“I find that my notion of a distinct settlement in New Zealand, under the patronage of a powerful body in this country, desirous of spreading the Church of England, stands a good chance of being realized sooner than we expected. The subject has been fully considered, and at length something like practical conclusions have been …
John Robert Godley, Canterbury’s Founder was always a man on the go…in more ways than one. The Godley Statue was unveiled on the 8th August 1867, six years after Godley passed away from illness in London. From 1904, talk of moving the statue began to circulate as a tram shelter was needed. It wasn’t until …
The Bridle Path symbolizes a lot of different things to many different people. As a Canterbury historian, my heart jumps in my ribcage every time I see it and I am not even a descendant of a family that walked over it 150 years ago. My British parents and older brothers would make the same …
As a teenager, Charles Bowen found himself rubbing shoulders with worldly wisdom and business knowledge in the shape of John Robert Godley, James Edward Fitzgerald and Lord Lyttelton. He was a budding Irish law student absorbing all he could amongst the upper class ranks of the Canterbury Association in which he had taken a keen …
Charlotte Godley (wife of Christchurch’s founder John Robert Godley) didn’t miss a thing. During her short time in New Zealand, she observed and met some of the very early colourful characters of Canterbury. None escaped the fury of her pen when she wrote letters home to her mother in England. Mr. Mark Pringle Stoddard was …
It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the first meeting of The Canterbury Association on the 27th March 1848. The chosen room at 41 Charing Cross, London began to fill with some of the well known names and faces of the British upper class; gentlemen of the church, noble families, rank and money, some of …
Tommy Cass knew life’s ups and downs. By the time he was surveying the 33,000 acres that would become the Deans’ future rural station of ‘Homebush’ in 1851, Tommy had earned the respect and admiration of all those around him. You get the feeling that he walked along with a great confidence and self knowledge …
“I often smile when I think of the ideal Canterbury of which our imagination dreamt, yet I see nothing in that dream to regret or to be ashamed of, and I am quite sure that without the enthusiasm, the poetry, the unreality if you will, with which our scheme was overlaid, it would never have …
“Rode with Mr [John Robert] Godley over the hills to the Plains. Went first to Christchurch, where there are about 4 huts, 3 tents and a hovel or 2 – with about 25 persons in all…the [Canterbury] Association store, a surveyor’s hut are the principal buildings upon what may be some time a great city …
As the citizens of Christchurch went about their business at the Land Office, upstairs in a very small room sat four of our founding fathers, squished in side by side behind a small table. They were John Robert Godley (founder of Canterbury), Mark Stoddart (first European to explore Lake Coleridge and whom also named Diamond …
