In early colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, James Reddy Clendon seemed to be everywhere, and with irons in all sorts of fires. He was there in 1835 when Ngāpuhi chiefs signed the Declaration of Independence, and again at Waitangi five years later to witness a signing of Te Tiriti. A ship owner, then a key early trader in the Bay of Islands, Northland Māori nicknamed him ‘Tuatara’, because in his early, desperate days casting around for timber and cargo to fill his boat he seemed like a hungry lizard. Clendon variously held the roles of United States Consul, founding Chairman of the New Zealand Banking Co and Resident Magistrate at Rāwene, in the Hokianga, where in 1862 he settled with his second wife, Jane, and several children from both marriages. 

As a result of that continuity, the house came with a very extensive family collection. Wandering through you’ll see some of the Clendon’s original 19^th Century furnishings and domestic items, along with social memorabilia – dance cards, ball notices and the like – art and photographs collected over many decades. It’s a highly personal mix and reflects the family’s trajectory from wealth to poverty and back again. The property’s knowledgeable hosts can clue you in to the highlights of the collection and put James and Jane’s story in the context of a period when the Hokianga was a bustling centre of trade and government administration, and a significant site of early Māori-Pakeha interaction.