Epitaph: John Grubb 1817-1898

As a member of the Canterbury Association's thirty-five strong initial work party, John Grubb, a thirty-two year old Scottish Carpenter arrived at Lyttelton on the 2nd of July, 1849.

His first responsibilty was the erection of the five prefabricated dwellings and Blacksmith's shop, carried from Wellington in the hold of the Fair Tasmanian. Three weeks later John commenced the construction of a 46 metre jetty, at which the first emigrants from the Association's chartered sailing ships would arrive 17 months later. Among those passengers were his wife Mary and their three daughters.


Early in the following year John Grubb built an extension across the front of what the historical record appears to indicate as being the 1849 prefabricated cottage of Joseph Thomas, the Principal Surveyor and Acting Agent of the Canterbury Association.

Initially granted a licence to occupy the site at the time when Captain Thomas relocateded to a more substantial dwelling, Grubb subsequently purchased the property for £23, when the set price for a bare section was £12.

By 1864 Mary and John's family included a further seven Lyttelton born children and an additional floor had been added to the 1851 extension.

Situated at 62 London Street, the house (below) remained in the Grubb family until 1961 and was purchased in 2006 by the Christchurch City Council for $260,000. We look forward to its restoration...


The mismanaged Canterbury Association collapsed in 1852 and John Grubb set himself up as a Shipwright on the foreshore (below foreground), in the vicinity of where the defunct second Railway Station now stands. A builder's model of John Grubb's Caledonia, the first vessel built of New Zealand timber and entirely by local industry, is in the collection of Canterbury Heritage.


Born on the 7th of November 1816, the former Mary Stott married John Grubb on the 26th of January 1842. She died at Lyttelton on the 18th of October 1886. Born on the 1st of May 1817 at Ferryport-on-Craig, Fifeshire, John survived his wife by a further twelve years. Lyttelton's oldest resident died in his 82nd year on Saturday, the 19th of February 1898.


The extensive and somewhat folkloric history of the Grubb family and their endeavours are well documented and thus the pioneering John Grubb can be considered as one of the seminal figures in the foundation of our community. That his final resting place in Lyttelton's Canterbury Street Cemetery lies ruined and forgotten might well seem to be a barometric indicator of our current cultural climate.

Christchurch Street Number Allocations

Subsequent to a reader enquiry concerning the location of an early house we're motivated to pontificate on a matter that's long been a source of confusion to local researchers.

Until about 1881 street numbers were not allocated to Christchurch buildings. Addresses listed in the electoral rolls for that year still used the 1849 allocation of Town Section numbers.

With the increasing subdivision of the original quarter acre sections, the old system ceased to be a practical option. A numbering system for East-West streets within the four avenues was then introduced with the lowest numbers beginning from their intersections with Town Belt East (now Fitzgerald Avenue).

However, by the turn of the century those streets had begun to extend eastwards into the suburb of Linwood and a new system of numbering was required. This was brought about by reversing the numbers so that the lowest began in the West at Rolleston Avenue, and in the case of Gloucester Street in particular, ran through to number 784 where that street terminated in what is now the suburb of Avonside.

Cashel Street appears to have been the first thoroughfare to have been renumbered in 1904, with for example, what had begun with the address of Town Section 855 becoming number 226 in the early 1880s and then 87 Cashel Street from 1904. Remarkably the original circa 1856 building on this site (below) survives, without recognition, in what is now part of the City Mall.

To add to a researcher's confusion not all numbers were re-allocated. Thus in the case of Worcester Street (which appears to have been the last to be renumbered in 1910), what had been 5 Worcester Street, which was the third house on the South side near to Fitzgerald Avenue, becoming number 278. But 5 Worcester Street was then allocated to the house on the Northern corner of Worcester Street and Rolleston Avenue, with the numbers 1 and 3 being inexplicably omitted.

We've yet to ascertain dates or patterns for the re-numbering of the North-South streets, but a database is underway to match Town Section, old and new numbers, however the idiosyncracies of the newer numbering system aren't making it an easy endeavour.

1878

1946

2009
Photo credits

Detail from an 1878 photograph in the collection of the Christchurch Photographic Society.

Detail from a 1946 photograph in the collection of the Canterbury Museum.

Edward Jollie Memoir

Edward Jollie was the Surveyor who laid out the township of Lyttelton and the city of Christchurch in 1849.

1 0. Preface

1.00Beginnings

2.00Wellington: 1842-1845

3.00Nelson: 1845-1846

4.00Otago: 1846-1847

5.00Nelson: 1848-1849

6.00Christchurch: 1849-1851

7.00North Canterbury: 1852-1860

8.00South Canterbury 1858-1859

9.00Auckland: 1860-1861

10.0Francis Jollie

11.0Christchurch 1861-1865

12.0Postscript

103 Acknowledgments & Bibliography

103 Appendices103 1

103 103Caroline Orsmond Jollie 1836 -1919

103 103Margaret Jollie 1862-1936

103 103Francis Jollie 1865~1921

103 103Elizabeth Jollie 1866~1928

103 103Mary Jollie 1868-

103 103Edward Jollie Jnr 1871-1925

103 103Jollie’s mother, Margaret 1795-1872

Naming Christchurch Streets

Canterbury Heritage is soon to publish the memoirs of Edward Jollie, the Surveyor who laid out the city of Christchurch in 1849.

Among the appendices to the memoir is this excerpt from the reminisces of his fourth daughter Mary, who was born at Christchurch in 1868.

"The chief was Captain Thomas, who had come out to Wellington about 1841. He had been in a British cavalry regiment. The cadets in Wellington had once saved him from arrest for debt by rolling him up in some big maps in the survey office. He was a man of strong opinions.

When helping to lay out Christchurch my father built himself a Raupo whare, which was the first dwelling in that town. The younger surveyors made plans and submitted them to Captain Thomas for approval. It is to be regretted that he disapproved of the suggestion that the streets should be twice their present width. He was sorry after, when it was too late.

Then came the question of naming the streets. They were to be called after bishoprics of the Anglican Church. They had a sort of informal council, and looking at the plan one would say,

"What about street No. 20: shall we call it after the See of Blank?"

"That will do," would say Captain Thomas, "the Bishop of Blank is a Conservative and a good fellow, so put it down."

"Then how about naming street No. 13 after the See of Dash?"

"I'll be damned if you do, the Bishop is a Radical, quite a low fellow."

So some Sees were left out, because the chief disliked the bishops. He must have had an extensive knowledge of them.

When the ships at last arrived a number of immigrants came straggling over the Port Hills, and the Raupo whare had to accommodate quite a number of future notabilities for the night. But it did not take long to get the new town going..."

Lyttelton's Grubb Cottage Reëvaluated

By means of the digital interpolation of the first image of the nascent settlement, with the earliest known topographical survey map and recent aerial images of the township, it is possible to indicate an earlier and historically more significant origin to Lyttelton's Grubb cottage.

Joseph Thomas, Principal Surveyor and Acting Agent of the Canterbury Association, arrived at Lyttelton, with a working party of thirty five, on the 2nd of July, 1849. In the hold of the Fair Tasmanian were five prefabricated dwellings, a Blacksmith's shop and four horses.

After initially living in tents, erection of the prefabricated buildings was completed nineteen days later. That day Walter Mantell sketched the results from the vicinity of where the Time Ball Station now stands.

Reflecting the prevailing social values of the time, the settlement was spread over three separate locations. The Blacksmith's shop and tradesmen's accommodation were situated to the near northeast of where the proposed wharf was to be built. The three houses for the middle management staff were erected 256 metres to the West on what would become Norwich Quay, next to what is now the Mitre Hotel site.

But more importantly the house of the Acting Agent was situated on a promontory 87 metres to the North-by-northwest of the middle management's cottages. This simple two roomed dwelling was erected on a north-south axis overlooking a small stream, which then dropped 5.2 metres in what would become its front garden when the town survey was completed.

In April, 1850 Thomas moved to a larger cottage in the precinct of the Emigration Barracks and John Grubb, a Carpenter in the Canterbury Association's employ, was subsequently granted formal permission to squat on the section where Joseph Thomas' first home stood. On the 1st of July 1851 the Association held the first ballot for the sale of sections and John Grubb purchased his section for £23. As the set price for a Lyttelton section was £12, this amount would appear to indicate pre-existing improvements.As indicated in an April, 1852 sketch by William Holmes (above), Grubb had extended the cottage to a "T" shape, with a single storey extension on the southern end of the earlier two-roomed cottage. On an east-west axis the extension featured a simple, south facing, veranda overlooking London Street. The subsequent photographic record indicates that the bedrooms in the higher gabled roof line and the bull nosed veranda of this extension were added about 1865. This is the building as it now appears.

The rear portion of the house is accordingly believed to be the original home of the actual founder of Canterbury and the oldest surviving dwelling of the provincial settlement.

The house remained in the Grubb family until 1961 and was subsequently purchased in 2006 by the Christchurch City Council for $260,000. At the end of May, 2008 the Council announced plans for spending a further $250,000 to fund necessary conservation and stabilisation work.

Satellite view of the building's location
geo:lat= -43.601916
geo:lon= 172.719294