This web feature was written by Imelda Bargas and produced by the NZHistory.net.nz team.
Links
- 'Guardians of the Light' - documentary about lighthouse keepers (NZ On Screen)
- Pencarrow lighthouse report (Heritage New Zealand)
- Lighthouse keepers (Maritime New Zealand)
- Lighthouses (Te Ara)
- Flyby video of the lower Pencarrow lighthouse - from booma's Vimeo page
Books
- Helen Beaglehole, Lighting the coast: a history of New Zealand's coastal lighthouse system, Canterbury University Press, Christchurch, 2006.
- David Johnson, Wellington harbour, Wellington Maritime Museum Trust, Wellington, 1996.
A note on sources
Further details of many of the events mentioned, from the wreck of the Maria to the opening of Pencarrow lighthouse, can be found in newspapers digitised on Papers Past.
More information on the lighthouse, events leading up to its construction, and subsequent changes to the tower and its surroundings is contained in two unpublished reports held by Heritage New Zealand (file number 12016-015):
- Robert Burnett, Pencarrow Lighthouse, Records and Classifications committee: Buildings' Unpublished research report for the Historic Places Trust, Wellington, 1979[?]
- Paul Cummack, with revisions by Helen McCracken and Alison Dangerfield, Pencarrow Lighthouse Wellington Conservation Plan, New Zealand Historic Places Trust, Wellington, 2008.
For more information on the Bennett family see Paul Bennett's family history The Bennetts of Pencarrow (copy held by Heritage New Zealand).
Further details on the day-to-day lives of keepers and their families can be found in Marine Department records held at Archives New Zealand.
