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Homing Pigeons in New Zealand

This article on the early use of pigeons as means of communication was written by Desmond

Hurley, a renowned stamp collector living in Wellington. Desmond interest in the subject

came from his original research into the Great Barrier Pigeon-gram Service and their stamps

but he quickly realized that pigeons were more widely used in communication prior to the

introduction of the telegraph. He intended to expand his draft article with further research

but he sadly passed away earlier this year. His account of the use of pigeons in

communications makes fascinating reading and in our discussions last year he said he was

happy to share his findings with the racing pigeon community. Ross Wallace.

PIGEON MAIL SERVICES

Desmond Hurley

Black carrier pigeon strayed, June 1st. Whoever will deliver it at the Daily Southern Cross office will

be rewarded. - Daily Southern Cross, 3 June, 1862,p. 1.

This brief notice in the advertisement columns of the Auckland newspaper in 1862, is the

earliest record that I have been able to find of carrier pigeons in New Zealand. Who

introduced them to New Zealand - missionaries, whalers, first settlers, pigeon fanciers –

who would know? What is likely is that they were introduced by someone who saw the

possibility of their being useful.

It is now generally accepted that the first airmail “stamp” - really a label - used anywhere

in the world was that of the Great Barrier Island pigeon mail. The introduction of this label

has tended to obscure the very real contribution that pigeon mail services - a term carefully

chosen to cover variety of pigeon use - made in the history of communication in the early

colony. For thirty years previous, they had taken the place of telegraph - yet to be invented

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- telephone and wireless. Admittedly, there were Maori runners, men on horseback, and

vessels of various sizes from canoes to sailing ships, but for any distance, pigeons were

fastest and generally as reliable. One hundred and fifty years later, commemorating the

Mount Egmont pigeon post, John Kilpatrick referred to them as “an awesomely and

blindingly fast way to deliver a message”. 1

There is no doubt that the use of pigeons has been woefully overlooked. They were

essential in a new and remote society where small communities were frequently out of

touch with their neighbours. What did you do if your next-of-kin died suddenly and you

wanted to let relatives and friends elsewhere know? Or your house burned down as one

did on Great Barrier and you wanted to order building materials immediately from the

mainland? Or you need someone to pick up a very sick lighthouse keeper from your

island lighthouse? The news of the latest gold strike back to the city? Or even the results of

the Melbourne Cup, “the circumstance in which the most general interest was taken” when

the Albion from Melbourne arrived off Hokitika in 1875?2

Later, the newspapers caught on and many kept their own pigeon lofts so reporters could

beat rivals with news back from the field. That of the Christchurch Press was cunningly

built into the design of the newspaper building and made an architectural feature. The

1870s were the heyday of the pigeongram reporter, with new goldfields opening up

throughout the country, offering new opportunities to strike it rich in a new country,

whether as prospector or supplier to the prospectors (usually more enriching an

occupation). Meanwhile, those recently arrived immigrants were anxious for news from

home or relatives arriving, and anxiously awaited the first pigeons from incoming ships

from the old country.

12 Taranaki Daily News, 17 September, 2008.

2 Grey River Argus, 17 November, 1875, p. 2.

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This last was in fact the stimulus for the first pigeon mail services in the 1870s. Shipping

reporters would regularly go out on welcoming pilot or mail boats to greet incoming sailing

ships and attempt to scoop their rivals with overseas despatches or lists of passengers (and

new labour) on board. Henry Brett, the shipping reporter from the ...., himself newly

arrived only ten *** years previously, is generally credited with being one of the first to

exploit this in Auckland. He later went on to own his own newspaper and then his own

influential publishing company and to become a power in the land.

There are, disregarding later commemorative flights, several categories of pigeon mail

service:

1. Shipping services

These were the first and most important services for the newly arrived 19th Century

colonist.

It was not until1876 that New Zealand had direct cable communication with the outside

world. In the meantime, incoming ships were eagerly awaited. As early as 1870, there were

reports of pigeons being taken out to ships “in the stream” or the “roadstead” and not just

in Auckland. Credited with being the first use were two agencies, the West Coast Times

and Greville’s agency, both taking out pigeons to Rangitoto newly-arrived with mail and

fresh news from England. In keeping with the practices of the day, two pigeons were sent

off by each agency to insure that one at least got through, even if the other one dawdled on

the way. (If they reached their loft, eluding hawks and birds of prey en route3, they still had

3 Not that they were completely at their mercy; a Hermitage bird known as Dick Seddon

turned back immediately he became aware of hawks trying to head him off and waited two

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to enter it or the recipient would be obliged to shoot them to recover the message they

carried). Perhaps the most accomplished dawdler was that sent off from the City of Auckland

in 1872, which holidayed for two years at a kainga on the East Coast until recognised and

returned to its owner.

The usefulness of pigeon delivery in getting an edge on the news was illustrated by the

Evening Star which announced in a late edition in 1875 that the steamship Hero had that day

arrived off Cape Wiwiki and it would publish a special despatch listing details received by

pigeon within the hour.4 The paper had, it turns out, chartered a small steamer to go out

beyond Tiri lighthouse to meet the Hero with reporter and pigeons.

The steamship Hero arrived off Cape Wiwiki at 3.46 pm, and will reach harbour about four o’clock

tomorrow morning. A special despatch to the Star by carrier pigeon and telegram containing her

passengers, cargo, and important English and Australian news will be published by us in an hour.

On the last arrival of the Hero we were able to present Captain Logan with the news by his vessel

immediately on his arrival alongside the wharf, and this evening we shall give our readers the benefit

of the news twelve hours before the vessel reaches port.5

The practice of sending ships off with a pair of pigeons or more, whether by Marine

Department or newspaper agents, continued on occasional basis until at least Shackleton’s

1908 Expedition when the Lyttelton Times supplied Shackleton with his last means of

communication with New Zealand as the Nimrod left for the South on her original and re-

supply missions.6

hours before setting off again. When chased by hawks on another occasion, he flew across the

valley and dived into dense alpine scrub only to return to his home two days later. 4Reporter and Grey River Argus, 20 November, 1875, p. 2

5 Evening Star, 27 October, p, 2.

6 Shackleton

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2. Newspaper services

The use of pigeons as an adjunct to news gathering grew apace as more and more

newspapers acquired their own pigeons and even architecturally designed pigeon lofts as

an integral part of the building. The by-line “Pigeon express” became a common

introduction to a news item from an isolated community and news transmission spread

from shipping to sports results, to shooting matches, to yacht races, to territorial

manoeuvres, and it is said (although I find the evidence less than convincing) that the first

news of the Tarawera eruption reached “civilisation” by this means. At least 13 New

Zealand newspapers are known to have used pigeon services.

The most important commercial use at this time was surely the reporting from goldfields,

some of which were relatively isolated. There was a well-established use from the

Coromandel with reporters covering the issuing of negotiations with the Maori to the

registering of claims and regular reports of the productivity and richness or otherwise of

the mines. To quote a typical pigeongram from Ohinemutu in 1875:

Opinion is divided regarding the prospects of the place. Some are sanguine; others dubious; and

others have lost all faith...7

This goldfield also produced the new word “pigeongram”, coined for the occasion by one

of the reporters.

My mate”bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste”, had just ridden in from the Karangahake ridge and writing a

‘pigeongram’ (what a word!) dictation, I threw up one of my birds, and had the pleasure of seeing it go off like a dart.8

3. Regularly instituted services run on a regular basis.

7 Daily Southern Cross, 11 March,1875, p. *

8 CLIMIE, Nell S.1964. Gleanings from the Thames Advertiser and Miners’

News,1875. Ohinemutu Regional History Journal, 1(2), Oct., p. 17

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While goldfield reports might claim with some justification to be on a regular basis, the

most notable is the well-known Great Barrier Island pigeon mail, instituted for the

convenience of residents and visitors after the wreck on the coast of the Wairarapa with the

less of 121 lives.9 While many of the messages thus flown were mundane requests for

groceries and building supplies, others were advice of incoming visitors, and again regular

reports from the copper mines. And, although various pigeon mail services have been

commemorated with subsequent anniversary issues, only the Great Barrier ones have

produced commemorative - or, perhaps more aptly- charity flimsies during their existence.

Another service which falls into this type is the Preservation Inlet pigeon post which lasted

at least twelve months and possibly much longer around 1898-1899, providing

communication between the short-lived township and new goldmines there and Dunedin.

9 The author can claim a distant connection: a great-aunt, expected from

Ireland on the ship, was presumed to have been drowned. She created

consternation when, late at night, unannounced and saved from the sea, she

knocked on the door of her grieving and somewhat superstitious Taranaki

relatives .

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4. The Hospitality and Tourist Industry

This was perhaps the most consistent category of pigeon mail service. A continuing need to

forewarn owners of accommodation in tourist centres in the newly developed but growing

tourist industry of the impending customers about to descend on them and confirmation of

the next transport link led to arrangements whereby transport operators kept pigeons to be

released en route. Examples are the steamers on the Wanganui River, the launch owners on

Lakes Taupo, Tekapo and Pukaki, the Hermitage and Dawson Falls mountain hostels on

Mts Cook and Egmont, and coach companies on the Wellington-Napier circuit.

The Hermitage Pigeon Post was used from 1902 to 1909 to send messages from the

mountain huts t the Hermitage and from the Hermitage to Lake Tekapo where there was a

telephone link with the outside world. Flimsies from this service are preserved in the

Mount Cook National Park Archives.10The value of the birds in an emergency is

exemplified by the part pigeons played in the story of a Scottish climber who fell and

injured himself while travelling alone in 1906. The birds provided the information that he

was missing and should be looked for and assisted in his rescue ten days later when he was

found.11

On the Wanganui River, before 1900 when the telegraph cable reached the central North

Island, Messrs Harrick and Company had established a pigeon loft at Wanganui. The birds

were used to advise Aretha of their customers’ requirements, but also to allow information

on river levels and depth in the upper part of the river to be passed back to Wanganui. On

Lake Pukeko, coaches carried a pigeon which would be released in the morning to reach

the Hermitage before lunch. (The mountaineers in the party also carried pigeons on the

10 SAMUEL,R.D. 1992. Captain Cook, 20(3): 31-32,figs.

11 GWYNN, Robin.

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mountain when heading for mountain huts to advice of any emergencies or changed plans

and, in some instances, to notify the newspapers of their climbing achievements).

The caretaker at Dawson Falls on Mount Egmont “posted” a regular weekly bulletin in 1902

and 1903 to the Taranaki Herald mentioning the conditions on the mountain, the guests for

the weekend and occasionally social notes as well. Altogether, 126 messages were sent to

New Plymouth in the 1903 season.12 A typical message, delivered by Pigeon No.152, begins:

12 Taranaki Herald, 30November, 1903, p. 3.

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The weather was very unpleasant from Friday till Sunday, when it cleared during the afternoon, and

a splendid view was obtained over across the bay and away back to the Rape Mountains. The sunset

was lovely.13

Then there was the service run Harrick’s between Wanganui and Taumarunui from 1904 to

1914, when the two settlements were finally connected by telephone. This one used

“invisible writing” - the message was written in indelible pencil on cigarette paper, water

proofed by dipping in lubricating oil, and revealed on receipt by dipping the paper in a

saucer of petrol and the pigeons took less than an hour to deliver their messages.

5. Electoral and administrative uses

The use of pigeons to forward electoral results from isolated communities has a

surprisingly long history. The first examples of which I am aware were in Northland

electorate in 1873 and Franklin in the following year but return by pigeon sanctioned by the

electoral officers of the districts went on in various electorates for some forty odd years, the

last recorded being in Marton in 1918. In the days of first-past-the-post elections, when it

was possible for results to hang on the last handful of votes to be recorded, the importance

of speedy returns could be critical.

Much more useful, though, were the pigeon-mail facilities laid on by the Marine

Department for rescue at sea. At one time, and after the agitation of keepers and keepers’

wives, certain lighthouses - Cuvier was one14 - were provided with pigeons to advise of

emergencies but these were seldom more than a stop-gap and in the meantime telegraph

cables were provided to offshore lights as soon as possible. On the other hand, pigeons

were also provided as an emergency backup for rescues at sea. The Marine Department

13 Taranaki Herald, 19 January, 1903, p. 7.

14 CHURCHMAN, Geoffrey B. NewZealand Lighthouses

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supplied pigeons to Somes Island back in 1880 for mainland communication and later set

up a pigeon breeding facility on the Island in 1889 but this had only limited success for the

Lighthouse Service and was disbanded in 1911. However, pigeons were available to Union

Company vessels in emergencies and were supplied to other vessels as needed and were

used when the Wainui ran ashore in Waikawa Bay although in this instance the pigeons

were privately owned..

Almost every steamer from Nelson carries a crate of these [carrier] pigeons, which the owners desire

to have liberated at different stages of the voyage and this so happened in the Wainui There were also

several show pigeons aboard. It was by means of these birds that the officers of the Wainui conveyed

to Nelson the information regarding the vessel’s position, the prospects of getting her off again, and

how the work was proceeding.15

On a less serious note, pigeons were supplied to the Talune to be released when the Waikare

carrying the Premier, Richard Seddon, was sighted but

nothing was heard of them for some time, until they landed at Patea. The pigeons have been returned

to Wellington.

6. Services between communities on an as-need basis.

There appear to be more of these than were previously realised, probably because they are

only passing mentioned in the records, usually in personal family or community histories.

Good examples are the Mokau and Rawene services, known only from casual remarks. The

Mokau Heads was set up by the chief school inspector and the postmaster at Mokau to

bridge the gap between communities either side of the river. While pigeon were sent to

Mokau, there is no record of their ever having been used.

The Rawene post was set up sometime between 1875 and 1882, between Rawene, the

timbermill at Kohukohu and the signal station at the Heads.

15 Evening Post, 16 July, 1897,p. **

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Then there was the Auckland Island pigeon post which was laid down as a requirement to

guard against emergencies in the lease issued by the Department of Lands to Walter

Monckton in his plan to settle the Islands. This, however, did not “get off the ground”.

7. Commercial services : fishing industry & marine trade

Two completely overlooked but thoroughly practical pigeon message services were set up

by the fishing industry for much the same reasons - secrecy from competitors and to advise

onshore processing facilities of their intended arrival times and the volume of catch to be

processed.

In the 1930s, Sanfords, a rapidly growing Auckland fishing company, hit on the ideas of

providing its vessels with pigeons to communicate rapidly with the shore. They erected a

pigeon loft on the roof of a shed at the Jellicoe Street works and invested in some homing

pigeons.

Suitable houses were built in each vessel in a sheltered position behind the wheelhouse to hold two or

three birds and the last thing to go aboard a vessel before sailing was the pigeons .They were used for

emergency messages but most important was for a bird to be despatched when fishing was completed

and the long trip home began, at times from Tokomaru Bay, East Cape area. The message written on

a cigarette paper and tied with cotton to the bird’s leg, contained the tally of fish aboard.

Then, in the early1940s, a similar early warning system was used by boats fishing for

pilchards in the Marlborough Sounds. I have been unable to find anything about this other

than an internet reference to an National Film Unit documentary on the short-lived

pilchard industry.

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And then there is another tantalising off-hand newspaper remark:

Carrier pigeons were used with great success by coasting schooners, in the timber trade in New

Zealand.

8. Military services ( a loose category to cover Defence Department pigeons)

It has been suggested that the British Army, which regularly used pigeons for

communication, especially

during the Peninsular Wars, may have brought carrier pigeons and their wartime use to Ne

w Zealand but I know of no such practice. Certainly, pigeons were used by New Zealand

soldiers in the South African War but that was as an adjunct to the British Army.

In the First World War, they were in regular use in France, but again there are no accounts

and again it was outside New Zealand.

In the Second World War, they were used in the Middle East, and there is confirmation of

this in various accounts. Furthermore, the New Zealand Army was issued with British rules

and regulations for their management and use.

Finally, when the need to defend New Zealand against the Japanese became a distinct

possibility, a camp and pigeon loft were established at Nairn Street16 in Newtown and

pigeons were issued for the use of the Home Guard in March 1942 and the army in October,

1942. Nairn Street was initially a canvas camp for the breeding and training of pigeons but

was expanded before the end of the year to a more permanent camp for 300 men while

accommodation for WAACs was added in 1943.17 The pigeons, however, were mainly

intended as an alternative form of communication if they were ever needed. The pigeon

16 Not to be confused with the WWII Nairnville Park camp.

17 WATERS,

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service was disbanded in July 22, 1943,18 but not before being used to help raise funds for

Liberty Bonds.

9. Ad Hoc Services - George Bolt

Ad Hoc Services hermitage refers to one-off occasions which have mostly left no record

although there is one which deserves recording. The pioneer New Zealand airman, George

Bolt, was in the habit of flying Bishop ** on charter flights around the less accessible parishes

in his diocese and on July 21.1920, his plane developed of Hokianga and he had to land at

Opononi for a temporary repair.

What makes this worth recording is his comment :

By this time we had begun carrying pigeons with us on our long flights and from the Hokianga I

released a young male we called Billy, with a message tied to his leg, asking our people in Kohimarama

to send up a new rocker assembly as quickly as possible.

Bolt did the repair himself, and the pair resumed the flight on July 24. Later, he described

having experimented with pigeon delivery from a plane in the air.

[On the 19th of June] Owing to fog at Nuhaka and in the nearby district, Bolt was unable to land at

Wairoa as planned but now, for the first time, released a pigeon from an aeroplane in flight, “Keeping

my hands round its wings,” he explained later, “I held it above the cockpit to let it sense conditions and

then released it. The bird seemed well aware of the relative wind speed and opened its wings only a

fraction, apparently realising a need to protect them. In that attitude, it stayed above the cockpit for

some time and I could easily have taken it in my hands again. Then, gradually, it spread its wings

further, dropped slowly astern and wheeled away quickly. Twenty-five minutes later it reached its loft

18 Mailcoach.

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in Gisborne. This seemed to work well enough but I doubt whether you could safely release a bird at

speeds, much above 60mph.”19

10. PostWar Comemms - Publicity Ventures

Since the 25th anniversary of the Great Barrier Pigeon Mail, various philatelic and other

societies have commemorated the original flights with special covers, labels and date-

markings and even pigeon flights with flimsies, always, of course, with a fund-raising

objective and usually associated with an exhibition of some sort. I do not propose to list

these because they are well-recorded in the philatelic journals, but three novel occasions are

worthy of record. James Smith’s Annual Santa Parade was once a feature of Wellington’s

Christmas season. For a period in the Nineteen Seventies, it was publicised by sending the

mayors of various cities in the Lower North Island greetings by pigeon20. Unfortunately,

with the disappearance of the department store, almost all records of this service seem to

have likewise disappeared.

The Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre in 2008 used the occasion to publicise the opening of

the Centre near Blenheim by cutting a large billboard poster into small pieces which were

then flow by 289 pigeons to Wellington where the poster was re-assembled and displayed

outside the Town Hall. Only a few sections went astray and the stunt fulfilled its aim.21

Then, also in 2008 a Millenium Hotel Congress invited participants to its annual conference

by sending pigeons by Air New Zealand to individuals in various cities throughout New

Zealand so that they could return their acceptance or otherwise by pigeon post.22

19 BARBER, Laurie & LORD, Cliff. 1996. Swift and Sure. (p. 59).

20 Tarapex 2008 Bulletin No.4.

21 Another multiple sending was the 5,000-word report of an inquest at Kaiapoi successfully

delivered to the Lyttelton Times loft by four pigeons, each delivering a section of the

proceedings. (Otago Witness, 10 July,1903, p.58). 22 Meeting Newz Jan/Feb 08. [http:/www.meetingnewz.co.nz/index.php]

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Conclusion:

Pigeon mail has played a much greater part in New Zealand’s colonisation and the history of

communication than is generally realised. Two comments conclude this outline survey, the

first from 1894 on the stupidity of certain individuals who have disrupted pigeon mails by

aimless shooting:

Some microcephalous idiot Kumaraway recently shot a carrier pigeon, which he mistook for a hawk.

Now someone might shoot the shootist in a mistake for a booby - and the mistake would be naturally

excusable. - Otago Witness, 29 March 1894, p. 3

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And a bitter comment from a present-day Mokau resident who wrote to the

editor of the Taranaki Daily News suggesting NZ Post order a good flock of

pigeons as they would be faster than present-day mail. Where previously he could

post a letter in the morning and have it delivered the same day, now that

letters have to go first to Palmerston North to be handled, it could take two

weeks as he found when he posted two letters from Mokau to Te Kuiti .

So I may as well buy two or three pigeons and ditch this useless bureaucratic system

that’s run from Wellington by people who have no idea where Mokau might be, and

possibly even Taranaki.23

23 Taranaki Daily News, 24 September, p, 12