Octavius Harwood

Octavius Harwood was born at Stepney Green in London in 1816. He was the eighth of Robert Harwood and Mary Soutter’s 10 children, a family position reflected by his name (Latin for eighth). His father was a sea captain while his mother’s family owned ships. Octavius went to sea as an apprentice midshipman on the Soutter ships, running between the West Indies and South Africa. In 1837 he joined the crew of the City of Edinburgh, which took him to Australia. He had joined the ship as a second mate but when the first mate died Octavius took over, still just 21. In Sydney he met George Weller and was sent over to Otago in 1838 to become clerk at the Weller brothers’ store at Ōtākou. Harwood became a key figure in the embryonic settlement around the Wellers’ whaling station and his diary over four years provides an invaluable record of life there. His medical training as a first mate also stood him in good stead and the medical kit he used is part of the Museum collection (on display in the ‘Encounters’ section). When the Weller brothers’ whaling enterprise failed in 1841 Harwood continued managing their store at Ōtākou and then bought it himself.

In 1839 Harwood married Titapu, daughter of the chief Pokene. After her death he had a daughter, Mere, by Pokene’s niece Piro. Once the Otago Association settlers arrived in 1848 he married again, this time Scotswoman Janet Robertson who was a passenger on the Philip Laing. He was running the Ōtākou store until he married Janet, when he made the switch to farming.

For a period in the 1850s Octavius and Janet leased 10,000 acres near Hampden, which was managed by Janet’s brother as Baghdad Run. The couple had seven sons and three daughters and the family was prominent in the development of the Otago peninsula. They farmed leasehold land at Ōtākou until 1870 and then moved to the nearby area which now bears their name. There they ran cattle and cows, rowing their butter across the harbour to Port Chalmers. Octavius died at Harwood in 1900 aged 84.