In August 1892, witnessed by their male counterparts of the ‘Bicycle Touring Club’, the first all woman’s bicycle club was established in Christchurch. This was the first of its kind in the world and was known as the ‘Atalanta Cycling Club’. Atalanta was a female athlete in Greek Mythology. The main driving force behind this …
On 1st November 1890, Richmond joined the Greater Christchurch and came under the care of the C.C.C. It was the first borough to do so outside the main Town Belts (our main four Avenues). Hungarian settler, Morice Bing bought 200 acres just north of the Avon River (near Stanmore Road) in the early 1860s. He …
William Derisley (W.D) Wood arrived in Christchurch on the ‘Randolph’, the second of our First Four Canterbury Association ships on the 16th December 1850. Family legend states that W.D. didn’t step on shore until the next day as it was going to be his 26th birthday. Being born into a family of millers, W.D’s destiny …
To coincide with the opening of New Zealand’s first railway – a line between Ferrymead and Christchurch city – the Canterbury Provincial Government also had railway workshops constructed at Addington in 1863. As our first locomotives were imported, these workshops carried out maintenance work on the engines, carriages and wagons. As Canterbury’s railway industry grew, …
On 28 March 1889, George Gould – Christchurch’s first general store owner – died in his ‘Hambledon’ property located on the corner of Bealey Ave and Springfield Road. He had built his fine home in 1856 and named it after the town where he was born. Sadly, this house collapsed during the quake on 22 …
Early in 1888, British born World Champion cyclist, Frederick Wood, stages a crash with his penny farthing for Alfred Ernest Preece, a Christchurch photographer. It is taken at Lancaster Park. For Christchurch born Preece, it could have been more about his love of cycles rather than his love of being behind the camera that lead …
It wouldn’t be until March 1888 that the Committee of the Canterbury Agricultural & Pastoral Association met to discuss the amazing success they had enjoyed at their last Metropolitan Show, which had run from 9th to 11th November 1887. There had be serious doubts and nervousness amongst the members as this would be the first …
Mrs. Jane Harris must have had great faith in her son, William Henry Harris, when she agreed to mortgage the family home so he could buy into a partnership with ‘Canterbury Wire Works’. Her faith paid off when the business became the largest of its kind in Christchurch (the telephone number being 200) and also …
From the era where newspapers became a main source of news, a battle has ensued between reporters to be the first to get the news to the public. It was no different for Canterbury – the first printing press arriving in the cargo hold of the Canterbury Association’s first ship, the ‘Charlotte Jane’ in 1850. …
The story of St Mary’s Cathedral Church began with the purchase of land by New Zealand’s only Anglican Bishop, George Augustus Selwyn in 1843. It was here that Selwyn planted the seeds of his dream of having a grand Cathedral for Auckland. The following year, a small chapel named St Stephen’s was built and consecrated …
