Mountfort's 1863 Sketches of the 1850 Land Office

These are details from circa 1863 unfinished sketches, showing two views of the Canterbury Association's 1850 Land Office on the north-west corner of Oxford Terrace and Worcester Street. Adjoining Oxford Terrace on an east-west axis is the 1858 wing added to house the Magistrate's Court.


In the upper southerly view can be seen Davis's Hotel on the diagonally opposite corner, which began life as the 1851 home of the first Commissioner of Crown Lands and went on to eventually become the Clarendon Hotel. The lower northerly view shows the Canterbury Provincial Council buildings prior to the construction of the 1865 stone debating chamber.


The progressively enlarged Land Office became the first premises of the Christchurch City Council in 1864. Constructed of imported Australian Hardwoods, the province's first municipal building was demolished before March 1886 to make way for the extant Municipal Chambers, which can be seen to the centre foreground in the upper, and to the Right in the lower, of the following photographs.



Attributed by us to Christchurch's pre-eminent Gothic revival architect Benjamin Mountfort (1825-1898), and probably intended as preparatory to watercolour paintings, the original pencil sketches can be dated as being after 1861, as in full they show Mountfort's belfy for the St. Michael and All Angels church on Oxford Terrace.


The incorrectly identified Alexander Turnbull Library references:

Artist unknown: Flax & Maori heads, toe toe, &c; flax, tutu, fern, &c [ca 1872-1874?]
Reference number: C-081-009
1 drawing(s). Pencil drawing, 265 x 657 mm.. Horizontal image.
Part of Artist unknown :[Eight pencil sketches of Christchurch buildings and the Avon River. 1870-1875?] (C-081-003/009)
Drawings and Prints Collection, :
Scope and contents: Shows a section of the Avon River with several flax bushes in the foreground, and a flat bridge at the right. There are several house at the centre and left, and St Michael and All Angels Church (built 1872) is in the centre background, with the Port Hills of Christchurch in the distance.

Artist unknown :[Provincial Council Chambers, Christchurch. 1870-1875?]
Reference number: C-081-003
1 drawing(s). Pencil drawing, 240 x 410 mm.. Horizontal image.
Part of Artist unknown :[Eight pencil sketches of Christchurch buildings and the Avon River. 1870-1875?] (C-081-003/009)
Drawings and Prints Collection, :
Scope and contents: Shows the Provincial Council Chambers in the distance, seen past a house with a verandah at the left, and a fenced area of trees at the right.

Exploding Mythology at Dusk

Almost worthy of a chocolate box lid or even a postcard is this westerly view of Cathedral Square upon a recent early evening. The bod on the pedestal is a long deceased property speculator and middle class snob, who is recorded as having referred to the locals as the cattle. The statue was donated anonymously and the dubious inscription Founder of Canterbury added somewhat later.

"Old Jack" Godley (1814-1861), a founding member and second Lyttelton based Agent of the Canterbury Association, preferred the social life of Wellington, but still managed to make a fortune out of cronyism and conflict of interest in the local real estate market.

The Irishman tired of the colony after only a couple of years and set himself up in some splendour in the exclusive London suburb of Fitzrovia. The 1810 Grade II listed former home of Godleys is now the St George Hotel.

60th Anniversary: 21st of February, 1949

The Christchurch City Council informs its citizens that a grant of armorial bearings was made to the city by the Royal College of Heralds by letters patent on the 21st of February, 1949.

Being the sixtieth anniversary of that allegedly august event, we'd like to point out that Christchurch already had a coat of arms (below).


This prior armorial bearing included a depiction of the Lyttelton railway tunnel, which was replaced in the 1949 version by an abstract representation of the first four ships to bring emigrants from Gravesend to Lyttelton.

The first four ships mythological conceit emblazoned upon our more recent heraldic arms conveniently overlooks a number of awkward facts, not the least being that these newcomers were welcomed by the Canterbury Association's emigrants who had already arrived via Wellington.

Christchurch Library Anniversary

This year the Christchurch Library, that municipal repository of our community's collective memory, is celebrating what is alleged to be its 150th anniversary. That hypothesis is based upon the library being situated in the High Street Town Hall from 1859.

In the interests of historical accuracy we would like to point out that a public reading room was opened in the Land Office at the corner of Oxford Terrace and Worcester Street in 1851 (above). Converted into our first Christchurch Library the following year, with more than a thousand books, an annual fee of one guinea ($2.10) entitled members to use the Lyttelton Library as well.

The source of the foregoing is The Early Days of Canterbury: a miscellaneous collection of interesting facts dealing with the settlement's first thirty years of colonisation 1850-1880, compiled by A. Selwyn Bruce and published by Simpson and Williams at Christchurch in 1932 (republished in facsimile by the Kiwi Publishing Company in 1995).

The poet Alfred Selwyn Bruce (1866-1936) was the son of the 1851 pioneers Ellen (1833-1928) and Thomas Bruce (1826-1899). In his interesting book Bruce aimed to immortalise the memory of many of the rank and file of our settlers, who were the founders of the province.

The Oxford Hotel

Situated on the northeastern corner of Colombo Street and Oxford Terrace at Victoria Square, the simple structure to the centre foreground of the above photograph had the distinction of being the first building erected within the original boundaries of the city of Christchurch.

Built by April 1850 on Public Reserve No.1, it was the Canterbury Association's store. From here were issued the victuals and equipment to the men building the jetty on Oxford Terrace at Barbadoes Street and the Land Office on the northwest corner of Oxford Terrace and Worcester Street. The store probably owed its location to the nearby lagoon in which boats of up to twenty metres in length could be turned.

In 1853 the adjacent Christchurch Common became Market Place and the Association's store was in use as hostel for the Māori bringing produce from Kaiapoi, Rapaki and Port Levy to the weekly farmers' markets. By the beginning of the 1860s the former store was being used as their meeting hall by the United Methodist church.


The twelve year old store building was replaced in 1862 by the Boarding House by Antill Alfred Adley (1832-1911). Adley (above) had been granted a Publican's Licence by 1865, and his premises (below) became the sixth hotel to overlook the market place. The tall entrance to the Left led through to Stables and a small paddock on what would become the site of the city's third fire station in 1876.


Adley sold his hotel in 1873 and by 1881 the shingled roofed wooden building had been replaced by the current premises (below).


After undergoing substantial modification in 1978 (below), the old hotel became known as the Oxford Tavern. Now known as the Oxford on Avon, it houses two bars and a pair of popular restaurants.


Below: overlooking the site from where passengers embarked in excursion paddle steamers to New Brighton and Sumner in the 1890s, is the alfresco terrace of The Carvery Restaurant.

The Political Manipulation of History

LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW WINDOW

The history of New Zealand and Canterbury in particular would appear to be awash with half-truths and misrepresentations that are endlessly repeated by everyone from professional historians to journalists.

Among the earlier examples of this ongoing practice is a map of Christchurch alleged to have been completed by the Assistant Surveyor Edward Jollie on the 18th of March, 1850.

This map contains some significant anomalies in the form of much information that didn't exist before 1853:

Referred to in early correspondence as Christchurch Common, and now known as Victoria Square, the site of the first encampment by the original settlers was not renamed as Market Place until 1853.

Cathedral Square was not acquired for such purpose until 1857 and was known as Ridley Square in 1850.

Jollie's original map did not include the 1851 de facto thoroughfares of Victoria and High Streets. The alleged map shows Victoria Street as Whatley Road. The was first known as the Papanui Road and did not acquire the name of the Anglican Bishop of Dublin until after the election of the Irish Protestant James Edward Fitzgerald as the Canterbury Provincial Council's first Superintendent in 1853. Fitzgerald attracted much criticism for his cronyism and conflicts of interest, practises that might still appear to prevail.

The Dissenter's cemetery on the western side of Barbadoes Street at Salisbury Street is not shown on a map named The Town of Lyttelton otherwise Christchurch and dated eighteen months after Jollie's survey.

There also many other discrepencies, but probably the most disturbing is the signature of Joseph Thomas, Chief Surveyor to the Canterbury Association. By the earliest time that the map could have been drawn Thomas had returned to England.

The map is a forgery in order to provide legal status for building on the public reserves and also for the subdivision of three of the green belts that surrounded the original city (first known a West Town Belt, the fourth would later be named Hagley Park, with what is now Deans Avenue being named Town Belt West).

In February, 1854 the Solicitor Henry Sewell (subsequently Prime Minister of New Zealand) advised the Canterbury Provincial Council that the sale of the city's green belts and public reserves was illegal. A year later wise counsel was ignored and 170 acres were offered for sale by auction on ten percent deposit, with the balance on a 7 year term.

But lest one consider that historical revisionism is ancient history, it should be noted that the Christchurch City Council recently erected an interpretive display board within the cultural precinct.


Amongst the information that it conveys to the visitor is the revelation that Christchurch is in fact a 700 year old community originally known as Puari, with a population of about 800.

There's no historical evidence for this assertion, which would appear to be yet another instance of historical revision.

Puari was a large settlement at Port Levy on Banks Peninsula. Known to European Whalers from 1794, the population had declined to about 300 Māori and 12 Europeans by the mid 1840s.

Our history may be somewhat closer than many of the more recent generations are aware...

As a child the Ngati Toa tribal chieftain Te Rauparaha (~1760-1849) remembered the visits of James Cook to New Zealand between 1769 and 1777. He also knew Edward Jollie (1825-1894), whose 1861 wedding was attended by this contributing Editor's Great Grandmother. Accordingly, there are no more than three degrees of separation between Captain Cook and living New Zealanders.

In the case of Canterbury there are still a few locals who knew the last survivor of the original settlers of 1850. Among them is 93 year-old Austen Deans, last surviving Great Grandson of John Deans who settled at Riccarton in 1843.


Richards Evans aged in 16 in 1864
Richard Evans (1848-1944) arrived aboard the Cressy as a two year old. The second to last survivor of the first four ships and a Patron of the Canterbury Pilgrims Association, he is remembered by Roger Ridley-Smith, who is thereby a remarkable link to the very beginnings of Christchurch.

The Reverend Frederick Brittan (1848-1945), last survivor of our first settlers, delivered a eulogy at Richard Evans' funeral.


Tea drinking 90 year-old Richards Evans seated beside a young Roger Ridley-Smith
Roger Ridley-Smith writes:

My father, E D R Smith, (1901-1975), a lawyer in Rangiora, knew Richard Evans. In 1938, the three of us went to the Bridle Track where there was a ceremony at the memorial there. It may have been the unveiling of it. Evans, who would have been aged ninety, sat in the back of my father's Chevrolet. and I recall him as a small man with a snow white beard. I was aged seven. Memory is fallible, but that is as I recall it.

Dilapidated and forgotten, this is the grave of Georgina Sophia and Richard Evans in St John's cemetery at Rangiora.

---

Canterbury Heritage is gratefully indebted to Sarndra Lees for the 1864 photograph of her Great Great Uncle and his grave. Also to Dr. Ridley-Smith for the 1938 photograph of his father's 90 year old friend.

We would also be very pleased to hear from anyone who can expand upon this interesting aspect of our history.

John Robert Godley's London Home

"Old Jack" Godley (1814-1861), a founder and second Lyttelton based Agent of the Canterbury Association, lived and died in this 1810 terraced house at 48 Gloucester Place, in London's Marylebone district (better known as Fitzrovia). Charlotte Godley survived her husband by 45 years and died in the Grade II listed townhouse on the 3rd of January 1907. Subsequently the home of the Rabbi Sir Philip Magnus, Baronet, it is now the St George Hotel.

Photographed by Ramanja

Christchurch 1850

An idealistic and somewhat inaccurate view of the nascent city about June, 1850.

If the Barbadoes Street bridge had been there at this time then this would have been the elevated view in a Southwesterly direction towards Wigram and the snow clad Port Hills.

To the Right is what is now Cambridge Terrace. Beyond the two cottages is the home of Edward Jollie (1825-1894), the Canterbury Association's Surveyor. Down on the bank of the Avon is the Surveyor's Store. Nearby stands a horse and cart at the end of what will become Peterborough Street. This street approximates the position of the 1840 track to the first European settlement on the plains, accordingly it might well lay claim to be the city's oldest thoroughfare.

This had been the location of a Maori seasonal hunting whare near an artesian spring. By 1840 this site, at the highest tidal reach of the river, was in use as a landing place for the European farm at what would become Riccarton. By 1843 the Deans brothers were using the abandoned whare for temporary storage.

By the end of 1850 a landing stage stood on the opposite bank (subsequently known as The Bricks Wharf), beyond it will soon be seen the Canterbury Association's Land Office at the corner of Oxford Terrace and Worcester Street.

This is a restoration of a circa 1905 watercolour attributed to Albert Henry Fullwood (1863-1930).

Fullwoood, an English Artist living in Sydney, came to New Zealand about 1905 to paint a series topical images for Raphael Tuck and Sons, postcard publishers of London. Most of these cards were released in the Tuck's Oilette series to coincide with the 1906-7 Christchurch International Exhibition.

Fullwood occasionally reinterpreted other artist's work for these scenes and this particular example would appear to be influenced by the contemporary sketches of Walter Mantell (1820-1895) and the reminisces Edward Jollie, et al.

Not published in the postcard series, this painting of the lost location of the city's earliest historic site appears to have been overly enhanced in a subsequent rework and then published in The Press newspaper. A lithographic copy of the painting is held by the Christchurch Library, where it is attributed to John Durey.

Son of a Riccarton farmer, the sixteen year-old Durey had arrived at Lyttelton, with his parents, three sisters and older brother in December, 1850. He is later recorded as an employee of The Press newspaper. There is no documentary evidence of any other work of art by John Durey.

___________________________

In his memoir Edward Jollie wrote, "I lived in Scroggs' grass house at the Bricks and the six men who were with me occupied a weather boarded house of one room about forty yards off."

These are the only known contemporary views of the site: the upper is late 1849 and the lower early 1851.


Jollie's trigonometric survey pole in the upper image would have been sited on what is now the north-east corner of Salisbury and Barbadoes Streets (marked below in red on an 1877 map).

Pioneer Cemetery

A southerly view of Christchurch's first cemetery in Barbadoes Street at Cambridge Terrace. Here lie the pioneer settlers from the early 1840s. The chapel was demolished in 1955 and the old cemetery has become neglected and vandalised.

In the foreground is the grave of Johannes Georg Ruddenklau (1829-1891), City Councilor from 1866 and Mayor of Christchurch 1882-1891. A German Baker and Confectioner, Ruddenklau had a Pie shop at "The Triangle" (junction of High and Colombo Streets) by 1857, subsequently granted a Beer License, he built the City Hotel on the same site. The much photographed hotel was demolished in the early 1930s to make way for the current building.

Photographed by Andy Wragg, a recent Canterbury settler from the United Kingdom.

Wakefield Journal to stay in NZ

The long-lost journal written by early colonist Edward Jerningham Wakefield (1820–79) will not now be sold overseas.

Covering the period from 1850 to 1858, the journal was missing for about a century before coming up for auction in Dunedin last year. An Alexander Turnbull Library spokesman said the manuscript could not be exported without the permission of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, given restrictions under the Protected Objects Act.

Wakefield suffered, as his father put it, from “colonial habits”, the worst of them being intemperance as a result of which, what might have been a brilliant career terminated in disappointment (dogged by alcoholism he died penniless at Ashburton). But even if he failed to fulfill the precocious promise of his youth, Jerningham established a claim on the esteem of posterity, by his journeys and explorations and, above all, by the liveliness and colour of his 1845 book, Adventure in New Zealand, from 1839 to 1844; with Some Account of the Beginning of the British Colonization of the Islands.

Further reading: Otago Daily Times, 25 Jun 2008