Draft:Noel Hilliam

Noel Edward Hilliam
Born	(1937-12-25)December 25, 1937 Te Kopuru, Northland, New Zealand
Died	September 10, 2017(2017-09-10) (aged 79) Dargaville
Occupation	Historian

Noel Hilliam (died 10 September 2017) was a dairy farmer, shipwreck hunter, and often controversial amateur historian from Dargaville, in Northland, New Zealand.

Hilliam researched and documented a large number of shipwrecks in the Northland Region, including the numerous wrecks at the Kaipara Harbour.

In 1982, Hilliam reported seeing the wreck of a Spanish ship at Baylys Beach, but it was never located.

In the same year Hilliam identified a wooden ship exposed in the shallow waters of Midge Bay, north of the Kaipara Harbour entrance. After researching this, Hilliam suggests that the wreck could be from between the voyages of Tasman & Cook – pointing towards further Dutch exploration of the South Pacific. This wreck is suggested to be New Zealand's oldest shipwreck.

In 1998, elders of Te Uri o Hau restricted access to sacred Māori sites in Kaipara after Hilliam visited without permission and claimed to have discovered a prehistoric village, allegedly occupied by a people displaced by Māori around 600 years ago. Although he did not disclose the location, it is locally suggested to be the man-made, stone structures in the Waipoua Forest. Hilliam has since argued that these structures were evidence of pre-Maori settlement. Hilliam has worked in the forest near this location and suggested that the 75 year embargo on the site and government redacted information was a conspiracy to hide evidence of pre-Maori settlers. In reality, the embargo was lifted in 1996 (67 years early).

In 2004, after pursuing it for 30 years, Hilliam participated in excavating a shipwreck west of Dargaville. This shipwreck had previously surfaced in both 1973 and 1909. Items recovered including an anchor chain and a 1.5-meter cannon.

In 2008 The Underwater Heritage Group (of which Hilliam was vice-president) announced that they had discovered a German U-boat off the Kaipara Coast. Hilliam claimed the submarine had been 'observed seven times' and three divers had been to it – however, no photographs exist and it has not since been seen.

In 2009, it was suggested that Spanish sailors might have reached New Zealand over a century before Abel Tasman. A researcher examined these claims, based on Hilliam's belief that a Spanish ship visited in the 16th century and sank. Hilliam noted that 22 of the 53 crew members were from Aranga, Spain—a name also found in a Northland area where the wreck was seen (e.g. The Northland town of Aranga). He also claimed that the main street in that Spanish town was ‘Rua Tui’, which also resembles a Māori name. There are at least four streets in Spain called 'Rúa Tui' and while the name does sound like Maori, 'Rúa' is a Spanish word meaning 'street'. The town of Aranga does not have a street called Rúa Tui, although the nearby (about 40 mins away) towns of Lugo and A Coruña both do.

In 2012, Hilliam co-authored To the Ends of the Earth, which controversially argued that the Māori demigod Maui was not Polynesian but an ancient Egyptian navigator.

In 2016, Hilliam claimed to find remains of a P51 Mustang in the Wairoa River (Northland). Although attempts were made, they were not able to successfully find and raise the plane before Hilliams death. No photographic evidence exists of the plane in the river.

In 2017 Hilliam claimed he found human remains of Welsh origin that pre-dated Māori.

Roles

• First president of the New Zealand Underwater Heritage Group (NZUHG)
• Northland board of the Historic Places Trust
• Curator of the Dargaville Maritime Museum

Awards

2017 - The Kelly Tarlton Award for Services to Underwater Heritage