Walter Brodie, an influential witness before
the New Zealand Committee of the House of Commons, promoted the
commercial potential of the area. 13 Brodie himself mined and
exported to Liverpool several hundred tons of copper ore from
land he claimed on the Karikari Peninsula during the late 30s
and early 40s.
resident Russell 1840 JRI, PP1840BOI
early settler in Auckland DM
appeared before a select committee in Auckland in 1844.
Walter Brodie's purchase of land containing a
copper deposit on Karikari Peninsula was a much more typically
Pakeha transaction. Brodie's Karikari or Knuckle Point purchase
is significant not only because of the mineral wealth there,
but also because Brodie was an influential member of the upper
echelons of British society, and a trenchant critic of Crown
actions in New Zealand affecting land sales. His grandfather
had founded the Times of London in 1785, and his father had
been a Chaplain to King George IV.46 When Brodie arrived in
the Bay of Islands to seek his fortune in late 1839, like the
New Zealand Company, he tried to establish as many land claims
as possible prior to British annexation. Walter Brodie immigrated to to Auckland in 1840.
5 He was a secretary Korareka land Corp in 1840.
4 He was a politician in 1850.
6