Fraser brothers remembered in Wellington street-name history
A 1905 New Zealand Mail article on Wellington street names states that Thomas and Alexander Fraser arrived at Kāpiti in 1837 on a whaling cruise, lived among Māori at Kāpiti and Mana for many years, and were later associated with the Wellington locality known as Fraser’s Lane. The report is an intriguing bridge between early whaling communities and urban Wellington history. It should be compared with the brothers’ contemporary business and land records.
A wider commercial network
Alexander Fraser’s accounts from Long Point demonstrate that the Kāpiti stations were connected to wider networks of shipping, supplies and credit. The Long Point returns recorded five boats, forty-four tuns of oil and fifty-seven hundredweight of bone in 1840; six boats, 172 tuns of oil and eight tons of bone in 1841; and seven tuns of oil and seven hundredweight of bone in 1842. The striking variation illustrates how quickly a station’s commercial fortunes could change. These are dated station returns, not figures for the entire Cook Strait whaling industry.
Further reading: Nigel Prickett, The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling (2002), Kāpiti–Mana section, pp. 83–97.
Explore connected books
Explore connected history
- Fraser brothers’ later property transactions
- A correspondent counts boats and oil at Kāpiti and Mana
- Alexander Fraser 1840 station accounts
- Alexander Fraser testifies about Kāpiti whaling contracts
- Fraser’s Long Point accounts reveal workforce turnover
- Captain Charles Bayley Whaling Master 1813 1875
- Eleven ships off Kāpiti in 1837
- Wallaby crew absconded at Kāpiti
- Wallaby travelled between Kāpiti and southern ports
- Wallaby 1842 right-whale catch
- Fortitude 1843 return
- Charles Bayley and Wallaby at Kāpiti in 1842
Follow this history into other books
Continue with these connected accounts. Each opens a separate book with its own evidence and perspective.