlers and the increasingly diversified needs of Maoris, rather in the fickle trade of timber and flax. He set out to establish a trading post in Kororareka. He purchased land on the shore of Kororareka from a group of Maori chiefs headed by Hone Heke. Heke’s signature appeared on most of Polack’s land purchases. In all likelihood Heke saw himself as both a protector and a trading partner of the young Jewish merchant.37 In April 1833 Henry Williams noted in his journal that he had ‘a call from Mr. Polack a settler who came with a party of natives, being in treaty with them for some land and in need of a little interpretation38. By July Polack was in trouble. He went to Henry Williams again. ‘The news of the day,’ Henry Williams noted in his journal, ‘Mr. Polack stript of the whole of his property by small party of Natives from Waiomio; The assigned reason, that he swore at them.’39 James Busby, the British Resident, tried to resolve the issue. He called the Maori leaders together for a conference. The attack was justified, they said, as Polack had cursed them, saying he would cut off the head of a certain chief and cook it in a frying pan. From the Maori point of view no greater insult could be imagined40. Henry Williams’s sympathy for Polack was not very great. ‘This person is one of those free and independent men, full of threats and great boastings as to his treatment towards these people; as he had expressed himself thus to me upon one occasion.’41 Perhaps the freewheeling, young Jewish adventurer, confident in his superior education and knowledge of the world could hardly expect sympathy from the dour, self-righteous elder statesman of the missionary community. He was certainly a ‘free and independent man’, he admitted that he had a bad temper, but his plain spoken, assertive behavior did not harm his status among Maoris, who were themselves not that averse to some aggressive expressions of disapproval. Unlike the missionary and the British Resident, he had a sense of humour, enjoyed laughing at, but also with the Maoris. Though at times he made demands on his Maori companions that they were reluctant to fulfill, and when the occasion arose, he lost his temper and hit them, they seemed to put up with these outbursts and remained loyal to him, and made the most of his company.

But there was probably more to this incident than the bad language and idle threats to which the missionary took exception. Polack had built a house on the land that he had bought from Heke, but other Maoris, notably Rewa, the Waiomio chief, disputed Heke’s right to sell the land. That was their reason for destroying Polack’s house. Again Henry Williams noted in his journal ‘In the afternoon went over with Mr. Fairburn to see Mr. Polack who had sent a note requesting a call; found him in much disconcolation (sic), having lost every fraction of his property.’42 Polack expected Williams to take some action, but when he did not get satisfaction Williams recorded that ‘Mr. Polack was very profuse in abusive speeches because we did not exert ourselves more to his satisfaction in the case of the New Zealanders v. Polack.43 Polack had to find other ways of resolving the dispute.

Heke confronted Rewa’s allegations, claiming that the land was his through right of conquest as well as family connections through his uncle, Toi Tapu44. The real issue for these Maori chiefs was not the ownership of a piece of land that none of them needed, but their influence over the European merchant. ‘Good well-to-do pakehas, traders, ship-captains, labourers, employers of labour, these were honoured, cherished, caressed, protected and plucked. Plucked judiciously … so that the feathers might grow again.’45 As Judith Binney noted, ‘By the early 1830s, from the Maori perspective, the most valuable thing to acquire was a resident European. Whether missionary or trader, his value was the hapū’s source of supply.’46 Many successful European agents married into the Maori community, which protected them. Polack had such an offer of marriage during his travels through the Hokianga and Kaipara, and he was rather taken with the 15-year-old daughter of the chief, but he declined the offer and preferred to maintain his independence.47

Polack persevered, and managed to get the permission of Rewa and other disputants to take up the land that he purchased and rebuilt his house. His access to merchandise from Sydney was useful for the Maoris. That by then Polack learned to speak their language also helped. Maoris enjoyed trading, bargaining, saw this as a game, a challenge. That this European was not a missionary, that unlike some of the missionaries, he didn’t want to acquire vast tracks of Maori land, and wanted nothing more than to do business with them probably enhanced his usefulness. Boundaries were vaguely defined; Maoris were predisposed to selling the same piece of land over and over again to anyone prepared to pay for it. They did not have the same concept of land ownership that the Europeans had and Polack became well aware of that. He went to a great lengths to establish ownership of the land he had acquired within the framework of British law as applied in the colonies, and in particular, New South Wales. He had all the interested parties to the sale sign the document, which was witnessed by local European settlers, which included on the various deeds J. McDiarmid, N. Lewyn. T. Spicer. Jas. Livings. T. Kemp, John T. Montefiore. William Abbott, commanding the ship “Clarkston “ of Sydney, Wm. Powditch, William Alexander, Thos. S. Trapp, Robert Hookey. W. D. Brind, Commander, “Howard Castle.” Willm. Hindson, Master of “Cape Packet.”

Polack’s store

Despite the difficulties confronting him in the frontier society, Joel Polack set up his store on the beach of Kororareka, soon to be the centre of European settlement. He arrived with no capital. His brother provided the merchandise and the credit. Joel wrote to his brother Abraham on 16th December 1834, well over a year after he bought his land in Kororareka:.

‘I have to acknowledge with many thanks the receipt of the goods mentioned in your invoice dated 14 Nov. …. Now brother you will perceive by the enclosed remittance I can do well if I had only encouragement. And as I know you can get 12 & 18 mo: credit — do stretch a point and get me the following articles per 1st opportunity so that I may compete with the others — I do not forget my old debt to you — so do give me the opportunity of doing something try and send me therefore the following articles.’

Here he listed the goods that he wanted: wine, rum, port, beer, and corks. He also wanted good blankets, shirts Guernsey frocks, printed fabric, and raisins, cheese, soap, sugar, but no tea (!). He asked for a few fowling pieces and three double barreled pieces, but not percussion and nothing fine. Finally he wanted a box of trifles such as small looking glasses in little black frames, common scissors, flints and steels, teapots or any other trifles for natives, large bowl pipes, beads and packs of cards. He gave clear instructions to his brother about the maximum prices he should pay. ‘My principal support is you buying at Auction Sales’, he wrote, ‘- Do not forget GOVERNMENT sales by Auction. … You cannot send too many slops [i.e. articles of clothing and bedding issued or sold to sailors] as 5 Whalers fit out here in 2 months for England — & 30 for the fishing.’

He told his brother how to ship these goods. ‘1st get all measured by SIZE & not by WEIGHT, 2nd to pay the Freight in Sydney & to fill hollow goods up.’ Clearly overheads had to be contained to be competitive.

Joel Polack, the restless adventurer, seemed to be ready to settle down. He asked his brother if he knew of a ‘Steady — moral respectable — sober young man — willing to forego Sydney luxuries for plain pork & potatoes’ to assist him & live as a companion. He was prepared to pay £20 and more as the business improved. He also wanted ‘a companion in the shape of a good wife — accomplished as a housewife & calculated to make a man comfortable’ He could do with a little cash [by way of a dowry], but could also go without that. He had the 17-year-old daughter of Solomons of Hobart Town in mind48. To find a Jewish wife in the colonies you had to cast your net wide. Clearly nothing came of this proposal.

In a letter written three weeks later, on 7th January 1835 Joel Polack told his brother that things were looking up. He was paying invoices for some of the goods he had received. He was also pleased that the master of the ship, “Charles of London” had appointed him as his agent and recommended him to masters of other vessels.

He noted that some of the prices Abraham had paid for merchandise were too high, the soldiers’ coats were moth eaten, the pitch tar rosin too dear and could only be sold on commission at cost plus freight, the rum was the worst in the bay, but the soap and sugar were very cheap and good. He also listed further goods he wanted; more rum, wine, port and bottles and corks, more clothing, blankets, trifles, but this time he also ordered linseed oil, turpentine, salad oil and pickles, violin strings, nails, window glass, spades and hoes, a reflection of the changing economy and needs of the Bay of Islands.

Joel’s main problem was, however that he could not transact business unless he had some person of ‘respectable manners’ to help him. Vessels sometimes anchored six miles from the shore and when he went to them there was no one to look after his house. He urgently needed a respectable young man of 20 to 28 who could go on board a vessel and transact business. He was sure that there were immigrants in Sydney who would jump at such an opportunity, and if Abraham knew of no one, Joel asked him to advertise for one.

It was not until two years later that Joel Polack managed to find such help, a young shipwright and carpenter, Dominick Ferari49, also known as Domenique Feraris, yet somehow, Polack still managed to leave his house and store and sail extensively around New Zealand, and in 1836 to leave for Australia for an extended period. Thomas Spicer, another local trader, who arrived in New Zealand that year helped when Polack was away.50 Later he leased Polack’s business when Polack returned to England. Puhi, whom Polack described as his ‘native servant’ and who accompanied him on his journey along the Kaipara river, also travelled with him on all his journeys, possibly acting as an interpreted and guide, and sailed also with him twice to Port Jackson.51

By 1838 Kororareka was the most frequented resort for whalers in all the South Sea Islands; and its European population, although fluctuating, was then estimated at a thousand souls. It had a church, five hotels, numberless grog-shops, a theatre, several billiard tables, skittle alleys, finishes [sic], and hells [gambling houses].52 Polack realised that in such a place a brewery was bound to do well. In 1935 he built a brewery on his property. He transported most of the equipment from New South Wales. He also brought in the barley and hops and a brewer from Tasmania.53 Brewing beer locally set him at odds with the missionaries, who saw this as encouraging the natives to take to alcohol, though Polack saw the benefit of natives drinking beer rather than much stronger spirits. It also set him at odds with other traders and publicans, who considered this as a move to undercut them in a very lucrative part of their trade. Polack was not liked. Ormond Wilson’s reading of contemporary accounts reflects how some of the Bay of Island settlers saw Polack. In contemporary accounts Polack is seen as somewhat pompous, despised by his fellow settlers. A letter to his brother in Sydney (quoted above) discloses his financially precarious situation, dependent for hope of profit in his operations on picking up goods cheaply and on long-term credit.54

Not withstanding the opinions of his neighbours, Polack prospered, and was one of the wealthiest people in New Zealand in the decade before colonisation. He quickly learned to speak and understand Maori and established good relations with them. It is evident from his writing that he treated them with respect, he was not judgmental, though found their ways amusing at times. He saw them as keen trading partners. As a trader and businessman, he was astute and innovative. If some of the other European traders accused him of sharp business practice,55 this should be seen in light of the practices of a community of settlers all on the make.

His neighbours, hardly honorable men, disputed the boundaries of his property and at times encroached on it56. A number of times he had occasion to call on Henry Williams, the leading missionary, equally respected by Maori and the Europeans settlers, to intervene in his disputes.

In New Zealand he had only two friends, he said, speaking to the enquiry of the Select Committee of the House of Lords, John Montefiore and Capt. Powditch57. John Montefiore, like Polack, was a Jew, but though there were four other Jews living in the Bay of Islands58 at the time, Polack did not regard them as friends. Nor did he consider Gilbert Mair or James Clendon, business associates at various times, as friends. Perhaps Polack was something of the snob. He was an educated man, almost certainly the most learned man at the time in New Zealand. He might have considered himself socially superior to other settlers. His writing suggests that he might have been somewhat supercilious, with a deprecating sense of humour. Yet his language, his use of unusual and at times inappropriate words, might also imply that he was somewhat insecure, pretending to be someone he wasn’t. Within a class-conscious community he was not quite a gentleman, not an army officer, a ship’s captain, a missionary, a man of God, who all had a certain status, not one from a family of gentry, or even the son of a wealthy distinguished mercantile family like the Montefiores. He was an artist, a writer, a footloose adventurer, who accumulated a modest fortune through his keen eye for business opportunities, and his fearless readiness to take risks in the face of the unknown.

During his stay in New Zealand Polack traveled widely.

1 Cowan, J. (1955). The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume I: 18451864 Wellington, Government Printer, R. E. Owen.

2 Manning, F. E. (1862). History of the War in the North of New Zealand University of Auckland Early New Zealand Books, p.7

3 Manning, ibid p.2

4 See History on line http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/people/te-ruki-kawiti

5 New Zealand History online: The Sacking of Kororareka http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/northern-war/sacking-kororareka

6 See Polack’s comments to the Select Committee on how he acquired some of his land, and also National Archives OLC 638–42

7 Polack, J. S. (1838). New Zealand; Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures in the Country between 1831 and 1837 London, Richard Bentley.

Polack, J. S. (1840). Manners and customs of the New Zealanders. London, James Madden.

8 COMMITTEES, H. O. C. P. R. O. (1837–38). Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire into the present state of the islands of New Zealand, and the expediency of regulating the settlement of British subjects therein; with the minutes of evidence taken before the committee, and index thereto

9 Lee, J. (1983). ’I have named it the Bay of Islands — ’ Auckland, Hodder and Stoughton.

10 Lee, p.180

11 Polack’s Letter to the Rt. Hon. W. Gladstone of 12 September 1846, ANZ OLC 638–42

12 Cowan, J. (1955). The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume I: 18451864 Wellington, Government Printer, R. E. Owen.

13 New Zealand History online: The Sacking of Kororareka

14 Chisolm, Polack OLC 638–42 46/1407 and 49/631, Quoted in Jones, Writers in residence.p.35

15 Polack’s Letter to the Rt. Hon. W. Gladstone of 12 September 1846, ANZ OLC 638–42

16 Jones, Writers in residence, p.35

17 Polack’s Letter to the Rt. Hon. W. Gladstone of 12 September 1846, ANZ OLC 638–42

18 Jones, J. R. (2004). Writers in Residence: A Journey with Pioneer New Zealand Writers. Auckland, Auckland University Press. The painting is now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, P.11–1933. .

19 Jocelyn Chisholm papers (in possession of the author): Letter dated 11 September 1967, from James L. Sanderson (who married Norma Marian Polack, prob. granddaughter of Abraham Polack)

20 Chisholm, Jocelyn. ‘Polack, Joel Samuel 1807–1882’. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 22 June 2007 URL: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/ For an account of Polack’s early life see J. S. Polack, Manners and Customs of New Zealanders, p. xxxiv.

21 The Monitor, Friday 13 April 1827 P. 4

22 Old Bailey Proceedings, t. F. (1820). t18200217–69 Abaraham Polack. O. B. Proceedings, http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?path=sessionsPapers%2F18200217.xml.

23 Chisholm, Polack

24 Bergman, J. S. L. G. F. J. (1974). Australian genesis: Jewish convicts and settlers, 1788–1850. Adelaide, Rigby.

25 Ibid: References re. arrival Sydney Monitor, 13 April 1827, p. 380; Land Grant Mitchell Lib. CO20I/I80 Vol. 1. Col Office — in letters — 1826, vol 9, H-Z

26 ibid: Sydney Monitor, 12 November 1827, p.759

27 ibid: Jour. Aust. Hist. Soc., Vol V, part VI, p. 292

28 Cecil Roth, The Jewish Contribution to Civilisation, p. 129, also AUS-PT-JACKSON-CONVICTS-L Archives, http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/AUS-PT-JACKSON-CONVICTS/2004-06/1087092164G.F.J. Berman, Abraham Polack 1797–1875, Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal & Proceedings.

29 Roth, C. (1940). The Jewish Contribution to Civilization. New York and London, Harper Brothers.

30 Jocelyn Chisholm papers: Letter dated 11 September 1967, from James L. Sanderson

31 Franceschina, John. ‘Introduction to Elizabeth Polack’s Esther.’ British Women Playwrights around 1800. 15 October 2000. 11 pars. http://www.etang.umontreal.ca/bwp1800/essays/franceschina_esther_intro.html

32 Jocelyn Chisholm papers: Letter dated 11 September 1967, from James L. Sanderson

[Joel Polack] was related to Queen Marau Taaroa, the last Queen of Tahiti. She was Solomon Polack’s great granddaighter. Solomon’s daughter, Rebecca, (sister of Joel S. Polack) had married John Dalmon, son of a French — born Jewish banker, named Ernest Salmon, who became an “exile” in England because of his involvement in the attempted escape of Marie Antoinette from France; the so called “Varennes Affair”. Rebecca’s and John Salmon’s son, Alexandre Salmon, a Mate, or Master Mariner, and an associate, briefly, with Abraham Polack, in Sydney, married a Tahitian Princess, Arritaimai, a Chieftainess of the Teva clan of Tahiti. They had 9 children, one of whom, a daughter, Marau (1860–1934) married King Pomare V (1839–1890). So J. S. Polack was, by virtue of having ‘greatness thrust upon him’, became the ‘grand uncle’ of the Last Queen of Tahiti.

33 Hunt, G. (2000). The Rich List: Wealth and Enterprise in New Zealand. Auckland, Auckland University Press.

34 Polack, J. S. (1838). New Zealand; Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures in the Country between 1831 and 1837 London, Richard Bentley.

35 Grady, Don (1986) Sealers & whalers in New Zealand waters. Auckland, Reed Methuen, p. 60

36 Chisholm., R. R. a. J. (1992). Bay of Islands shipping arrivals and departures, 1803–1840. Wellington, Paremata Press.

37 National Archives OLC 638–42

38 Williams, H. (1961). The Early Journals of Henry Williams. Christchurch, Pegasus Press.

39 Williams, Early Journals, p.322

40 Ramsden, E. (1942). Busby of Waitangi : H.M.’s Resident at New Zealand. Wellington, Reed.

41 ibid.

42 Williams, Early Journals p. 322

43 Williams, Early Journals p. 324

44 OLC 638–42

45 Maning, F. E. (1863). Old New Zealand : a tale of the good old times / by a Pākehā Māori. Auckland, Robert J. Creighton & Alfred Scales.

46 Binney, J. (2010). Stories without end. Wellington, Bridget Williams Books.

47 Polack, New Zealand: Being a Narrative, p.123–5

48 Auckland War memorial Museum Library Ref: MS 245, Folder 2

49 Goldman, L. M. (1958). The history of the Jews in New Zealand. Wellington, Reed.

50 Lee, J. (1983). ’I have named it the Bay of Islands — ’ Auckland, Hodder and Stoughton.

51Polack, Manners, p.59–60

52 Thomson, A. S. (1859). The story of New Zealand : past and present — savage and civilized. London, J. Murray.

53 McLauchlan, G. (1994). The story of beer : beer and brewing, a New Zealand history. Auckland, Viking Penguin.

54 Wilson, O. (1990). Kororareka & other essays. Dunedin, John McIndoe.

55 Lee

56 NA OLC 638–42

57 COMMITTEES, H. O. C. P. R. O. (1837–38). Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire into the present state of the islands of New Zealand, and the expediency of regulating the settlement of British subjects therein; with the minutes of evidence taken before the committee, and index thereto

58 ibid