Banks Peninsula whaler Edward Weller must have smiled to himself that October day in 1839. Maybe he even waved goodbye to those members of the Ngai Tahu who had foolishly sold him Banks Peninsula and the greater part of the Port Cooper (Canterbury) Plains for an old whaler’s boat and a few items of clothing. …
William Barnard Rhodes (1807 – 1878) was the eldest of his 13 siblings and the first to arrive in New Zealand out of his 5 brothers! As Captain and co-owner of the ship ‘Harriet’, William saw a lot of the world. In 1836, while employed by the firm of Cooper and Levy, William sailed into …
Seventy seven years after Captain William Barnard Rhodes stocked Canterbury with its first hoof stock and fifty eight years after William Sefton Moorhouse became Canterbury’s second Superintendent; their fighter pilot grandson and nephew was flying wounded during WWI. He had just bombed a Belgium railway junction but had been badly wounded by ground gunfire. He …
The view of Waitaha (Canterbury Plains) from the top of the Te Poho o Tamatea (Port Hills) in 1836 wouldn’t be hard to imagine – swamp, cabbage trees, flax and Toi Toi. Was it a place where a future could begin for someone not afraid of hard work? William Barnard Rhodes (pictured with his wife …
