It was late 1853 when the Ollivier family stepped off the ‘John Taylor’ to seize all the opportunities that were on offer in Canterbury and that they did, for generations to come. John Ollivier, the head of the family, was a publisher by trade. After receiving the best education in France, the British born teenager …
Tucked away on the left hand side, as you head west on Yaldhurst Road and as the last of the houses give way to the paddocks of the Canterbury Plains, stands a monument to the working horse, to which without, man would have never tamed the wildness of Canterbury. From the very beginning, the horse …
Edward Brenchley Bishop must have been relieved as he watched the timber for his new house arrive via the Heathcote River; it hadn’t been an easy adventure so far. He and his family had made the trek over the Bridle Path, leading a single packhorse along with them that carried a simple tent and supplies. …
The first signs of European life started to appear in Templeton and Weedons around 1860. Before that, Templeton was known as the nothern end of James Edward Fitzgerald’s sheep station, ‘The Springs’. It was named because of the many water springs on his run (where the town of Lincoln is today) and they still bubble …
As the Bealey brothers – Samuel and John – made the most of their sea voyage to Lyttelton in 1851, they shared their ship, the ‘Cornwall’ with the Moorhouse brothers – William, Benjamin and Thomas – totally unaware how together, they would make Canterbury history. Samuel (pictured) was born in Lancashire, England in 1821. He …
William Barnard Rhodes (1807 – 1878) was the eldest of his 13 siblings and the first to arrive in New Zealand out of his 5 brothers! As Captain and co-owner of the ship ‘Harriet’, William saw a lot of the world. In 1836, while employed by the firm of Cooper and Levy, William sailed into …
William Barbour Wilson was born in Kirkcudbrightshire in Scotland. He started off his adulthood as a nurseryman’s apprentice. He then moved to Ireland where he worked as an overseer for a few estates there. No one knows why he set his sights on New Zealand next. Maybe it was because New Zealand seemed a certain …
I’m sure that David Innes felt a great deal of pride and achievement as he and his fiancee – Catherine Williams – and his future mother-in-law began their journey out to his sheep farm, ‘Pareora’ in South Canterbury – after all the two women had yet to see it. He had brought the 25 000 …
I’m sure after Edward Jollie had finished surveying (driving pegs into the ground to mark out the roads and sections) the areas of Canterbury that would become Christchurch, Lyttelton and Sumner, he was quite over tussock, flax, cabbage trees and slipping up to his thighs in the swamp that was the Canterbury Plains in 1849. …
JOHN JENKINS PEACOCK – 1798 – 1868 From Sumner to Shag Pile (Shag’s Rock) is known as Peacock’s Gallop. Imagine it’s the 1850’s in Sumner. It’s still early morning, you may be still in bed when in the dimness comes the faint rumble of pounding horse hooves. It grows louder and louder, then you catch …
