Mullet Point settlers

By Warkworth genealogist Christine McClean, a descendent of the Goldsworthy family after whom the bay is named on the eastern side of the Mahurangi East Peninsula.

Such was the isolation of Mahurangi East in the 1850s, the Goldsworthy boys would row to Auckland when they wished to go there. The skills they acquired stood them in good stead when they later entered races on the Waitemata Harbour, at the Thames, and even in a Thames representative race in Wellington.

The Goldsworthy family, Elizabeth, John and three of their nine children arrived in Wellington on the 21 April 1840 aboard the Bolton. They were from Cornwall and part of the New Zealand Company scheme. A year later they shifted to Auckland when Hobson called for tradesmen to work on Government House. John took work as a miner at both Kawau and Great Barrier Island, and the family grew to six sons and three daughters. In 1855, John purchased the farm at Mullet Point. His wife died the same year and his daughter Anna Maria took over the household, eventually marrying James Garfield Meiklejohn, of Big Omaha.

John Goldsworthy acquired the Elizabeth Ann, a 15-tonne vessel, in May 1859 and began trading between Auckland and the ports of Matakana, Mangawhai, Waiheke, Thames and as far north as Maungonui. The freight for his first voyage from Matakana to Auckland was 27 tons of firewood, 200lbs of onions, six dozen eggs and 4.5 bushels of maize. On the return journey, they carried one bushel of grass seed, two bushels of wheat, one bag of sugar and five pounds of tea. John operated the boat until his death in 1865.

The boys had spent their childhood in the mining communities and William began prospecting on the Coromandel in 1862. As soon as the gold field was opened in 1867 at the Thames, the boys took up mining licences. Four of the brothers spent the rest of their working days there, as mine owners, managers and in mining related industry. Richard stayed at home and farmed the Bay until his death in 1939. The land was later sold to the Scandretts, his neighbours.

The original house, built by the beach was demolished in the 1950s and today there are just a few small baches in the Bay still surrounded by farmland.


Pictured top: Some of John and Elizabeth’s children – back, from left, John and William; front, from left, Richard, Mary Ann (Gribble), Henry, Anna Maria (Meiklejohn) and Tom.

Pictured bottom: The Goldsworthy Homestead, which stood on the beach of Goldsworthy Bay, from 1855 to 1950.