On 22 December 1885, the statue to honour the service of the late William Sefton Moorhouse was unveiled in the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. He had been Canterbury’s second Superintendent and served in this role twice – first in 1858 to 1862 and again in 1866 to 1868. He was further honoured in 1903 when the …
On the morning of 11th October 1885, a neat pile of folded clothes were discovered by a young lad on Sumner Beach, not far from the Scarborough Heads. The owner was one Arthur Rennage Howard, a mechanic who worked at the Addington Railway Workshops and lived with his wife Sarah and two children at No. …
Within seven months of the arrival of American-born Temperance Movement member, Mary Clement Leavitt, ten branches of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union were established across New Zealand, including Christchurch in May 1885. This was New Zealand’s first nationwide, all woman, mass organisation and it remains the world’s oldest voluntary, non sectarian organisation today. It was …
On 30th April 1885, a meeting was held in Christchurch concerning the formation of a St John medical service for those in desperate need in the city. For those who couldn’t afford a doctor, all sorts of treatments and cures were undertaken that were dangerously based on old wives tales and sketchy knowledge passed down …
In 1885, at Riccarton House and the Clark farm in Cashmere, fewer than one hundred Bumblebees were released into the wild by the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society. Acclimatisation Societies (which are worldwide) would release introduced species into colonies where they believe native fauna were lacking; or when the new pilgrims would miss seeing a familiar sight …
The fact that little William David Mason had left home with enough money to pay the fare to get home safely must have grieved his mother Eliza Mason beyond all imagination. The fact that her 10 year old was found deceased on the Port Hills added to a puzzle that all began on the evening …
On 3 January 1883, the Lyttelton Graving Dock (also known as a dry dock) was opened with great ceremony. Considered a great status symbol for any new colony, the subject of a graving dock for Lyttelton was first brought up during the Provincial Government era. Made of masonry and concrete, it was designed by engineer, …
In December 1883, recent arrivals to Christchurch – Captain Clark and an engineer only known as “Somerton” – put their idea to water with the opening of a steam boat service from Market Place (Victoria Square) to New Brighton. On the Avon, behind the Oxford Hotel (the Oxford on Avon) a landing dock was built …
In 1883, one of the world’s first reinforced concrete structures – with the additional use of steel and cast iron – was erected in Christchurch. It was the Addington Water Tower. Prison labour was used to build it and before it was finished, the tower had already sunk 9 inches. The tower is 21.9 metres …
George Hawkes Whitcombe arrived in New Plymouth in 1870. Being French, George made a career of teaching the language – but there are no clues of what brought him down to Christchurch. He became a bookseller and publisher. In 1883, he joined with George Tombs, a printer and book binder who already had a shop …
