It was August 1841 when William Deans, Jimmy Robinson Clough and George Duppa made their way around the Bays of Ohikaparuparu (Sumner) in a Whaler’s boat and crossed the (Sumner) bar into the Waipātiki – the low waters that we know as the Avon Heathcote Estuary. They sailed north-west and travelled up the Ōtākaro (Avon …
“I have been an active promoter of the Canterbury Association, and I now stand here to defend it on this ground alone, that is better than the Government. For 12 years….Sir George Grey [the Governor of New Zealand and pictured here in 1861] and his predecessors have had nearly the whole of New Zealand under …
“I know you will be angry with my talking in this way of Canterbury. But if your Lordship were to land, I fear that, while you admired the material progress if the Settlement, you would share the heart-sickness of those who remember the aspirations of Mr [John Robert] Godley’s time and who have learned that …
As much as Christchurch wanted its own identity and separation from the old country, some traditions followed the settlers that weren’t ready to die just yet. One of those traditions were balls; the first being held in the Lyttelton Immigration Barracks by the Godleys early 1851. This ball was considered a grand success – that …