William Hobson
William Hobson was the naval captain sent to New Zealand in 1840 with instructions to obtain the sovereignty of the islands from the Māori chiefs by their free and intelligent consent, had a treaty drafted in English in four days and translated overnight, got forty-three chiefs to sign it at Waitangi on 6 February and some five hundred more over the year, and told each of them as they signed that they were now one people; he was the first governor of the colony for a year and a half and died of a stroke at forty-nine. He was born in Waterford in 1792, the son of a barrister, went to sea at nine, fought pirates in the Caribbean, where he caught the yellow fever that damaged his health. In 1837 he was sent from Sydney in HMS Rattlesnake to look at New Zealand, where two thousand British settlers, whalers and land-buyers were living beyond any law. His report suggested trading posts on the Indian model and the Colonial Office, pressed by the New Zealand Company's emigrant ships and a fear of the French, decided instead on annexation by consent. He landed in the Bay of Islands on 29 January 1840 as lieutenant-governor under New South Wales, and with his secretary and the missionary Henry Williams produced the treaty, whose English text has the chiefs ceding sovereignty and whose Māori text has them ceding kawanatanga, governorship, and keeping tino rangatiratanga, full chieftainship. The difference is what the country has been arguing about since. He had a stroke a month after the signing, recovered enough to proclaim sovereignty over the North Island by cession and the South Island by discovery in May, chose the site of Auckland as his capital in September. He became governor of a separate colony in May 1841. He quarrelled with the Company's settlers at Wellington, who thought him feeble, and with the missionaries, who thought him fair, and died in Auckland in September 1842. The chiefs' letter to the queen after his death asked that the next governor be as good a man.
- Lived: 1792 CE – 1842 CE
- Nationality: British
- Roles: governor, naval_officer
