72 people who lost their lives on the 12th of February, 1909 when the passenger steamer SS Penguin went down in a storm.

 

The wreck of the Penguin on 12 February 1909 was New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century.

A half-day holiday was declared to allow people to mourn and bury the dead and the city came to a standstill as crowds lined the streets to watch the funeral processions wend their way through the city, Kelburn and up to Karori Cemetery in Wellington. The saddest sight was the four little white coffins of the McGuire children who had been temporarily living in a Nelson orphanage. They were returning to Wellington to be reunited with their widowed father who had just remarried.

The ship was travelling from Nelson to Wellington via Picton when it hit something in the dark and began taking on water. The Penguin had enough lifeboats and rafts to accommodate all aboard but the lifeboats did not fare well in the atrocious conditions. Twenty-four people reached shore on the ship's two rafts, but only six people who left in lifeboats survived the night. Only one woman survived the tragedy and all 10 children onboard perished in the rough seas.

Shepherds from Terawhiti sheep station (now Terawhiti Station) were the first on the scene and searchers scoured the coast, recovering bodies from the jagged rocks and surf and often struggling in deep water to carry the dead ashore. Survivors were carried on horseback across the flooded Karori Stream.