I was completely delighted to have been able to purchase this 90 year old booklet about Riccarton Bush last week. What a treasure! I have only had the time for a quick flick through – as I already have two books on the go – but I did come across something I thought was worth …
In the early hours of the 18th September 1850, the passengers of the ‘Sir George Seymour’ – the third of our First Four Ships – heard one of the distress calls that no one at sea wants to hear. FIRE! It is not reported whether the watch-keeper (name of the male passengers who strolled the …
It was August 1841 when William Deans, Jimmy Robinson Clough and George Duppa made their way around the Bays of Ohikaparuparu (Sumner) in a Whaler’s boat and crossed the (Sumner) bar into the Waipātiki – the low waters that we know as the Avon Heathcote Estuary. They sailed north-west and travelled up the Ōtākaro (Avon …
“I have been an active promoter of the Canterbury Association, and I now stand here to defend it on this ground alone, that is better than the Government. For 12 years….Sir George Grey [the Governor of New Zealand and pictured here in 1861] and his predecessors have had nearly the whole of New Zealand under …
“I know you will be angry with my talking in this way of Canterbury. But if your Lordship were to land, I fear that, while you admired the material progress if the Settlement, you would share the heart-sickness of those who remember the aspirations of Mr [John Robert] Godley’s time and who have learned that …
As much as Christchurch wanted its own identity and separation from the old country, some traditions followed the settlers that weren’t ready to die just yet. One of those traditions were balls; the first being held in the Lyttelton Immigration Barracks by the Godleys early 1851. This ball was considered a grand success – that …
“For the last five years, ever since the plan of founding a settlement of Church People in New Zealand was first suggested to me…the thought of it has hardly been for a moment out of my mind; I have become, for the time at least, a man of one idea, to which everything else, public …
Names from the Canterbury Association that didn’t stick… Greig Island – Quail Island – named after Canterbury Association member Rev. George Robert Gleig. The Shakespeare – The Avon – named after English playwright William Shakespeare. The Courtenay – The Waimakariri – named after Canterbury Association member William Courtenay (Archbishop of Canterbury). The Cholmondeley – The …
I can’t say whether Elizabeth Watts-Russell was one of those who laughed when the Ward brothers – Edward, Henry and Hamilton – chose Quail Island as the place to set up their farm. The brothers were well aware of the giggles happening around Lyttelton as they prepared to make their move. Edward – the eldest …
“Have you not heard of the birth of the latest colonial baby? Bishops and Bigwigs in at the accouchment – [Edward]Gibbon Wakefield (owner of the New Zealand Company) the monthly nurse – the new Canterbury Pilgrimage born with a flourish of trumpets and laying on of hands”. Edward Merson Templar (now remembered in the naming …
