Campbell Island 'princess' revisited

Campbell Island. Photo / Supplied

During the 1820s Bonnie Prince Charlie's illegitimate grand daughter was abandoned, then died, on lonely Campbell Island.

This story has been around a long time, though these days it's usually dismissed as apocryphal .

Still, legends can have a factual core and this one certainly boasts some intriguing details.

Whether or not of royal descent, a woman may have lived in "The Lady of the Heather Hut", at Camp Cove, in the early 19th Century.

Ship girls sometimes accompanied sealers to the Campbell Island and one of them is said to have worn Stuart tartans.

George Fowlds, who published "The Mystery Lady of Campbell Island" in 1965, suggested this may have been one basis to the legend.

A grand daughter of Charles Edward Stuart seems to have married into Polish aristocracy.
It's doubtful she was banished to the antipodes under suspicion of being a spy, as the legend states, but quite possible somebody close to her family, or boasting connections with it, lived in the sod hut.

This would have been during a relatively brief global "fur rush" of the early 19th Century.

Fortunes were made hunting the hapless fur seal and many a ship crew sailed from Europe to our waters to do so.

They included the alleged villain of the legend, Captain William Stewart, who is supposed to have carried her away from England in his ship.

Stewart boasted of drinking burgundy with Charles Edward Stuart in France.

A privateer in the Caribbean before arriving in New Zealand, he would have had to have been about 20 years of age at the time, if his story is true.

Little is known of this colourful Scot, but it's possible that during a long career as a sealer, his boasting of royal connections, his habit of wearing tartans and possibly an incident with a ship girl, began the kidnapping legend.

Paul Charman on a previous trip to the Island. Photo / Supplied

Interestingly enough, this era of our early history is far closer in time to the Jacobite Uprising than people imagine.

Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne was a young sea captain, a member of the rescue party, who - following the disastrous Battle of Culloden - helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape to a safe haven in France.

Think Skye Boat Song and you're in about the right era.

But later on du Fresne visited the Bay of Islands on behalf of the French Navy, and there, while repairing their ships, he and 26 of his men were killed by Maori.

Hut to be conserved.

But whether or not you believe in "The Mysterious Lady of Campbell Island", she is soon to receive some long overdue attention.

The flattened remains of her sod hut (which has a grave nearby) is to be conserved when DoC and the Navy visit the island in April.

Archaeologists will remove flax over-growing the site, and dig post holes for a fence to protect it from sea lions.

In effect, this means test pits and it will be interesting to see if any objects are found.

A farmer who worked on Campbell Island early last century reported that in 1926 he found, "a French or Italian crystal goblet" in the floor of the hut.

Back in the early 1970s, Campbell Island historian Norm Judd interviewed this man and others who'd worked on the island as shepherds or whalers.

Norm heard accounts from them of a grave, once clearly marked near the hut site in Camp Cove, but now entirely over-grown.

He noted reports that heather once grew prolifically at the site too, though quite unknown in this part of the world.

The former National Parks and Reserves employee has visited the island many times.

He will supervise the preservation efforts at this hut, plus at another one at Tucker Cove.

Norm points out that nobody really knows how old these sod huts are, or who used them.

"What we think is that people who came to Campbell Island over a long period tended to use huts already built," he says.

"These two huts seem to have been there when Captain James Ross visited Campbell Island in 1840 but they may be older."

I can't resist adding that the ships Captain Ross used to visit Antarctica -- HMS Erebus and HMS Terror -- later mysteriously disappeared during Sir John Franklin's expedition to the Arctic.

As you can probably tell, I enjoy a good mystery and have taken a close interest in "The Lady of the Heather" for years.

Many have theories have been advanced as to her true identity.

But I'll keep mine to myself till after my own visit to her hut site at Camp Cove in the first week of January.

Paul Charman's trip to Campbell Island is being supported by Heritage Expeditions and The Scottish Shop - Dunedin.