• CANTERBURY’S FIRST LAWYERS

    If one wished to split hairs, you could say that Canterbury’s first lawyers were William and John Deans.  It seems that in the Deans household in the parish of Riccarton back in good old Scotland, it was straight out of school and into Dad’s law firm to establish in oneself a good work ethic.  But …

  • BAKER POLHILL (1798 – 1853)

    Upon searching the claim that the Allen family had the first European birth – following the arrival of the Canterbury Association ships – which even the family were unsure about, I came across another birth that instantly took my interest.  In the 3rd edition of the Lyttelton Times, the birth of Edward Greig Watts Polhill …

  • Free’s Flag

    Onboard the “Randolph”, the Canterbury Association’s 2nd ship, was the Free family.  The head of the family was John Free – a labourer – and with him was his wife Mary and their 7 children.  Believe it or not, the Free’s weren’t the largest family group to emigrate to Canterbury. The family settled beside the …

  • Mona Vale And Canterbury’s Own Derelict Castle

    The grounds of Mona Vale were once the most beautiful and well kept paddocks on the farm at Riccarton.  In April 1869, when Jane Deans learnt that Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, was planning on visiting Riccarton during his Christchurch visit for an afternoon of pigeon shooting, there was only one place for the …

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