For Crosbie Ward, his three month voyage to Lyttelton must have been like sailing through a continuous slow choking fog. His heart had been heavy ever since the news of the death of his older brothers had reached his family in Ireland. When he wasn’t grieving, he was sick with worry as his remaining younger …
I can’t say whether Elizabeth Watts-Russell was one of those who laughed when the Ward brothers – Edward, Henry and Hamilton – chose Quail Island as the place to set up their farm. The brothers were well aware of the giggles happening around Lyttelton as they prepared to make their move. Edward – the eldest …
“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 …
“On board the Charlotte Jane…I try to recollect the events of the past five days, which from confusion, sickness and disagreeables of every kind could not be recorded at the time…”Edward Ward – 12th September 1850.The Charlotte Jane had sailed out of Plymouth on the 7th September 1850. Edward starts his journal off on the …
“Having reached the island which Quail Island rises to about 250 ft above the level of the harbour I landed at a shelly beach and ascended the hill in order to correct and complete my sketch. During my walk there I flushed several quail and from that circumstance I gave it the name Quail Island.” …
“This, the first day of heavy gales, produces something strange and uncomfortable every hour. Dinner was an awful scramble, plates and dishes falling about, of course, but that was the least. You were as likely to find your neighbour in your plate as your plate in your neighbour’s lap, or your lap in your neighbour’s, …
Maybe it had been the tedious bumpy ROADLESS journey over the sea of tussock – from Hawkins (a stone’s throw from Darfield) to Rolleston – that made the farmhand lower the new plough down to harvesting position before he towed it back to Bangor in which he worked. He had been sent out hours before …
