Godley Statue Was Unveiled In 1867

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31440, 5 August 1967, Page 5

Godley Statue Was Unveiled In 1867

[Specially written for "The Preet" bu H- C. LAMB! The statue of John Robert Godley was unveiled in Cathedral square on August 6, 1867. It was placed there in recognition of the foremost part he played in the founding of the Canterbury settlement. Twenty years earlier, in November 1947, Edward Gibbon Wakefield had invited Godley to meet him at Malvern. It was Wakefield’s genius which had led to the founding of the New Zealand Company whose settlements at Wellington, Wanganui, Nelson and New Plymouth were by this time established and making headway.

His meeting with Godley was to give rise to a new colonising venture; for it was at this meeting that he persuaded Godley to form an association for planning a settlement in New Zealand “a distinct settlement . . . under the patronage of a powerful body .. . desirous of spreading the Church of England.”

Godley soon enlisted the cupport of influential people among whom were his close friends—such as Lord Lyttelton and Charles (later Sir Charles) Adderley; and thus was formed in March. 1848, the Canterbury Association. Both church and state were strongly represented in its membership. The Archbishop of Canterbury (the Most Rev. Dr. J. B. Sumner) was its president, and the great philanthropist, Lord Ashley, was one of several distinguished members of Parliament who joined the association. In November, 1848, it sent the surveyors, Captain Joseph Thomas, Thomas Cass and Charles Torlesse, to find a site and prepare the way for the proposed settlement. The life these men led, roughing it on the plains, is nowhere better described than in “The Torlesse Papers 1848-51” edited by Dr. P. B. Mating. Godley, accompanied by his wife and small son, and with Jerningham Wakefield as a sort of aide-de-camp, sailed for New Zealand in December 1849 to take up the position of Chief Agent of the Canterbury Association. He was at the time suffering from "chronic laryngitis,” and had been advised by his doctor to relax in the mild climate of Madeira or Naples. But Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Jerningham’s father, persuaded him to go rather to New Zealand to take charge of the association’s affairs there.

Astounded i When Godley arrived in c Lyttelton on April 12, 1850, he t found it a busy place giving ? evidence of the considerable s preparations which Captain ; Thomas and his workmen had c made for the reception of the settlers. t The wooden barracks which v were to provide them with t temporary shelter were d already built A jetty and s customhouse had also been r constructed, and an agent’s t office was ready for Godley's a use. Behind the office was a v plot of ground intended for a t garden, and beyond this was c a weather-boarded, six t roomed house for him and a his family to occupy. Al- t together he was astounded a with what he saw of the pro- < gress made in the port of I Lyttelton. < He lost no time in riding a across country with Captain 1 Thomas to visit the Dean; at < Riccarton, whose farm was < well stocked and cultivated, and whose garden was producing an abundance of fruit and vegetables. “I never j saw a finer show of them”— t wrote Godley to Adderley— i “apples, pears, peaches. 1 Everything in short flourished. - I wish I could send home a specimen of the apples; they look like wax wort” He was a keen sportsman and as he rode across the plains he wished very much that he could have with him "a good pointer and retriever”—so many were the wild pigs, quail and ducks to be seen there. It was in Wellington, however, that the Godleys spent the next seven months, pending the arrival of the first contingent of Canterbury settlers. When the latter arrived in December, 1850, Godley soon threw in his lot with them, as he donned the colonists’ garb of straw hat, blue jersey and moleskin trousers. Exciting Time “Who that was then at Lyttelton” wrote Thomas Cholmondeley to Godley two years later—“can ever forget that delightful and exciting time? Those long cloudless summer days, when we first began to build sod cottages, to carry boards upon our shoulders, when we first had to rough it, when we grumbled and laughed in a breath, and really did a great deal of work.” From December 16, 1850, till December, 1852, when he sailed for England, Godley was virtually the superintendent of the settlement he had done so much to establish. When the time came for him to leave Canterbury, he did so with the glad assurance that the settlement would soon be able to elect a Provincial Council for the administering of its own affairs. His subsequent career, which is beyond the scope of this essay, was cut short in his forty-eighth year. He died at Gloucester Place, London, on November 17, 1861, and was buried at Kensal Green. The news of his death reached Canterbury in January, 1862; and at a meeting of the Provincial Council in the following October, on the suggestion of W. S. Moorhouse, it was resolved that a statue to Godley be erected in the city, and that the cost of the work “should be provided for out of the public revenues of the Province.” It may be noted in passing

that after the resolution had been moved and seconded, Mr John Shand, member for Avon, reminded the council of the debt the Province owed to Godley’s predecessor, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, saying at the same time that if they were to pay a tribute to one, they should also honour the other. Mr Shand’s statement appears to have met with no response, and the motion was passed unanimously.

Statue Commissioned The pre-Raphaelite sculptor, Thomas Woolner, was commissioned to make the statue; and in 1863 he completed his first design in the form of a statuette in clay. The bronze cast was then made at the Coalbrookdale iron-works in Shropshire at a cost of £l5OO. The actual casting was described at the time as “a delicate and anxious operation.” In July, 1865. the statue was on view at the South Kensington Museum, London, where it was much admired. Meanwhile a raised site on which to erect it was prepared in Cathedral square, on the west side of the Cathedral site, where many poplars, blue gums and larches were growing. Some of these were cut down, while others were transplanted, this difficult work being entrusted to Mr Enoch Barker, the Provincial Government gardener. In July, 1866, the statue arrived in Lyttelton by the ship Talbot from London. It could not be exhibited in public until a pedestal had been made for it—a work that devolved upon the local stone mason, William Brassington, whose work yard was at the south end of the Anglican part of the Barbadoes street cemetery.

Mr Brassington, with the true craftsman’s pride in his work, constructed the pedestal in conformity with the design and dimensions of the statue supplied by Mr Woolner. The block of stone he used was 4ft Bin in height and 3ft 6in square, and weighed nearly five tons. It had been obtained from a quarry at Hoon Hay and was brought into Christchurch on a bullock-drawn dray which had to travel via Halswell, as the Colombo street bridge over the Avon was not safe. Recalling in after years the conveyance of this stone, an anonymous writer to “The Press” declared that “it cracked every bridge it went over.” Error In Casting When the statue was unpacked it was discovered that the founder had cast the base upon which it stood five inches longer in ’ diameter than

specified in the drawing sent to Canterbury by Mr Woolner. Mr Brassington had therefore to re-work the top stones of the pedestal, the cost of doing so being estimated at between £7O and £BO. (The final cost of the statue, with incidental expenses, was about £2000.) But for the delay occasioned by this error the statue would have been unveiled by Sir George Grey when he visited Christchurch in January, 1867. On April 3 it was placed on its pedestal. The raising of it was accomplished by means of two cranks, the larger of which was worked by four men and the smaller by two. “The tackles were firmly attached to the neck and body of the figure,” reported the “Lyttelton Times”—“and at the given signal the men in charge of the cranks began to work with a will, and soon the ponderous mass of bronze was set in motion and raised to the apex of the topmost of stone.” The strain on the ropes was considerable, as the statue weighed nearly two tons.

Crowd Of 2000 Mr J. E. Fitz Gerald was now invited to perform the unveiling, but was unable to do so on account of his being detained in Wellington. Little wonder that in the following June a member of the Provincial Council expressed his concern that if the statue were “to remain much longer in wet cloths and boards, the metal would become oxidised, the appearance of it spoiled, and the money expended upon it thrown away.”

About this time vandals were fined by the Christchurch Magistrate, Charles (later Sir Charles) C. Bowen, for removing palings about the statue. Bowen had been among the first body of settlers who arrived at Lyttelton in December, 1850, and had become Godley’s private secretary. His duties had then included riding every second day on horseback with his master over the hills from Lyttelton to the embryo town of Christchurch.

Writing to Mrs Godley over 50 years later, Bowen said that among the photographs in his room at home (in Christchurch) was a framed one of her husband which he valued more than than he could say. No doubt it sometimes carried his thoughts back to the unveiling of the statue in August, 1867. For it was Bowen, acting in FitzGerald’s stead, who performed this ceremony in the presence of over 2000 people. A contemporary report of the proceedings states that beyond the crowd in front of the statue, “Dr. Barker and a Friend had established themselves and a photographic apparatus to take views of the celebration.” It is from the Dr. Barker Collection at the Canterbury Museum that the accompanying photograph was obtained.