text=#000000 The Nor'west Arch

Edward Shortland, as he took a census of South Island Maori, commented on the nor'wester as early as in 1844: "The NW wind all along this coast is strangely hot, dry, and oppressive, which I have never known to be the case in the North Island ... Its peculiar dry character on reaching the east coast may, perhaps," he surmised, "be explained by the supposition that, in passing over the snow mountains, its moisture is condensed and falls on them as warm rain." Though the air is cooled as it rises over the Main Divide (at the rate of 1ºC per 100-metre rise at the dry adiabatic lapse rate), the latent heat of condensation is added to the air so that when the flow of air descends on the Canterbury side of the Alps its temperature rises to greater levels than before as air pressure increases. (The principle is analogous with the heating up of a bicycle pump.)

The enervating wind can blow for days at a time, when a curious arch of cloud forms to the north-west, whose changing pattern can be read by the weatherwise. It is generally followed by an abrupt change to the south-west.

Twice a Bridesmaid

It was the arrival of the French at Akaroa in 1840 that first attracted the interest of the British. Colonel William Wakefield in 1841 asked that the New Zealand Company's Nelson settlement be established there, but paradoxically it was the presence of the French that stopped it. Governor Hobson ruled that there were too many undecided land claims on Banks Peninsula to have the uncertain position further confused and, opposed to any settlement south of Wellington, offered the Company the site of Warkworth (north of Auckland) instead.

The following year the pioneer Wellington settler William Deans elected to transfer his interests to the Canterbury Plains, becoming in 1843 the first to occupy the area effectively. William was joined by his brother John (who brought with him cattle, horses, pigs and the first sheep in Canterbury), and later by Ebenezer Hay and Captain Sinclair (both of whom had accompanied William Deans on an earlier visit and both of whom settled on Banks Peninsula, at Pigeon Bay). The Greenwood brothers were established at Purau early in 1844.

Port Cooper (Lyttelton) was again prospected in 1844, as Frederick Tuckett selected a site for the proposed settlement of New Edinburgh (Dunedin). From the Port Hills he exclaimed: "Looking down on the great plain I was at first sight delighted and astonished to behold an extent of level land so unwonted, but much wanted, in New Zealand, but the predominance of a russet tint far and near lowered my expectations, indicating too truly the extent of raupo swamp already struck by frost. It was deficient of almost every quality which was essential to the prosperity of a settlement, and particularly of one subdivided into ... small properties." Though the New Zealand Company had already decided in favour of the peninsula, Tuckett protested the pre-selection and his reports took the Scottish settlement to Dunedin. For the second time Port Cooper was passed over.

Despite their knowledge of the area, otherwise enterprising Wellington and Nelson settlers surprisingly failed to emulate the four families who had migrated to squat here, and not for seven years were new farmers or graziers attracted to the district. The enterprise of the little group was harshly rewarded. No fewer than three lost their lives at sea - Sinclair (1846) when taking a new schooner to Wellington; Joseph Greenwood (1848) while crossing by open boat from Port Levy to Motunau, and William Deans (1851) in the wreck of the Maria at Wellington Heads.

"Kemp's Deed"

The bungling conduct of the Government in its negotiations to purchase the Canterbury district from the Maori created a century of discontent, and it was not until as recently as 1944 that the grievances of Ngai Tahu were finally laid to rest.

In 1847 the Government professed to purchase the area north of the Ashley River from Te Rauparaha's Ngati Toa, who claimed to own the land by virtue of their conquests in 1828-32. The transaction ignored the claims of the defeated Ngai Tahu, who had by then resumed occupation of their ancestral lands. In laying the bogey of the Wairau Affray, the Deed merely shifted the source of disaffection south.
The following year Ngai Tahu told Governor Grey that they were prepared to sell the land south of the Ashley if adequate reserves were set aside. Grey authorised £2,000 for the 8 million hectares which, he felt, in view of the small Maori population, was "as large an amount as they could profitably spend or was likely to be of any real benefit to them".

But when H. Tacy Kemp, as Assistant Protector of Aborigines, came to negotiate the final terms of the purchase, he left the Deed blandly guaranteeing to the Maori reserves that were neither defined nor indicated. Mantell was sent to tidy up these loose ends but he, like Kemp, made vague promises of schools and medical care to the by-then impoverished Ngai Tahu - but omitted to mention them in the Deeds. Not only were these promises ignored, but the further protests of Ngai Tahu concerning the purported sale by Te Rauparaha of land north of the Ashley River also fell on deaf ears. The Native Land Court in 1868 expressed doubts even as to the very basic validity of "Kemp's Deed".

Over the years further compensation was made to Ngai Tahu yet it was not until 1920 that there was a full-scale investigation, which recommended that £354,000 be paid in full compensation. A further two decades were to pass before the Ngai Tahu Settlement Act became law, providing for the annual payment to a Trust Board of £10,000 for a period of 30 years. In 1973 the annual payment was extended in perpetuity. The Board is empowered to promote the health, social and economic welfare, the education and the vocational training of the Ngai Tahu, so dealing with a grievance "created in the first instance out of misconception, prolonged through misunderstanding, and magnified by neglect.'

The Canterbury Association

The Canterbury Association emerged in London as a result of a partnership between Edward Gibbon Wakefield and a young Tory, John Robert Godley (1814-61). Godley feared "an age of equality" and believed that his role was not to repulse it altogether but to "retard its progress and modify its effects", preparing the way for "a safe democracy". In a pessimistic mood, in 1847-48 engendered by Chartist unrest, he also foresaw the destruction of Church and society in the northern hemisphere and hoped that both might regenerate in the newer societies of the Antipodes.

The fortunes of the New Zealand Company improved in 1846 when the Whigs regained office (the Company's directors were virtually all either Whigs or Radicals) and Lord Grey, the incoming Colonial Secretary, waived the Crown's right of pre-emption over Maori lands in the "southern province of New Zealand" and added a loan of £136,000. The Otago scheme revived to fruition, but Wakefield's prime interest was in an Anglican settlement for the country which he had foreseen as "the most Church of England country in the world".

The Canterbury Association was originally formed of 53 members, among them 2 archbishops, 7 bishops, 14 peers, 4 baronets and 16 Members of Parliament. With such influence it could hardly fail, but for its enthusiasm it leaned heavily on its co-founders. The Association's planned block of a million acres (405,000 ha) was to be sold for £3 per acre, with the proceeds being divided between the New Zealand Company, survey costs, an immigration fund and a trust for the religious and educational needs of the settlement. The migrants themselves were to include "all the elements, including the very highest, of a good and right state of society".

To hasten progress, Wakefield induced the ailing Godley to journey out - gambling that Godley's friends on the Association, having dispatched him to the far side of the earth, would feel obliged to support him in his task. After a rough passage on the Lady Nugent, Godley and his family landed first at Port Chalmers ("a very drunken set") and then at Port Cooper (Lyttelton) where the immigration barracks struck his wife as too comfortable, for they might "tempt the emigrants to remain in them longer than is necessary".

Looking out over the plains from the crest of the Port Hills "The view was really fine, on ... the one side the harbour as smooth as a lake and quite encircled with high hills, and down below, on the other, the vast plains, as level as water, and nearly as innocent of anything like cultivation or habitation." After admiring progress Godley at once clashed with Thomas (who lacked "a good manner with gentlemen"), arbitrarily suspending works and going to Wellington ("really a vortex of dissipation").

In London, Wakefield's gamble had failed; he noted that far from acquiring fresh vigour and enthusiasm "the affair lost its soul and body when it lost Godley, who both thought and acted for everybody". Yet the enterprise did progress, if more slowly than before, because a small group of Godley's friends felt it would have been a breach of faith for them to have allowed it to lapse completely. Advance land sales were slow. In terms of the deal with the New Zealand Company, unless the Canterbury Association sold £100,000 worth of land by 30 April 1850 the Canterbury block would revert to the Company. Some ingeniously handled land sales, plus last-minute negotiations backed by personal guarantees from Lord Lyttelton, Wakefield and two others saved the day. The Association then announced that land applications would soon close and the first colonists would be dispatched in September.

The First Four Ships

It is generally assumed that care was taken in selecting the assisted migrants. As for the land-purchasing "colonists", Wakefield noted that "the plan somehow repels desperate and bad people, such as commonly form a large proportion of the materials of a new settlement. Those whom it attracts are circumspect, cautious and slow to decide ... I am not acquainted with a single emigrant who goes out as a money-grabbing speculator [rather they go] to cultivate the earth, breed horses and cattle, and grow wool."

The assisted migrant had to be under 40, and have a certificate from the minister of his parish "that the applicant is sober, industrious and honest, and that he and all his family are amongst the most respectable of their class in the parish". An interesting omission was a certificate as to his membership of the Church of England. The Colonial Office had declined to grant a charter for an exclusively Anglican settlement.
In Wellington, Godley knew little of how matters were proceeding in London, and learned of the sailing plans only when he read of them in a Sydney newspaper. Plainly he would have to restart work at Lyttelton without waiting for the financial advance he had asked for. He pledged his own credit to obtain funds and left for Canterbury on HMS Acheron on 28 November. Only 18 days later, on the morning of 16 December 1850, the three-master Charlotte Jane entered the port; Godley rushed to the jetty to encounter James Edward FitzGerald, jubilant at his success in being the first of the Pilgrims to land. "So overcome that he did not know whether to laugh or cry, [Godley] ended by doing both." That afternoon the Randolph dropped anchor, and the next day, the Sir George Seymour. The Cressy, which had sprung her fore-topmast, did not arrive until 27 December.

Governor Grey was on hand to meet the migrants, creating a favourable impression by waiving customs duty on their personal effects (a duty the astonished first migrants found inflicted on them). On hand, too, was a group of Maori who performed haka to the delight of some and trepidation of others. "A strange sight they are," wrote a later observer, "with their red blankets and wild tattooed faces, here and there mixed with specimens of half European attire, a coat, trousers, hat or cap." By the year's end a full 782 passengers had been landed at the port. The Canterbury Pilgrims had arrived.

Bishoprics and Sandbars

Thomas's surveyors began to lay out at Christchurch at the end of 1849, completing their work by March. Then, according to tradition, the surveyor Edward Jollie took his map to Thomas, "who, putting on his gold spectacles and opening his Peerage, would read out a name to hear if it sounded well; and if Jollie agreed that it did so, the name was put on one of the streets requiring baptism. Lyttelton, being the first town born, got the best names for its streets; Sumner, being the next, got the next best; and Christchurch, being the youngest, had to be content with what names were left, and that remainder included more than a sprinkling of Irish and Colonial bishoprics ... Whilst Sumner died, it died too later for the names there to be used again for Christchurch."

Thomas insisted on two alterations to the street plan; he condemned little ornamentations such as crescents as being "gingerbread", and he would not agree to some of the streets being wider than a chain (20 m). Jollie argued that this would enable trees to be planted and help limit the spread of any large fires. However, he was allowed to leave good wide streets on either side of the Avon, today a meandering swathe of grass and trees breaking up the otherwise rectangular city.

Among the settlers transport was a divisive issue. Heavy shipments from Britain were normally landed at Lyttelton, while schooners and ketches shipped smaller loads round by Sumner and up the Heathcote River to some fourteen different wharves. From 1851 there was a succession of wrecks at Sumner, until the sands were "rich in prizes". When construction of the Lyttelton-Sumner road was suspended for a time, those who approved the road pointed to the number of shipwrecks (though these are generally exaggerated); those who supported shipping drew attention to the cost of the road - Captain Thomas had spent £20,000 on it even before the Pilgrims arrived, much to Godley's anger.

Access between the town and its port continued to split the settlement into two factions, one headed by William Moorhouse favouring a tunnel through the Port Hills, the other headed by FitzGerald not only arguing for the Sumner road but also strenuously opposing the tunnel Moorhouse wanted. Moorhouse finally carried the day, and as early as December 1860 work began on the tunnel, the first passenger train passing through on 9 December 1867.

Runs and Regulations

The Canterbury settlement until about 1853 was visualised as a closely knit community concerned with agriculture and not pastoral farming. A new and better England was hoped for, not a widely scattered populace in which the control of the Church and the traditional barriers of class and education would break down. Men of capital were to form a landed gentry; industrious workers were to be able, in time, to buy small parcels of land, so forming a peasantry.

The first cracks showed in the Association's policy when land was slow to sell. Then, to the ocean of waste country that surrounded the island of settled land, came the "Australian prophets" - driven by the drought of 1850-51 to cross the Tasman to try their luck as squatters. With them came considerable capital which Godley was anxious to attract to the infant settlement. The "Founder of Canterbury" was thus induced to alter the land regulations in anticipation of approval from London. Instead of enforcing purchase at the minimum prices set by the Association he gave out "form letters", promising to give the holders a lease as soon as the Association's regulations permitted it, and effectively reducing the minimum rental of 20 shillings per 100 acres per annum by requiring payment for less than the area actually taken up.

The device worked, so that by the end of 1855 all the plains and foothills had been leased, and during the next ten years every area worth stocking (and much that was not) had been taken up as part of a run, right back to the Main Divide. The pre-Adamites (those in Canterbury before the migrants of the First Four Ships) got new licences for their Maori leases; the Australian prophets (the "shagroons") hurried to take up much of the accessible country, and the Pilgrims themselves, after holding off for a time, also succumbed to the fever.

Wakefield roundly condemned Godley for giving over the Canterbury settlement to "squatting and barbarism", yet the move into pastoralism actually rescued the gentry among the Pilgrims from economic extinction. Godley had seen that large agricultural estates would inevitably lose money; the limited local market could easily be supplied by small landholders with no labour costs, and many of those with capital lacked the experience necessary for the arduous and uncertain business of raising crops on a strange soil. On the other hand the spartan life of a sheeprun was devoid of "the drudgery of tillage, and the technique could be learned in a few months, even by the city-bred." FitzGerald, whose knowledge of life had been gained at Cambridge University and the British Museum, was making a living from his run within three years of his arrival in Canterbury. Samuel Butler, an even more unlikely farmer, made enough from his Mesopotamia run in four years to support him for the rest of his life, and yet found leisure enough to write the first few chapters of Erewhon for the Christchurch Press. For the young man with moderate capital, "the Canterbury Settlement in its first few years presented opportunities unsurpassed in the whole history of British colonisation".

The Church Crumbles

The new settlement's religious institutions started badly. First, as many as seven clergymen arrived, a greater number than the community could hope to support; then Bishop Selwyn damned the settlement's priorities: "Here I find neither church nor school nor parsonage in existence. Money enough has been spent, but ... not one sixpence of expenditure in any form for the glory of God." Then there arrived the Rev. T. Jackson as Bishop-designate. He had been chosen for the post only after a series of bitter disappointments at the failure of better-qualified men to undertake the task and he impressed Godley as unreliable and unbusinesslike. It seems that the Archbishop of Canterbury may have prevailed on Jackson to withdraw his claim. In any case he returned to Britain.

William Fox wrote to Godley in 1858: "As regards its ecclesiastical aspect, I think [the Canterbury Association] has failed altogether to realise the aspirations of its founder ... Complaints were not few of the hardship of having to pay twice over for Church ministrations, once in the price of the land and now in voluntary subscriptions ... The individual clergy also with one or two exceptions are perhaps not considered very bright and shining examples of the efficacy of apostolic descent to qualify for the ecclesiastical leadership of the model Church Colony of the nineteenth century."

Fox was a harsh critic in this matter and the majority of the settlers seem to have accepted the difficulties of the church in early Canterbury as unavoidable. It is nevertheless true that in spite of Godley's vision of an invigorated Anglicanism in a New World, of the British precedent for an established Church in a special relationship with the State, and of Canterbury's origin as a Church of England settlement, when in 1853 FitzGerald as Superintendent made his maiden address to the Provincial Council he described the Church and State as "co-existent but wholly independent" and the State as maintaining an attitude of "absolute indifference" in its dealings with the various denominations.

By 1855 the Association had gone out of existence. If it had failed to fulfil its aspirations in the religious field, it had arranged for 3,549 migrants, most carefully chosen, to travel halfway round the world; it had looked after its migrants better than any other similar body had done before; the colonists had prospered, and when they took over the Association's affairs they acquired assets and not, as in the case of the New Zealand Company's settlements, considerable debts.

More English than the English?

The determined Pilgrims, too, brought cricket bats with their communion vessels (Godley himself scored 24 in the first match of the Christchurch Cricket Club) and the city has ever since served as the country's headquarters for that most English of pastimes. A rowing club was active by 1864 and archery, which attracted women competitors, was established in 1873. Lawn tennis, too, was swiftly embraced after its birth in England, courts being established in Cranmer Square in 1881. Just 20 years later there emerged Anthony Wilding (1883-1915), who in 1901 at the age of 17 won the Canterbury championship and went on to win 10 Wimbledon titles (the Men's Singles on four occasions), the Davis Cup four times (for Australasia, partnered by the Australian, Norman Brookes), and a bronze medal for tennis at the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games. (Wilding Park, the city's tennis headquarters, is named after him.)