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This anchor is one of three abandoned by the French navigator Jean François Marie de Surville when his ship, the St Jean Baptiste, was caught in a storm off Tokerau in Doubtless Bay, Northland, in December 1769.

Two of the anchors were discovered in 1974, this one by Mike Bearsley and the other by Kelly Tarlton. They were recovered by a team of divers including Bearsley and Tarlton, and conserved in Kaitaia. This anchor was placed on permanent loan at the Far North Regional Museum, now Museum @ Te Ahu, and is on display there.

The St Jean Baptiste sailed from India in June 1769 on a voyage of trade and discovery. The ship travelled to Malacca, the Philippines and the Solomon Islands before setting a course for New Zealand in November 1769. By then the scurvy-ridden crew were desperately in need of fresh food and water. The ship reached Hokianga Harbour on 12 December 1769, and anchored in Doubtless Bay (which they named Lauriston Bay) five days later.

Unbeknownst to De Surville, the Endeavour, captained by James Cook, was making its way up the East Coast on a separate voyage of discovery. The two ships never met, and as historian John Dunmore wrote in 1969, ‘Cook sailed on to fame and de Surville to death and almost complete oblivion’ (Fateful Voyage, 9).

While anchored at Doubtless Bay the crew of St Jean Baptiste traded with Ngāti Kahu, exchanging cloth for fish and vegetables. Violent storms battered the ship and almost wrecked the St Jean Baptiste upon the rocks. Three of the ship’s six anchors had been dropped but they began to drag. One anchor cable snapped and de Surville ordered the other two to be cut away. As soon as the ship’s water supplies were replenished de Surville sailed on to South America.

The crew’s interactions with Ngāti Kahu were mostly friendly. However, on the 31st of December 1769, his last day in the Bay, de Surville noticed a small yawl, thought to have been lost in a storm, sitting on the beach. He searched for the yawl for hours, but it had been dragged away and hidden. De Surville ‘arrested’ Ranginui, a Ngāti Kahu leader, and ordered the destruction of whare and other property. Ranginui was apparently well treated on board the St Jean Baptiste, but like many others was afflicted by scurvy. He died at sea on 24 March 1770.

With the crew greatly diminished, the St Jean Baptiste limped into Chilca, Peru, in April 1770. De Surville drowned trying to get ashore, and the ship was seized by local authorities. The remaining crew had to wait in Peru for more than two years before they were granted their release papers. Of the 173 who had sailed from India, only 66 returned to France. 28 crew members deserted, and 79 died.

The 'de Surville anchors' are almost certainly the oldest authentic European objects found in New Zealand, and are implicated in one of the earliest encounters between Europeans and Māori.

References

• John Dunmore, The Fateful Voyage of the St Jean Baptiste (Christchurch: Pegasus Press, 1969).
• John Dunmore, 'Surville, Jean François Marie de', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990, Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. (https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1s28/surville-jean-francois-marie-de)
• 'Kidnapped Ngāti Awa chief Ranginui dies on French ship ', New Zealand History website, Ministry for Culture and Heritage. (https://nzhistory.govt.nz/maori-kidnap-victim-dies-french-ship)