, first officer of the
Dundonald, in the graveyard on the main island.
Discovery and early exploitation Evidence exists that
Polynesian voyagers first discovered the Auckland Islands. Traces of Polynesian settlement, possibly dating to the 13th century, have been found by archaeologists on Enderby Island. This is the most southerly settlement by Polynesians yet known. The
whaler , captained by
Abraham Bristow, rediscovered the islands in 1806, finding them uninhabited. Bristow named them "Lord Auckland's" on 18 August 1806 in honour of his father's friend
William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland (whose son
the Earl of Auckland would be namesake of
New Zealand's largest city). Bristow worked for the businessman
Samuel Enderby, the namesake of
Enderby Island. The following year Bristow returned on to claim the
archipelago for
Britain. The explorers
Dumont D'Urville and
James Clark Ross visited in 1839 and in 1840 respectively. Whalers and sealers set up temporary bases, the islands becoming one of the principal sealing stations in the Pacific in the years immediately after their discovery. Relics of the sealing period include inscriptions, the remains of huts, and graves.
Settlement Now
uninhabited, the islands saw unsuccessful settlements in the mid-19th century. In 1842, a small party of 70
Māori and their
Moriori slaves from the
Chatham Islands migrated to the archipelago, surviving for about 20 years or so on sealing and
flax growing. Samuel Enderby's grandson,
Charles Enderby, proposed a community based on agriculture and
whaling in 1846. This settlement, established at
Port Ross in 1849 and named Hardwicke, lasted only two and a half years. Māori and Moriori settlement continued until 1866, when most of the Māori and some of the Moriori returned to the
Chatham Islands; however, most of the
Moriori settled on
Stewart Island, where some of their descendants continue to live today. The Auckland Islands were part of the
Colony of New Zealand under the Letters Patent of April 1842, which fixed the southern boundary of New Zealand at
53° south, but they were then excluded by the
New Zealand Constitution Act 1846, which defined the southern boundary at
47° 10' south; however, they were again included by the New Zealand Boundaries Act of 1863, an act of the
Imperial Parliament at
Westminster that extended the boundaries of the colony once more.
Shipwrecks The , captained by
Thomas Musgrave, was wrecked in
Carnley Harbour in 1864. Madelene Ferguson Allen's narrative about her great-grandfather, Robert Holding, and the wreck of the Scottish sailing ship , wrecked in the Auckland Islands a few months later in 1864, counterpoints the
Grafton story.
François Édouard Raynal wrote
Wrecked on a Reef. In 1866, one of New Zealand's most famous shipwrecks, that of the
General Grant, occurred on the western coast. Ten survivors waited for rescue on Auckland Island for 18 months. Several attempts have failed to salvage its cargo, allegedly including
bullion. Because of the probability of wrecks around the islands, calls arose for the establishment of
emergency depots for castaways in 1868. The New Zealand authorities established and maintained three such depots, at Port Ross, Norman Inlet and
Carnley Harbour from 1887. They also cached additional supplies, including boats (to help reach the depots) and 40 finger-posts (which had smaller amounts of supplies), around the islands. A further maritime tragedy occurred in 1907, with the loss of the and 12 of her crew, off Disappointment Island. The 15 survivors lived off the supplies in the Auckland Island depot. In 2019, a helicopter with three people on board crashed into the ocean near Enderby Island, when they were en route to uplift an ill man on a fishing trawler. All three survived the crash, and were found the next day with only minor injuries. The rescue effort was led by
Richard Hayes.
Scientific research and reserve Three independent scientific expeditions visited the Auckland Islands in 1840. These included the United States
Wilkes Expedition aboard the
USS Porpoise, d'Urville's second voyage of the
Astrolabe (French)
, and the British
Ross Expedition aboard the
Erebus and ''Terror. From 1941 to 1945, the islands hosted a New Zealand
meteorological station as part of a World War II
coastwatching programme staffed by scientist volunteers and known for security reasons as the "
Cape Expedition".'' the islands have no inhabitants, although scientists visit regularly and the authorities allow limited tourism on Enderby Island and Auckland Island.'' The Subantarctic Islands marine reserves around the Auckland, Antipodes, Bounty and Campbell Islands combined form the largest natural sanctuary in New Zealand. == Ecology ==