There is always something very special about those abodes and buildings in Christchurch that just don’t quite fit in…not only in a historic way but also in style and materials. Such a place exists on the corner Durham and Wordsworth Streets – Blackheath – as it states so proudly on its Durham Street frontage for …
“Mr [John Robert] Godley whom I remember as a boy at school thoroughly respected by all his schoolfellows, seems early in life to have been taught by the Tractarian movement at Oxford that the religion of a community should be its most important consideration…his letters have recently been published…and no volume of correspondence ever fell …
“Who that was then at Lyttelton can never forget that delightful and exciting time? Those long cloudless summer days when we first began to build sod cottages, to carry boards upon our shouldars, when we first had to rough it, when we grumbled and laughed in a breath, and really did a great deal of …
The suggestion of the need for a war memorial was first made in an article featured in ‘The Press’ on the 24th July 1923. The C.C.C. couldn’t ignore the support showed by the public for this idea so a competition was released for a design to be made. A company named Prouse and Gummer won; …
As the ‘Isabella Hercus’ – the Canterbury Association’s 6th ship – broke through the waves 200 miles north of the Equator that warm November morning, Chaplin James Wilson was on the deck, murmuring a desperate prayer. He was aware of Captain Houston crouching down beside him impatiently but this poor dead young woman lying before …
“You know what a strange person [Captain Joseph]Thomas is; and though [John Cowell] Boys and I received a handsome testimonial from him on the occasion of our discharge he has followed up the injury of disappointing us by constant snubbing and insulting conduct. However, we have restrained ourselves, taken everything quite coolly, and been careful …
“You will see that E.G. [Edward Gibbon]Wakefield (pictured) and Mr. [Henry] Sewell are no means favourites here, and that they will find more difficulty than they anticipated in saddling the colony with the [Canterbury] Association’s debt, or selling certain lands and buildings which are either reserved for the public purposes or built with the money …
“He had grown more wonderful than ever, in dress and appearance. His hair is all brushed and shaved away from his face, except (for) a very long mustache and on hot days he used to wear the most frightful long brown holland blouse, left very open, with a belt and a turn-down collar, and on …
“There was one feature in his character which is not a popular one, and which he never cared to conceal or control, and that was his unmitigated hatred and contempt for humbug of every kind: whether it appeared in the form of dishonesty in money matters, or hypocrisy in religion, or of corruption in public …
As a man of God, I’m sure the loss of your own child could be even harder to understand. To be in the service of the Most High and still, your children don’t escape the harsh reality of being in the world, must be even more crushing. Falling back on what had comforted him in …