William Stewart (cartographer)

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William W. Stewart (born around 1776 in Dundee , Scotland ; † September 10, 1851 in Poverty Bay ) was a Scottish cartographer , captain, seal hunter and whaler. After him was Stewart Iceland , the third largest island of New Zealand named.

Life

William Stewart was born in Scotland around 1776. About 17 years old, he entered the Royal Navy and served until 1797 in the West Indies under Admiral John Jervis and General Charles Gray . After that, Stewart is said to have deserted the Navy and acted as the leader of privateers or pirates .

On June 12, 1801, Stewart from Calcutta finally reached Port Jackson , Sydney's port, bought himself into a trading partnership for £ 1,500 and operated sea ​​trade in the Bass Strait between Tasmania and mainland Australia . In 1805 he worked with the Australian merchant Robert Campbell and led several expeditions to the Antipodes Islands to hunt seals.

In August 1809 Stewart sailed under Captain S. Chace as the first officer on board the Pegasus for New Zealand. The reason for this trip is still unknown today. What is known, however, is that Stewart established that Stewart Island was an island and had no northern connection to the South Island of New Zealand . He also corrected the mistake of James Cook , who mapped the Banks Peninsula as an island on his first circumnavigation of New Zealand in 1769 . Stewart created a map of Port Pegasus ( Māori : Pikihatiti ) on Stewart Island and later completed the maps of the Admiralty of the Chatham Islands , which William Robert Broughton left incomplete in 1791.

After voyages in New Zealand waters, the Pegasus sailed back to England in 1810 . Stewart disembarked at Gravesend in August 1810 . In 1816 his map of Port Pegasus was published in the book Oriental Navigator by the British hydrographer Joseph Huddart .

1824 came back to England again. Unfortunately, nothing is known about his travels of the previous 10 years. Back in England, Stewart showed an interest in establishing a trading post on Stewart Island . After successful negotiations, he sailed back to New Zealand in 1826 and made three trips to Stewart Island in the following years . On one of his trips he brought woodworkers from the Bay of Islands to Stewart Island , who then built the first Stewart Islands ship , the schooner Joseph Weller . But his settlement project on Stewart Island was not to be successful. Stewart is said to have retired to Cloudy Bay in the northeast of the South Island of New Zealand in 1827 .

In 1833 he lived briefly on Mana Island in the Mamanuca Islands and a year later he sailed on the Bee into the waters around Hawaii , where he allegedly behaved heroically in a kidnapping event. In 1840 he came back to Stewart Island as captain of the HMS Herald and lived there until late 1849 or early 1850, then traveled to Captain JW Harris , who operated a trading post in Poverty Bay . Stewart died there at the age of 75 on September 10, 1851.

Legends

Many stories were told about William Stewart among sealers during their lifetime . In some publications he was erroneously attributed to having discovered Stewart Island or the Foveaux Strait .

family

William Stewart was married to a woman from the Māori tribe of Ngāpuhi and had a son, named Tuati (also Tuatti ), who later worked under the European name of John Sac between 1838 and 1840 on the US expedition under the command of Charles Wilkes participated in the South Pacific and is considered the first New Zealander to visit Antarctica .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Place names in New Zealand originating from seamen and ships! . rootsweb , accessed on May 2, 2014 .
  2. ^ A b Joseph Angus Mackay : William Stewart, The Sea Rover - Adventurous Career Ends in Poverty Bay . In: Joseph Angus Mackay (Ed.): Historic Poverty Bay and the East Coast, NI, NZ . Gisborne 1949, p.  461 (English, online [accessed May 2, 2014]).
  3. ↑ a b c Foster : Stewart, Captain William W. . In: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand . 1966.
  4. ^ Robert McNab : Murihiku: A History of the South Island of New Zealand and the Islands Adjacent and Lying to the South, from 1642 to 1835 . In: Historic Poverty Bay and the East Coast, NI, NZ . Whitcombe and Tombs Limited , Wellington 1909, p.  156 (English, online [accessed May 2, 2014]).
  5. ↑ First sighting of Antarctica by Tuati . New Zealand History Online , accessed May 2, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Stewart, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stewart, William W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish cartographer, captain, seal and whaler
DATE OF BIRTH around 1776
PLACE OF BIRTH Dundee , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1851
Place of death Poverty Bay , New Zealand