A HISTORY OF BLACKBALL: WHY WAS IT CALLED BLACKBALL?

Why was Blackball Creek called Blackball Creek? The traditional story is that the creek and then the town were named after the Black Ball Line, a shipping company, acquired a coal lease on a block of land. Yet the creek was given its name some years before anybody leased any land for coalmining. Newspapers wrote about ‘the Black Ball’ and ‘Blackball Creek’ by the middle of 1866, but never said why.[i]
     The Black Ball Line was formed in Liverpool in 1852 in order to run shipping services between Europe and the goldfields in New South Wales and Victoria. As the company thrived, it added further services to India, China and New Zealand. ‘The Oliver Lang, a fine vessel of 1299 tons, the first of the Blackball line for New Zealand,’ noted a newspaper five years after the formation of the company, ‘arrived at Wellington on the 19th inst with 414 passengers and a general cargo, after a rapid voyage of 85 days from Liverpool.’[ii] The company’s ships were soon working all our seaways. All vessels sailing under the Black Ball flag were ‘comfortable, had well ventilated quarters for steerage passengers, state rooms for cabin passengers, smoking rooms, decorated saloons and were strongly rigged.’[iii] The Black Ball Line stopped operating in 1871.
     Does anyone have any other theory why the creek got the name Blackball?
     Could a chunk of coal have been washed down the creek and bashed about on its way downstream until, when first spotted by goldseekers, it looked more or less like a black ball? Coal ‘balls’ are sometimes seen on the sea beaches of the West Coast. Whoever named the creek will perhaps have seen such a roundish rock and thought of the distinctive company flag of the Black Ball Line. The company’s ships carried more diggers and other passengers than any other line between the various gold colonies on both sides of the Tasman. Or perhaps nobody thought about the shipping company but just thought: ‘Look, a black ball in the creek!’


[i] Evening Post, 28 May 1866.
[ii] Wanganui Herald, 3 January 1857
[iii] Baines & MacKay / Black Ball Line, Liverpool (theshipslist.com)