On 20th March 1917, St Martins joined the Greater Christchurch and came under the care of the C.C.C. Henry Phillips (pictured) was known to be a man of great capital amongst the other passengers of the ‘Sir George Seymour’ – the third of our first four ships. He certainly proved them right with the amount …
On 20th March 1917, Avonside joined the Greater Christchurch and came under the care of the C.C.C. In 1857, a small cob church was built at ‘the side of the Avon’ on land that had been gifted by John and Elizabeth Stace. It was consecrated by Bishop Henry Harper (Canterbury’s First Anglican Bishop) on 24 …
On 24 February 1917, Governor Lord Liverpool officially opened Riccarton Bush to the public. It had been gifted to the people of Christchurch from the Deans family three years earlier in 1914. One of the conditions of this gift was that the bush was to be preserved for all time. This fulfilled one of the …
On 9th February 1917, the Scott Statue was unveiled in the Scott Reserve – the south west corner of Worcester Street and Oxford Terrace. The ceremony was led by New Zealand Governor Arthur Foljambe, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool. It hadn’t even been a week after the news of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s death in …
Ada Wells was born on 29th April 1863 in South Oxfordshire, England. Her family immigrated to Christchurch in 1873 and Ada was enrolled at the Avonside School (Chch East School). She then attended Christchurch West High (Hagley Community College) where she later began her teaching career. She had been fortunate enough to have received a …
On 2 October 1916, Opawa joined the Great Christchurch and became under the care of the C.C.C. The Maori name for the Heathcote River is ‘Opawaho’ and this was also the name of the little settlement that sat on its banks for quite a few centuries. Opawaho means Outpost and that was exactly what it …
On 20 September 1916, the Canterbury Aviation Company was founded by Sir Henry Francis Wigram – Christchurch’s 25th Mayor (1902 -1904). It was a return trip to England in 1908 that changed his life forever. He saw his first plane. Upon his return, he approached the government about the great need to introduce aviation to …
On 25th April 1916, Christchurch along with the rest of the country, gathered together for the first time to acknowledge the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey during WWI. They were about to do their part in Winston Churchill’s campaign, hopefully resulting in the opening of the Black Sea …
On 20th January 1915, the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) was formed in Christchurch, based on the educational model being used in Australia. Very soon after, this form of community teaching was being used all over New Zealand. The WEA had first begun in England in 1903. Eveline Willett Cunningham was born to very wealthy parents …
Seventy seven years after Captain William Barnard Rhodes stocked Canterbury with its first hoof stock and fifty eight years after William Sefton Moorhouse became Canterbury’s second Superintendent; their fighter pilot grandson and nephew was flying wounded during WWI. He had just bombed a Belgium railway junction but had been badly wounded by ground gunfire. He …
