Port Chalmers () is a town serving as the main port of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Port Chalmers lies inside Otago Harbour, some northeast of Dunedin's city centre.
Name refers to the bay itself, and means 'full tide' ( = tide). One story tells that a group of warriors spent the night in a cave at what was later known as Boiler Point, and pulled their canoes well above the high tide mark. Overnight, the tide rose and the beached canoes were set adrift. Some of the group swam out to reclaim the canoes while those onshore cried out "Koputai!, Koputai!"
European settlers initially planned to rename the settlement 'New Leith' or 'New Musselburgh', as they disliked the Māori name of Kōpūtai; but the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland (later known as the Otago Association), suggested that the port might be named after Thomas Chalmers (leader of the Free Church movement in Scotland).
History
Early Māori settlement The last known at Kōpūtai was led by a chief called Kohi. The story goes that Kohi fell ill and worried that his young son Timoko would never have any benefit from a sealing boat in which he had a share. He therefore instructed his servants, Kurukuru and Rau-o-te-uri, to burn the boat where it lay on the beach at Kōpūtai. The other partners in the boat were outraged, so, after consulting his wife Piro, Kohi consented at Otaheiti to be strangled as punishment. Taiaroa, his cousin, was given the task but upon observing his hand trembling as he was tying the knot Kohi exclaimed: "Kahore kia mataa a Taiaroa ki te mea o te taura" (Taiaroa does not know how to tie a knot). Kohi then took the rope, tied a slip-knot, and adjusted the rope about his own neck before Taiaroa pulled upon the rope tight, until he was dead. Kohi was buried at Kōpūtai. By 1844, Kōpūtai was deserted.
No archaeological sites relating to Māori have been discovered in Port Chalmers, although records from European settlers in the 1830s and 1840s note the presence of buildings on the now-reclaimed beach. By 1844 this settlement was fully abandoned.
Arrival of the Europeans Captain James Herd visited the Otago Harbour in 1826. By the 1830s Kōpūtai Bay was a whaling station in use by America, British, and French vessels.
The first Christian service at Kōpūtai was held by the Reverend James Watkin, the Wesleyan missionary at Waikouaiti, in 1842.
In 1844, the schooner Deborah, under the command of Captain Thomas Wing, was chartered by Frederick Tuckett of the New Zealand Company to assist him in choosing a site for the planned New Edinburgh settlement. Tuckett explored the harbour and its environs, as well as the inland country. The Deborah anchored near Kōpūtai in the bay now called Deborah Bay, where the ship's hull remains. By 11 June 1944 Kōpūtai had a makeshift jetty, two whare (Māori-style houses) and some tents. Tuckett built a brick home there in 1844, distinctive among the primarily wattle-and-daub buildings that made up the settlement until the Otago gold rush.
The sale of the Otago Block from the Māori to the Otago Association was concluded at Kōpūtai on 31 July 1844. In December 1844, Tuckett left and returned to England, with William Davidson taking over his cottage and position as the New Zealand Company's local representative. In that same month, Janet and Alexander McKay arrived with plans to establish a public house. It eventually opened as the 'Surveyors' Arms' on what is now Beach Street and was licensed by the Akaroa-based magistrate John Watson in 1846. On 23 February 1846, the ship Mary Catherine anchored at Kōpūtai. On board was Charles Kettle, surveyor to the New Zealand Company, with his wife and a staff of six assistant surveyors and 25 labourers, whose task was to survey the land that had been purchased from the Māori. Kettle and his wife took up residence in Tuckett's cottage. The survey of the town was completed in May 1846.
The first organised European settlers arrived in Otago Harbour on the John Wickliffe, which moored off Port Chalmers on 23 March 1848. The Philip Laing arrived on 15 April 1848 to find a settlement surrounded by dense bush. It consisted of the New Zealand Company's store, Tuckett's former cottage and three . Port Chalmers had 400 potential sections available compared with Dunedin's 2,000. By 1849, the population had reached 38, which rose to 80 by 1854, and around 130 by 1861.
Origins of Port Chalmers Disagreement arose over where the main Otago port should be but eventually Port Chalmers superseded Ōtākou as the main Otago port. The Bowen pier was built in 1873, followed by the Export pier, and, later, the George Street pier.
In 1854, the 220 ton Nelson was the first steamer to visit Port Chalmers, as the Otago harbour was too shallow for large ships to reach Dunedin. Ships initially used to anchor in the stream, and the cargo was transferred to lighters, which were towed by tugs to Dunedin at the head of the harbour. There was also a steep road connection from North East Valley to Sawyers Bay, a spur of the main road north.
By the 1860s, a road along the side of the harbour between Dunedin and Port Chalmers had been built, which allowed ships to dock at Port Chalmers and their goods then transported to and from Dunedin by road. In 1862, Dunedin and Port Chalmers were connected by a telegraph line.
The Otago gold rush, which started in 1861, saw 16,000 new arrivals pass through the port in three months. This transformed Port Chalmers as businesses sprung up to service both the increasing number of ships and their passengers. Despite the development, the streets were still unpaved and muddy following any heavy rain. By 1864, Port Chalmers had grown to be the third largest port in Australasia, with a population of at least 1,000; five hotels, three restaurants, six general stores, two chemists, two bakeries, two barbers, two blacksmiths, two churches, two schools, and a Masonic Hall (which functioned during the week as a courthouse).
Between the 1860s and 1870s the bay was reclaimed to provide land for expansion of the port and a railway between Port Chalmers and Dunedin.
On 18 June 1865, a large fire consumed an entire block at the corner of George and Grey Streets, destroying a number of buildings. The fire was put out by local citizens and the Naval Brigade. A volunteer fire brigade was not organised until 1876.
In 1881 the Victoria Ship Channel was dredged along the north-western side of the harbour, to allow ocean-going ships to reach the city's wharves.
New Zealand's refrigerated meat trade began when the ship Dunedin left Port Chalmers with the first such cargo, in 1882.
Railway connection In the early 1870s, construction began on the Port Chalmers Branch railway line linking Dunedin and Port Chalmers. The line went through a cutting and a tunnel before terminating at a new wharf. Soil excavated from the tunnel was used for the reclamation of land for this wharf. When the railway line opened on 1 January 1873, it was the first 1,067 mm narrow gauge railway in New Zealand. After the line opened, the lighters service between Port Chalmers and Dunedin stopped.
The branch line was incorporated into the national rail network through a connection at Sawyers Bay to the Main South Line, which was opened through to Christchurch on 7 September 1878 and Invercargill on 22 January 1879. A railway station called the "Upper Station" was built to service passengers where the Main South Line went along the hill above the port; the branch terminus on the wharf continued to service freight and was known as the "Lower Station".
The first dedicated ferry service was introduced on the harbour in 1859, but it was not profitable. As the region's growth rapidly increased during the Gold Rush, scheduled ferry services ran between Port Chalmers and Portobello from 1876 to 1954.
Servicing Antarctic exploration In November 1894, the port was host to the Antarctic, a Norwegian whaling and sealing ship soon to be credited with the first substantiated landing on the Antarctic continent. While docked in Port Chalmers for repairs and restocking, several of her crew refused to continue with the voyage, and four New Zealanders were recruited several days later at Stewart Island. During the heroic era of Antarctic exploration, the Otago Harbour Board sought to attract subsequent explorers, extending generous hospitality by way of coal, food, and complimentary use of the harbour facilities. This dangled carrot drew Robert Falcon Scott, who visited with both the Discovery in December 1901 and his final doomed Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica in November 1910. It attracted Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod and Endurance expeditions. In 1916, Shackleton's damaged ship, the Aurora, was towed to Port Chalmers, repaired in Port and then returned to Antarctica. American Richard E. Byrd used Port Chalmers as the base for his Antarctic operations in 1928, Lincoln Ellsworth did likewise in 1933, and so did a number of other American, French and New Zealand explorers over the coming decades.
1900s
In 1903, the temperance movement was successful in prohibiting the selling of alcohol in the Port Chalmers electorate. Hotels in the town banded together, taking their case as far as the Privy Council in London, before winning back their licences in May 1905.
By 1905, the town had a population of over 2,000 and was home to two railway stations, two banks, a dairy factory, gas works, two cemeteries, a recreation reserve, two fire stations, a brass band, salt water bath, and a Mechanics' Institute. The town was protected by a company of the Permanent Artillery and the Garrison Artillery Volunteers.
A road tunnel linking Sawyers Bay with Waitati as part of a new north motorway from Dunedin was proposed in the 1930s, but never built. A new faster, harbourside road from the city was completed in 1965.
By 1961, the population had grown to 3,120.
The selection of Port Chalmers as the South Island's first container terminal in 1971 re-established Port Chalmers as the South Island's major commercial port.
In 1979, passenger trains between Port Chalmers and Dunedin ceased after 106 years of operation. All of the buildings at the Upper Station were subsequently removed. Container freight traffic continued to grow, alongside a new timber trade, but the greatly reduced labour needs of these trades saw the town's population lessen.
Controversial attempts to site an aluminium smelter at Aramoana at the mouth of the harbour in 1975 and 1980 did not succeed.
From the 1970s, an artists' colony grew up in Port Chalmers and Carey's Bay, contributing to tensions over the port's continuing industrial development and changing the demographics of the town.
In 1987, the Port Chalmers Old Identities Society's collection was transferred to the old Post Office building and reopened as the Port Chalmers Museum. This has since been renamed the Port Chalmers Maritime Museum.
Geography Port Chalmers covers a small peninsula situated within the Otago Harbour. Most of the port is reclaimed land, with Beach Street bordering the now reclaimed Kōpūtai Bay. Quarantine Island/Kamau Taurua and Goat Island / Rakiriri bridge the harbour between Port Chalmers and the Otago Peninsula.
Prior to the local body reorganisation in the 1980s, Port Chalmers was made up of several suburbs (as well as the central area): Roseneath, Blanket Bay, Upper Junction, Brick Hill, Sawyers Bay, Mussel Bay, Upper Port Chalmers, Dalkeith, Careys Bay, Reynoldstown, Deborah Bay, Hamilton Bay, Waipuna Bay, Te Ngaru, and Aramoana; as well as the outlying townships of Long Beach, Pūrākanui and several other smaller nearby villages and farmsteads.
The main street of Port Chalmers is George Street. The centre of the town is in a low-lying valley and is more dense than the rest of Port Chalmers.
Many of Port Chalmers' street names reference its early history.