page_title: Abraham Bristow
section_title: Discovery of the Auckland Islands
hierarchical_section_title: Abraham Bristow / Discovery of the Auckland Islands
caption_attribution_description: Topographic map of the Auckland Islands
context_page_description: Abraham Bristow was a British mariner, sealer and whaler. In August 1806 he discovered the Auckland Islands.
context_section_description: After three months at home he sailed again for the South Seas as master of the same vessel, departing London 2 April 1805. By 13 August they were at Adventure Bay near Hobart with 70 tuns of right whale oil, one of the first whalers to exploit the recently discovered right whale fishery in the Derwent Estuary. From there they departed for the sperm whale fishery off New Zealand. They returned to Adventure Bay off Tasmania in May 1806, and departed for Britain on 4 August. Two weeks later, on 18 August 1806, they discovered the Auckland Islands. Bristow wrote in his log,
  ... being the first discoverer, I shall call the island or islands Lord Auckland's (my friend through my father). They are situated in latitude 50 degrees 48 minutes South, and longitude 166 degrees 42 minutes East ... The land is of moderate height, and from its appearance I have no doubt but it will afford a good harbour in the north end ... This place I should suppose abounds with seals, and sorry I am that the time and the lumbering state of my ship do not allow me to examine them.
  The "lumbering state" of Ocean meant the vessel did not reach London till February 1807.
  Bristow's next commanded the Enderby-owned whaler Sarah. She departed London in April 1807 and arrived at the Auckland Islands in October, for a more detailed examination, and to claim the islands for Britain. The group consisted of six separate islands with a total area of 240 square miles (625 km²).
  I arrived at them in the Sarah the 20th October 1807. The mountains were then covered with snow, the weather exceptionally cold, with almost continual storms of wind. The atmosphere was uncommonly thick and heavy, and until the end of October much snow fell. November produced heavy rain, and in fact till I left the island on 19th December scarce a day passed without wet and the most tempestuous weather for a continuance I ever experienced in any port. Although the seasons appeared to be late, yet vegetation is very rapid ...Animals I saw none but the amphibious kind, such as hair seals and elephants [seals], and they are not very numerous ... For the benefit of future navigators, I left a breed of hogs on Enderby Island.
  Although Bristow took possession of the Auckland Islands for the British Crown they proved of little value during the 19th century. Charles Enderby, whose father owned the ship on which Bristow discovered the islands, established a whaling settlement that lasted from 1849 to 1852. Another attempt to colonize the islands, by a mixed group of group of Maori and Moriori natives from the Chatham Islands, lasted a little longer (1843 to 1856).
caption: Topographical map of the Auckland Islands.
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