A PASTORAL CENTENARY

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22865, 11 November 1939, Page 17

A PASTORAL CENTENARY

(SPECIALLY IVEITTE'N FOR THE HREBB.) tSy’ C.R.S.]

jl Captain Rhodes was typical of the I; trading captains who played an im- |, portant part in the earliest develop--1,, ment of Australia and New Zealand. If He received his first command at I* the age of 24, as master and ones'! third owner of the brig Harriet, in 1831. For two years he traded from Liverpool to South America and to I India. Then in 1833 he took the Harriet to Sydney, and in 1834 transported merino sheep from New South Wales to South Africa. After further short trading voyages round the coast of Australia and a more extensive one to China, the Harriet was sold in 1836 to Weller Bros., for use in the New Zealand whaling trade. With his share of the proceeds of the sale Rhodes bought land, sheep and cattle in New South Wales. Then he took the command 0 of the whaling ship Australian, I I owned by Cooper and Holt. He had ; not previously commanded a .whal- | ing ship, and his lack of experience | of the special conditions led to a I mutiny of his crew in Port Cooper | (Lyttelton) in August, 1836. The I whaling voyage lasted two years I and was not very profitable. |_• Extensive Land Purchases I It was during' this voyage, how- ; ever, that Rhodes gained the knowi ledge of the New Zealand coast and j(S the possibilities of its development once organised .settlement began, that led him to enter into partnerI ship with Cooper and Holt in a venture for buying and stocking land and establishing trading stations in New Zealand. In September, 1839, they bought from Captain Francis Leathart the title to 100.000 acres of land at Akaroa for £325. This land had been sold to Leathart in February of the same year by the chief Taiaroa and other natives for £ 40. I? The claim to this land by Cooper, I Holt and Rhodes was later disIj allowed by the New Zealand land 1 commissioners.

Entry (Kapiti) Island which, - with cattle that had been placed on it some years before, had been bought by Cooper, Holt and Rhodes. The sale was confirmed by a new deed signed by several chiefs, including Rauparaha and Rangihaeata. William Bundy was left on the island to look after the cattle, and a whaling station was established under Thomas Wright. Arrival at Akaroa Then the Eleanor left for Akaroa. C i November 10, 1839, she anchored in Takapuneke (Red House) Bay. The cattle swam ashore, landing on the shingly b’eadh. To look after this cattle station Rhodes had brought from Sydney two men, William Green and Thomas Creed. Green, who was accompanied by his wife and young child, was .to be in charge, with a salary of £4O a year. In addition he received rations of 121 b flour, 141 b flesh meat, 31b rioe, 41b sugar, and half a pound of tea a week. Creed received £25 a year, and rations on a lower scale. At that time there were two other white men at Akaroa living with the Maoris at Onuku. One was James Robinson Clough, and the other was a runaway convict. Having established his cattle station, Rhodes continued his trading and land-buying voyage. On January 27, 1840 (two days before Governor Hobson arrived at the Bay of Islands) he wrote to Sydney from Port Nicholson that he had bought a total of 2,500,000 acres of land from the Maoris. He had established a store at Cloudy Bay in Marlborough, and had bought land at Kapiti, Waikanae, Wairoa, Table Cape, Aorere and Poverty I3ay. In addition store sites were ; acquired at the Bay of Islands and Port Nicholson. Only a very small part of these vast purchases was afterwards recognised by the land commissioners appointed by Governor Hobson. At Red House Bay Green and his wife led a lonely life. Their, original tent was soon replaced by a two-roomed house, painted red, which later gave the bay its name. After a year’s isolation they received neighbours when the French settlers arrived, in August, 1840. They made butter and cheese, for the cows were good milkers, and also kept a few pigs. Some of the cattle were sold to the French, who also bought dairy produce, Rhodes, who was permanently In Wellington from the end of 1840, supervised the management of the

To carry on the trading venture the barque Eleanor was bought. She was loaded with trade goods likely to appeal to the Maoris, and with 30 or 40 head of breeding cattle to stock the Akaroa land. The cattle, which included two bulls, were bought in New South Wales for £l6 a head, and were nearly pure-bred Durhams (Shorthorns). They were descended from the famous English herd of Potter McQueen. The Eleanor left Sydney, with Rhodes in command, on October 14, 1839. The first call was made at

First Cattle Station in Canterbury in 1839

Pastoral farming in Canterbury was 100 ybars old yesterday, on Nbvembei- lb, 1839, Captain W. B. Rhodes landed between 3b and 4b bead of cattle at Red Rouse Bay, in Akaroa harbour, with two stockmen to look after 'them. The land on. which those cattle were put has been grazed continuously by cattle or sheep ever since, and Red House Bay has been occupied continuously by Europeans. This first farming in ’canterbury was also the first In the South Island', although the famous Johnny Jones followed within a few months with cattle at Otago. This Is Canterbury’s real centenary, for pastoral farming remains to this day the most characteristic ocenpation in the province. It is really more significant even than the landing of the Canterbury Association’s settlers on December 16, 18S0, for the association had planned a settlement in which smallscale agricultural farming was to be predominant, and pastoral farming became the mainstay of Canterbury against the will of the English founders of the association. It is too readily forgotten that the Canterbury Pilgrims did not come to an unoccupied land, and that pioneer cattle and sheep men had long preceded them. By the end of 1850 there were several hundred cattle and about 800 b sheep on the peninsula and the plains. With the advent of the Australian squatters after 185 b sheep became all-important.

Akaroa station from there. Apparently this was not easy because of the illiteracy of both Green* and Creed. In addition, Green started a profitable side-line of his own, selling spirits to the French and to visiting whalers. “Calling at Mr Green’s for a glass of milk” came to be a euphemism for “having one.” Writing to Rhodes in July, 1841 (or, more likely, getting a friend to write for him) Creed complained about the “roughs and disturbences and the number of People about the Place Drinking.” He had other troubles, too. In the same letter he gives an account of his mustering, and adds; “I ,had the English cow calf and another in the peen and James Robinson’s dog came barking at the peen and one calf jumped out and the dog ran it into the water and followed it and before I could get the boat off it was dead. The brindle cow in calf and a steer seven months old is sold to the French for £23.” Later Developments By the end of 1841 Akaroa was the only one of the cattle stations still being carried -on. In April, 1843, Captain Rhodes’s brother Joseph, aged 16, arrived in New Zealand, and was in charge at Akaroa for a short time. In December, George Rhodes, another brother, arrived, and in turn went to Akaroa with a salary of £6O a year. By this time Green had left Rhodes’s employ and had started the first legitimate hotel at Akaroa. Soon after his arrival in New Zealand George Rhodes engaged two men in Wellirigton to help him at Akaroa. They were William Birdling and Israel Rhodes (no relation), both of whom later became‘well known on the Peninsula. George Rhodes, who had considerable experience of farming oh his father’s property in Yorkshire, was later better known as the pioneer of South Canterbury, at the Levels. At Akaroa he made his home in the Red House, and with the help of Francois Lellevre, cleared land and grew a crop of potatoes which were bartered with the whalers.

At first only cattle were run at the Akaroa run, which extended from Red House to. Flea Bay. Sheep were introduced about the middle of 1845, when 400 were brought from Sydney. These were not the first sheep in Canterbury, Deans’s importations to Riccarton in 1843, and Greenwood’s to Purau in 1844, having priority.