Thanks to what has been stolen by the earthquakes, it is really hard to recognise where this photo (top left) was taken…trust me, I was standing there and couldn’t believe the changes all around me and I knew the street well. Embedded into the very pavement is a plaque acknowledging the spot where the very …
Irene Leaver – the daughter of the Mayor of the New Brighton’s Borough – couldn’t help but let her eyes stray up to the surrounding crowd. I’m sure with a small lump in her throat; she forced a smile to her lips and returned to her duty of laying the foundation stone for the New …
“Thus the work of the Canterbury Association will be at a end. And whatever our own feelings may be, who have struggled hard and, some at all events, suffered much, in planting towns and villages in this desert…yet, will there come after us, inhabiting a cultivated, rich and populous district, the seat of manufactures, the …
Henry John Tancred had a career that would make anyone’s head spin!!! Born in the Isle of Wight in 1814, Henry became an officer in the Austrian Army. In 1848, he had a nasty fall from his horse which left him mildly handicapped. He took his sick leave in England and it was there that …
James Edward Fitzgerald (1818 – 1896) Died of old age Place of Death: Wellington Was Canterbury’s first Superintendent, the first to step ashore from the Charlotte Jane, founded the Lyttelton Times and The Press, Lincoln and Springston was his farmland which was known as The Springs. Buried at Bolten Street Cemetery, Wellington. The …
Known by the locals as Aylesbury’s Bend, the intersection of Railway, Bealey, Aylesbury, West Coast (once known as Bealey’s Track) and Station Roads in Aylesbury, Canterbury used to be known as Bealey’s Crossing. Bealey Road begins here and ends in Hororata. As the West Coast Road was once known as Bealey’s Track, this would have …
Ever wondered what its looks like when two avenues fight? Well, it looks like this 
James Edward Fitzgerald (left) and William Rolleston (right) play it up for Dr. A.C. Barker’s camera sometime in the early 1860’s. This photo was most likely taken in Dr. A.C. Barker’s garden on the corner of Worcester Street and …
There would have been no hope for this old ledger if it hadn’t been behind glass at the Canterbury Museum. A ledger of land purchased up to the 30th April 1868 – section numbers, purchaser’s surnames, where and what acreage. Some names just jumped out of the page at me, I was so buzzing that …
“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 …
The first signs of European life started to appear in Templeton and Weedons around 1860. Before that, Templeton was known as the nothern end of James Edward Fitzgerald’s sheep station, ‘The Springs’. It was named because of the many water springs on his run (where the town of Lincoln is today) and they still bubble …
