1802 in New Zealand

← 1801 1800 1799 1802 in New Zealand → 1803 1804 1805
Decades:	1800s 1810s 1820s
See also:	Other events of 1802 Timeline of New Zealand history

There are no known visits by sealers this year as they concentrate on Bass Strait. However Charles Bishop and George Bass call at Dusky Sound in the Venus where they spend fourteen days stripping iron from the hulk of Captain Brampton's old ship the Endeavour, to barter in Tahiti for pork before returning to Sydney in November.^[1] There are several British whalers operating off the north-east coast, only one of which is certainly known to have landed (at the Bay of Islands). There are an unknown number of American whalers also in the area but as they do not usually call at Port Jackson their activities, including where, if at all, they land, are largely unknown.^[2]

Incumbents

Regal and viceregal^[3]

• Head of State – King George III.
• Governor of New South Wales – Philip Gidley King

Events

• 21 May – Governor King questions the Captains of 3 ships, the Britannia, Speedy and Venusⁱ about whaling off the New Zealand coast.^[2]

Undated

• The whaler Harriet is the first ship known to have visited the Bay of Islands since 1793.^[2]

Births

• 11 December (in France): Jean Baptiste Pompallier, first Catholic bishop of Auckland.^[4]
• 24 December (in England): Robert Wynyard, governor of New Ulster province.^[5]

See also

• List of years in New Zealand
• Timeline of New Zealand history
• History of New Zealand
• Military history of New Zealand
• Timeline of the New Zealand environment
• Timeline of New Zealand's links with Antarctica

References

1. Rowley Taylor, Straight Through From London, the Antipodes and Bounty Islands, New Zealand,Heritage Expeditions New Zealand Ltd, Christchurch, 2006, ISBN 0-473-10650-7, pp. 37,38&40.
2. Salmond, Anne. Between Worlds. 1997. Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd. ISBN 0-670-87787-5.
3. The colony of New South Wales encompasses New Zealand from 1788 to 1840. Therefore the head of state is the monarch of the United Kingdom represented by the Governor of New South Wales. However, British sovereignty was not established over New Zealand per se until 1840, at which point the Treaty of Waitangi retroactively recognised that it had been an independent territory until then. Furthermore, the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand signed by a number of Maori chiefs in 1835 was formally recognised by the British government at the time, indicating that British sovereignty did not yet extend to New Zealand. (New Zealand Ministry of Culture and Heritage)
4. Bishop Pompallier
5. "'WYNYARD, Robert Henry', from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966.". Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. 18 September 2007.