Ranulph Dacre and Patuone's Topknot: The Vicissitudes of a 19th-Century Royal Navy Officer Who Became a Pacific Trader and Timber Merchant in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

Ranulph Dacre's career as an entrepreneur covers the pre-colonial and colonial periods of Pacific trade. He was a pioneer of maritime-merchant enterprise based firstly in New South Wales and then New Zealand when it was desirable to have a number of skills in addition to commercial expertise and organisational ability to embark on Maori-Pakeha trading knowledge of the language, seamanship appropriate to maritime trade, command of resources, and the temperament to have mana among the Maori.