It is little known that Wainuiomata has a history of gold exploration and prospecting.
Although timber milling and agriculture were Wainuiomata’s principal early industries, historical records reveal repeated attempts to find gold in and around the valley during the nineteenth century.
These were not simply rumours passed between hopeful prospectors. Quartz from Wainuiomata was examined by leading geologists, samples were found to contain gold, shafts were sunk, prospectors searched the surrounding ranges and, in 1869, a registered gold mining company was established specifically to operate in the Wainuiomata district.
Despite all of this activity, Wainuiomata never became a goldfield.
The 1869 Wainuiomata gold discovery
One of the earliest well-documented episodes occurred in May 1869, when Hugh Sinclair and a man named Grace discovered what they believed was the source reef of quartz specimens that had previously been collected from the bed of a Wainuiomata stream.
Some of those earlier specimens had been sent to the Colonial Museum for analysis, with one producing what was described as notable traces of gold.
The discovery attracted the attention of Dr James Hector, one of New Zealand’s leading scientists and geologists, who visited Wainuiomata on 22 May 1869.
The reef was described as blue quartz containing mundic, an old term commonly used for iron pyrites. Where exposed to weathering, the quartz had deteriorated into a rusty material that appeared promising.
Importantly, the reef had been found protruding from a hillside in a position that suggested it was part of the underlying formation rather than simply a loose piece of quartz that had been transported there.
If samples from the reef proved to contain gold, Hector reportedly intended to recommend that a drive be excavated to properly investigate the formation.
Wainuiomata quartz confirmed to contain gold
The investigation soon produced evidence that there really was gold in Wainuiomata rock.
At a meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society in June 1869, it was reported that pyritous stone from the Wainuiomata Valley had proved auriferous, meaning that it contained gold.
The amount was considered small, but sufficient to encourage further prospecting and investigation.
This is an important distinction in Wainuiomata’s prospecting history. Gold was not simply rumoured to exist somewhere in the surrounding hills. Samples of Wainuiomata rock were actually analysed and found to contain it.
Whether enough gold existed to make mining commercially worthwhile was another matter entirely.
A shaft sunk beside the reef
By July 1869, prospecting had progressed well beyond collecting samples from the surface.
A newspaper report describing gold prospecting around Wellington stated that:
Wainuiomata also had its reef.
The prospectors were attempting to reach it by sinking a shaft on the eastern side of the formation.
Because of the angle at which the reef descended underground, they estimated that they would need to sink approximately 50 feet, or about 15 metres, before intersecting it.
Progress had temporarily slowed because of severe winter weather, with several feet of snow reported on parts of the surrounding hills.
This raises an intriguing question.
If a substantial shaft was being sunk in the Wainuiomata hills in 1869, does any physical evidence of it survive today?
George Bennett and the Perseverance Gold Mining Company
Only weeks later, the Wainuiomata gold venture became considerably more organised.
On 22 August 1869, George Bennett of Wellington applied to register a company called:
The Perseverance Gold Mining Company (Registered).
The company’s purpose was explicit. Its registered place of intended operations was the Wainuiomata district in the Province of Wellington.
The company had a nominal capital of £800, divided into 80 shares valued at £10 each, with £44 10s already paid up.
Bennett, whose occupation was recorded as a turner, was the manager. The company’s office was in Old Custom House Street in Wellington at the premises of Charles Seagar. (Papers Past)
Among the shareholders were George Bennett, Charles Seagar, Thomas Ralph, Patrick Alphonsus Buckley and, most importantly in relation to the earlier discovery, Hugh Sinclair of Wainuiomata.
Sinclair’s involvement provides a strong connection between the reef discovered earlier that year and Bennett’s newly established company.
It seems very likely that the Perseverance Gold Mining Company was formed as a result of the gold discoveries being investigated in Wainuiomata during 1869.
What has not yet been proven is whether the shaft being sunk to intercept the reef was actually operated by Bennett’s company. The shaft was already being reported before the company was formally registered, so it may have been the earlier prospecting operation that subsequently developed into the Perseverance venture.
The connection is compelling, but until further evidence is found it should not be treated as certain.
Sinclair’s reef in upper Wainuiomata
There is another valuable clue regarding the location of the reef.
In a paper published by the Wellington Philosophical Society in 1877, J. C. Crawford discussed quartz reefs in the Wellington region and specifically referred to:
a reef on Sinclair’s ground in the upper part of Wainuiomata.
(More accurately, it was near George Creek.)
Crawford considered it part of a broader geological line extending through the region towards the Ōrongorongo Valley and Rimutaka Range.
This reference is particularly significant because Hugh Sinclair owned substantial areas of land in Wainuiomata, including land around what later became associated with Reservoir Valley.
It provides a much stronger geographical clue for anyone attempting to determine where the 1869 prospecting actually took place.
How much gold was found?
Reports concerning Sinclair’s discoveries gave varying assay results, with quartz reportedly producing between 2½ and 14 pennyweights of gold per ton.
Several years later, Dr Hector provided some useful context.
In 1877 he recalled the prospecting carried out around Wellington during 1869. Eighteen quartz specimens from reefs around the district had been analysed.
Only six contained gold.
The richest produced approximately 13 pennyweights of gold per ton, and Hector specifically stated that the sample came from Wainuiomata.
Thirteen pennyweights is approximately 0.65 troy ounces, or a little over 20 grams of gold per tonne of rock.
That sounds impressive, but a rich individual specimen does not prove that an entire reef contains gold at the same concentration. For a mine to be successful, sufficient quantities of ore would need to contain recoverable gold consistently enough to cover the considerable cost of extraction and processing.
Nevertheless, Hector’s statement confirms that the Wainuiomata prospectors of 1869 were not simply chasing a local legend. Gold really was present in at least some of the quartz they discovered.
Renewed prospecting in 1879
Interest in Wainuiomata’s gold potential did not disappear with the Perseverance venture.
A decade later, another burst of prospecting activity occurred.
In February 1879, a prospector named Cooper, reportedly well known in the South Island for his success in searching for gold, received permission to prospect on private property in Wainuiomata.
After spending two days examining the area, Cooper returned encouraged by what he had seen.
He believed there was gold in the range separating the Hutt and Wainuiomata valleys and collected stone that he intended to have crushed and tested.
The newspaper account also noted that rumours of gold discoveries in the same range had circulated during the previous year. Its correspondent went as far as suggesting that the Government or Chamber of Commerce should assist prospectors in investigating the mineral potential of the district.
Mr Moore’s payable reefs
Only a month later, another prospector made an even stronger claim.
The alleged discovery of gold in the Wainui-o-mata Valley came before the Hutt County Council in March 1879.
A letter from a prospector named Mr Moore stated that he could identify payable reefs in the valley.
There was, however, a condition.
Moore wanted the gold duty collected from any resulting mining operations to be given to him for fifteen years.
The council agreed to honour the arrangement for the remainder of its own term of office but declined to bind future councils to the same undertaking.
Further reports concerning Moore appeared during April, showing that interest in the Wainuiomata gold claims had not immediately disappeared.
Whether Moore ever revealed the precise location of his supposed payable reefs remains uncertain.
George Knight and gold near Lowry Bay
Another intriguing report appeared in June 1879.
George Knight, manager of a property at Lowry Bay, arrived in Wellington carrying what newspapers described as excellent specimens of both alluvial gold and gold-bearing quartz.
Knight was described as an experienced gold miner.
He claimed to have discovered the specimens somewhere inland from Lowry Bay and Pencarrow Head, apparently in the country near the Wainuiomata Valley between the Hutt and Wairarapa ranges.
Knight considered the geological formation strikingly similar to known gold-bearing districts such as Collingwood.
However, he declined to reveal the precise location of his discovery.
A party of miners was subsequently sent out to prospect the surrounding country, with Knight reportedly optimistic about the prospects.
Whether Knight’s discovery was actually within Wainuiomata itself or somewhere in the neighbouring ranges remains unclear.
Mr Spencer’s 1883 discovery
The gold story resurfaced again in 1883.
A surveyor named Mr Spencer reportedly discovered another quartz reef in Wainuiomata.
The stone was described as white quartz containing grey seams that appeared to consist of auriferous arsenical iron pyrites.
A small quantity was crushed and reportedly produced gold at the rate of 1 ounce and 9 grains per ton.
Spencer was said to have obtained a lease over the ground and intended to establish a company to develop the discovery.
On paper, this was a promising result. One ounce and 9 grains per ton equates to a little over 31 grams of gold per tonne.
Once again, however, there is an important difference between a promising assay from a small sample and proving the existence of a commercially viable ore body.
No substantial gold mine followed Spencer’s discovery.
Gold, exaggeration and disappointment
Taken together, the historical reports show that Wainuiomata’s association with gold was considerably more substantial than a few isolated rumours.
During the nineteenth century there were:
- confirmed gold-bearing quartz samples;
- a reef examined by Dr James Hector;
- a shaft intended to reach a reef at a depth of around 50 feet;
- a registered gold mining company established specifically to operate in Wainuiomata;
- repeated prospecting expeditions;
- claims of payable reefs;
- reports of alluvial gold;
- mining leases; and
- several attempts to attract investors or government support.
Yet no significant gold-mining industry ever developed.
The most likely explanation is that gold existed in small and irregular quantities but not in deposits sufficiently rich, extensive or accessible to justify commercial mining.
Some claims may also have been exaggerated. Nineteenth-century newspapers frequently reported promising mineral discoveries before they had been independently verified, and gold fever had a habit of turning a few specks in a quartz sample into expectations of a major goldfield.
Later reports even suggested that some of the Wainuiomata gold stories amounted to little more than a hoax.
However, that does not explain away the entire history.
The scientific testing undertaken during the 1869 investigations established that at least some Wainuiomata quartz really did contain gold, and Hector later confirmed that the richest of the Wellington reef specimens tested at the time had come from Wainuiomata.
The mystery that remains
More than 150 years later, perhaps the most interesting question is no longer whether gold existed in Wainuiomata.
It did.
The greater mystery is where the prospectors actually worked.
Somewhere in the upper Wainuiomata district, prospectors located a reef on Sinclair’s land. Somewhere nearby, a shaft was being sunk towards a reef and was expected to reach it at around 50 feet.
George Bennett then established the Perseverance Gold Mining Company to operate in Wainuiomata, with Hugh Sinclair among its shareholders.
What became of those workings?
Was the shaft abandoned before reaching the reef? Was it filled in? Did later forestry, farming or waterworks development obliterate it? Or does evidence of the 1869 gold venture still survive somewhere beneath the bush?
For now, those questions remain unanswered.
But the surviving newspaper reports, geological records and company documents reveal a fascinating and largely forgotten chapter of Wainuiomata history.
For several decades during the nineteenth century, prospectors repeatedly entered these valleys and ranges convinced that somewhere beneath their feet lay gold.
And occasionally, they were right.
Listed below are newspaper articles and other historical records documenting this largely forgotten part of Wainuiomata’s history.
Credits
Special thanks to Tony Weir for some information in this article.
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