Ranulph Dacre was a contributor to the early development of Whitehorse, Sydney, New Zealand and the South Pacific but he seems to have been overshadowed by his business partner Henry Elgar.
The following extract is from the essay Ranulph Dacre and Patuone’s top knot which was written by New Zealand historian Frank Rogers -
‘Ranulph Dacre’s career as an entrepreneur covers the pre – colonial periods of Pacific trade. He was a pioneer of maritime-merchant enterprise based firstly in New South Wales and then in New Zealand when it was desirable to have a number of skills in addition to commercial expertise and organisational ability to embark on Maori – Pakeha trading – knowledge of the language, seamanship appropriate to maritime trade, command of resources, and the temperament to have mana among the Maori’.
Ranulph was born in London in 1797; he was the son of George and Julia Dacre of Marwell Hall, Hampshire. His father was a colonel of the Hampshire Militia and a sheriff of the county in 1790. Ranulph’s occupations included Naval Officer, Sea Captain, Merchant and Agent.
In 1810 Ranulph entered the navy as a midshipman and served during the Napoleonic Wars. From 1812 to 1813 he served in the American war on a frigate blockading the Atlantic ports. By 1816 he gained the rank of Lieutenant, resigned his commission and became Captain of merchant ship trading with the West Indies for Robert Brooks of London.
In 1823 he visited New South Wales for the first time as commander of the sailing ship Elizabeth. He then became part owner of the schooner Endeavour and conducted trade with the Society Islands and New Zealand. Between 1825 and 1831 he traded along the east coast of Australia, to New Zealand, and made two more voyages between London and Sydney.
Around 1830 he sold his property in England and applied for a grant of land in New South Wales but his application was refused.
In 1831 he settled in Sydney and married Margaret Sea.
Margaret Sea was born in 1809 in Kent, England; Margaret’s parents were Henry and Elizabeth Sea (nee Peppercorne). Her father, Henry Sea was a merchant in Sydney.
Also in 1831, Ranulph won a contract to supply masts to the British Admiralty. Two attempts at setting up logging camps in New Zealand failed due to attacks by the Maoris and then a competitor stealing his logs.
In 1835 Ranulph Dacre went into partnership with William Wilks and set up a mercantile and shipping agency in Sydney which traded in whale oil, sandalwood, kauri timber, greenstone and flax. In 1838 the agency was dissolved but Ranulph continued the business alone.
Between 1838 and 1839 Ranulph bought land (Lot 78) in between Johnson St and the Yarra River in Collingwood in Melbourne (then part of the Colony of New South Wales). He was appointed an Assessor (Cost Assessor) of the Supreme Court in Sydney and he also organised the first expedition with Richard Jones and Henry Elgar to the Isle of Pines to set up a trading post dealing in Sandalwood.
By 1840 he owned a wharf in Sydney, was a director of the Union Bank of Australia and the Sydney Alliance Assurance Co and he was appointed a Magistrate.
His businesses extended to Hawaii and to South Seas whaling. He was the owner of several ships, including the Julia, the Diana, and the Wave and, with Alexander Fotheringham, the whaler Porteous.
In 1841 Ranulph, John Jones, Harriet Sea and Henry Elgar formed a consortium and purchased 5,120 acres in a Special survey in the Boroondara and Nunawading district. The special survey was named the ‘Boroondara Estate’ but it was later referred to as ‘Elgar’s Special Survey’; Elgar Road was named after Henry Elgar. The area of land covered by Special survey was bordered by Elgar Rd in the east, Burke Rd in the west, Canterbury Rd in the south and the Koonung Creek in the north.
In 1843, Ranulph and Henry Elgar hired surveyor Frederick Peppercorne to mark Balwyn and Union Roads on the map. Frederick Peppercorne was Ranulph’s cousin in law.
An 1845 survey map of the Boroondara Estate has the land subdivided into 27 lots –
Henry Elgar
According to historian Bob Kerr ‘In July 1840 he (Henry Elgar) travelled with his wife and a servant to the Port Phillip District of New South Wales from Manila, arriving in September 1840, and after a brief stay they sailed to Sydney arriving on 5th October, 1840. In total he was in Australia for sixteen months and during that time his wife Ana gave birth to a daughter, who died aged 3 months. Also, Elgar purchased a Special Survey. At the age of 25 it is unlikely he had the means to finance such a venture on his own. He did borrow two thousand pounds from Alexander Dyce in 1841 in Sydney, and more from him in 1842 in Manila’.
‘Elgar made several trips to Port Phillip before they left Sydney on the 4th January 1842 and he never visited Australia again’.
‘Dyce owed the merchant company he worked for - Martin, Dyce & Co. - about ten thousand pounds. His estate included land titles for parts of Elgar's survey, which Elgar had given him as part repayment of the loan of two thousand pounds mentioned above. In 1850 the sale of nine sections of land brought in five thousand pounds which was not enough to pay back his creditors. In the 1860s, land titles moved from 'old' law to 'new' and questions arose about the validity of sale procedures for land in Elgar's Survey’.
‘In the 1844 marriage record of his (Henry Elgar’s) sister Margaret to Alexander Dyce in Manila, Henry Elgar signed his name 'H. Elgar.' His signature never appears on any other document’.
Harriet Sea (Ranulph’s sister in law)
Harriet is of interest to Whitehorse in that she owned one lot in Elgar’s Special Survey, but her brother Henry Sea is also an interesting person. He had strong connections with Hawaii which was an area in which Ranulph Dacre also had trading connections and interests.
Henry Sea sailed from London to Sydney in 1837 on board the Achilles. He later sailed to Tahiti where he served as Secretary to the British Consulate.
In 1842 he sailed to Honolulu, Hawaii where he served as Secretary to the British Commission and later to the Consul General.
In 1845 he was appointed Marshall of the Hawaiian Islands. In 1846 Henry married Maria
L Kauapi'iokamaka'ala Sumner the daughter of Captain William Sumner and High Chiefess Keakua'aihue Kanealai Hua. Captain Sumner was an early Hawaiian pioneer.
In an interesting aside - in the 1845 Boroondara Estate survey map shows two dwellings referred to as ‘shanty’ located near the intersection of the Bushy and Koonung Creek’s. Could these dwellings be the first European structures to be built in Whitehorse?
During the Depression of 1842-1844 Ranulph Dacre lost all his businesses. He travelled to New Zealand, the Society Islands and then to Hawaii to collect debts and wind up his affairs.
In 1844 after settling his claim to the spar (ships mast) business in New Zealand he began to prosper again as a merchant and ship owner. In 1859 after many years of travelling between Sydney and Auckland he and his family moved to Auckland and became one of its well known and respected residents.
In 1878 Ranulph and Margaret Dacre returned to England where Ranulph died in Surrey in 1884 and Margaret in Wandsworth in 1885.
In the book Ranulph Dacre and Patuone’s top knot by Frank Rogers,1995 mentions:
'He lived to survive a series of changes. As a seaman he participated in the transition from wooden ship to iron vessels, and from sail to steam; to see trading by barter with Maori evolve into a money and market economy. He observed the consequences of the Treaty of Waitangi, the establishment of British government, Land wars and their inconclusive settlement, and the development of a vigorous pastoral economy in which his merchant firm was able to flourish’
The future for the City of Whitehorse
It seems that there is no information in or around the City of Whitehorse about Ranulph Dacre ’s contributions to our early heritage, even though he was one of the first Europeans to buy land in what would become the City of Whitehorse.
Whitehorse Council and others interested in our heritage should implement strategies to inform local residents and visitors of the contributions Ranulph Dacre made to our early heritage.
Sources:
©Whitehorse Heritage