Forgotten fore-runners

Press, 29 August 1985, Page 13

Forgotten fore-runners

Today, at 12.30 p.m., a memorial to Canterbury’s Preadamite settiers will be unveiled in the Four Ships Court, Cathedral Square. GORDON OGILVIE, convener of the Historic Places Trust sub-committee which has prompted this action, explains the background to the occasion.

Pre-adamite settlers of Canterbury

You have heard of pre-stressed concrete, pre-marital sex, and PreRaphaelite Art. But who are the Pre-Adamites? The “Adamites” was a nickname given to the first Canterbury Association immigrants who arrived at Lyttelton between December, 1850, and March, 1853, aboard the Charlotte Jane and 24 other chartered vessels.

Naturally, those Europeans who had been visiting, exploring, settling and exploiting the Canterbury region for 20 years already, became our “Pre-Adamites.”

They first saw Canterbury’s potential as a place of settlement; and they were the first to make contact with the region’s Maori population and develop a much more amicable relationship with them than existed between Maori and pakeha in most other parts of New Zealand.

All the province’s first industries were established by the Pre-Adam-ites: flax trading, whaling, boat building, timber cutting, stock breeding, and dairy farming. Traders, missionaries, inn keepers, merchants, artisans, labourers, surveyors, company agents, and a scattering of wives and domestics were also present. The largest settlements were on Banks Peninsula where a number of French, German, and British established a township at Akaroa in 1840. There were also sizeable communities of 20 to 30 persons at the whaling bases on the south side

of the Peninsula. Individual families were dotted round most of the other Peninsula bays, and there were several farming on the Plains.

In total, more than 930 PreAdamite settlers are known to have been associated with Canterbury, either temporarily or permanently, in the two decades before the First Four Ships.

No-one imagines they were all saints. There were ship deserters, former convicts, remittance men, and scores of hard-bitten whalers among them. Some of the latter, curiously enough, turned out to be the most industrious settlers. Most of the Pre-Adamites were hardy, enterprising, and courageous. They lived, even by the standards of their own times, rough and lonely lives.

A first step towards giving these pioneer settlers their due recognition was taken a decade ago when work began on producing an accurate list of all persons whose presence in the Canterbury Block before December 16, 1850, could be substantiated. The bulk of the work was done by members of the Genealogical Society, with Anne Mee and Beth Colwell spearheading the research.

There was still a feeling, despite the excellence and value of this index, that the Pre-Adamites deserved a more public and visible memorial. The Historic Places Trust therefore opened a round of negotiations with the Cultural Committee of the Christchurch City Council. After much mulling over the text of a suitable citation, and considerable help from Tony Thorpe of the City Council’s architects’ division, an’inscribed plaque is now to be seen, inset into the pavement of Four Ships Court alongside the Charlotte Jane inscription.

There were too many Pre-Adam-ites involved to be able to mention names on the inscription, so the principal nationalities and occupations had to suffice. However, at the risk of some blood being spilt, a few names, at least, deserve to be mentioned here.

The first is Joseph Price. Price, flax trading on the Victoria, visited Akaroa Harbour, Lyttelton Harbour, and the great Kaiapohia Pa in July, 1831. He was sent by the Weller brothers at Otakou to start a fishery at Timaru in March, 1839, and later established a whaling station at Ikoraki, on Banks Peninsula, in October, 1839. Thirteen years later Price began farming at the valley which now bears his name.

Though he was the first European to visit Canterbury and later to settle here permanently, he was beaten to the scene by at least three others — an anonymous corpse and two runaways. Laurence Kennaway describes in “Crusts” how he found in 1860 a wooden head-board marking a grave in the sandhills near the Heathcote Estuary “on which could just be traced initials something like H.L., roughly cut, and the date 1822.” Price also mentioned two Europeans who were living with the Maoris at Akaroa when he called there in 1831 — a convict with a tattooed face and a sailor.

Another whaling master was to beat Joseph Price in establishing a station ashore. Captain George Hempelman, who was whaling off Banks Peninsula in 1836, set up a shore base at Peraki on March 20, 1837. Europeans have lived at Peraki ever since, making this remote Peninsula bay Canterbury’s longest-established non-Maori settlement. A number of Hempelman’s whalers, like Robinson Clough, William Simpson, William Gilbert, Thomas Kennedy, and Alexander Coffin, stayed on as settlers.

While Hempelman’s Bee was anchored at l ittle Port Cooper in July, 1836, Captain W B. Rhodes, the oldest of the four Rhodes brothers, arrived in the whaling brig Australian. Soon after arriving, Rhodes had to cope with a mutiny and a number of the offending crew were dumped ashore on September 6. One of these, Ordinary Seaman Walter Gough, was almost certainly the same Gough who lived with the Maoris at Okaruru, where the bay now bears his name. Gough would appear to be the first Pre-Adamite, about whom we have any particular details, to settle in Canterbury,

beating Hempelman by six months. Captain Rhodes later, on November 10, 1839, landed cattle at Red House Bay in Akaroa Harbour, so establishing the first cattle station in the South Island. His brother George in 1843 took over his Peninsula farming operation and Robert Rhodes joined the partnership in 1850. William Green, one of those left to tend the stock in 1839, later started by Greens Point the province’s first hotel, the Victoria Inn. Israel Rhodes (no relation) and Willian Birdling were two others who worked for the Rhodes brothers. Israel Rhodes later farmed at Flea Bay. Other whalers were setting up bases at other bays round the Peninsula. Samuel ' and Thomas Brown started a station at Oashore in November, 1839, with William Woods and Philip Ryan among their crew. The Rhodes brothers started a whaling station at Island Bay in 1840, with William Green in charge. “Yankee Sam” Williams, a pioneer settler of Timaru, was one who later worked there. Whale ships had been landing shore parties at Little Port Cooper since 1836, at least, and a permanent whaling station was operating there in the early 1840 s. At one of these whaling bases, Oashore (the European settlement closest to the Canterbury Plains at this stage), a small party was landed on April 12, 1840 which went on to establish at Riccarton the first European farm settlement on the Plains. (This was where William and John Deans settled in 1843). Though the scheme was abandoned 18 months later, one of the workers, Malcolm McKinnon, was later to re-establish himself with his wife and family at Akaroa.

By then, on August 18, 1840, the Comte de Paris immigrants French and German, had landed and set up their settlements at Akaroa and Takamatua. Members of the Breitmeyer, David, Le Lievre, Libeau, de Malmanche, Michel, and other Comte de Paris families still flourish in Canterbury. Akaroa, one of the oldest townships in New Zealand, attracted other interesting talents. These included the province’s first resident magistrates, Michael Murphy, Charles Robinson, and John Watson; its first resident clergy, the Rev. Fathers Comte and Tripe; its first resident botanical scientist, Pierre de Belligny; and its first artist, Charles Meryon. Among the passengers of the Monarch, which arrived, disabled, at Akaroa a decade later, in April, 1850, were other immigrants who made a distinct mark in PreAdamite Canterbury. These included Samuel Farr, the province’s first resident engineer and architect; Charles Haylock, who established the first flour mill; and John Pavitt and sons, who began the first timber mill. Other notables who had settled in Akaora by then were Captain James Bruce, who

founded the settlement’s first reputable hotel, and Captain George Armstrong, who gave the Peninsula its first political voice. Apart from those living at Akaroa and the southern bays’ whaling bases, there were other families well established on Banks Peninsula before the Canterbury Association settlement began. The Richmond which brought the Deans party south to farm at Riccarton in 1843, also brought the Greenwoods, who settled at Purau, and the Hays and Sinclairs, who went to Pigeon Bay. Three years later the Greenwoods were robbed by the “Blue Cap Gang” in the province’s first recorded hold-up. One Greenwood employee who later gave evidence was William Prebble.

The Greenwoods employed William Barry and Archibald McQueen. Two of the Deans brothers’ farm workers, Samuel Manson and John Gebbie, settled permanently, at the head of Lyttelton Harbour, and another, William Tod, stayed on to farm. All these farm employees have descendants still in Canterbury. Port Levy had a handful of European settlers living at Whalers Bay (Fields’), opposite the Maori “pa” at Puari. One of these was William Heaphy, the first European to walk overland from Otago to Canterbury and a witness to the Hansa homicide at Port Levy in 1844. Thomas White, whose descendants are now numerous in the province, was one of several “retired” whalers living there also.

At what is now called Menzies Bay, Alexander Mclntosh and his family were dairy farming in 1848. Joseph Rix and John Bennett were timber cutting at Little Akaloa. At Okains Bay, John Fleurty, George Mason, Timothy Hurley, and William Webb were also timber felling. Webb was married to Margaret Knight, the widow of another early settler. William Barry, after leaving the Greenwoods, settled at Barry’s Bay. His front paddock was still littered with the bone remnants of Ngai Tahu prisoners butchered by Te Rauparaha after his triumph at Onawe in 1832. At Lands End, on the exposed western headland of Akaroa Harbour, William Lucas and James Wright (the “Baron of Whakamoa”) were dairy farming, with Malcolm McKinnon not far away at Island

Bay. James Reed and his stepsons, William and George Giddens, were dairying high up the spur now known as Reids Hill with nothing but whaling settlements between their dairy farm and the Canterbury Plains away to the west. Governor Grey had urged these settlers in 1848 to get into the Peninsula Hills and “breed children and cattle as fast as you can.” It was at whaling bases such as Little Port Cooper (in 1836) and Peraki (in 1837) that the province’s first two skilled trades began — coopering and boat building, both under the direction of Captain Hempelman. The Sinclairs and Hays were building schooners at Pigeon Bay in 1844, with Samuel Brown, from Oashore, busying himself likewise over the hills of Port Levy. Robert and Magnus • Allen were also building coastal vessels at Port Levy by 1849. Two other Pre-Adamite boat builders, who worked in a variety of bays on the Peninsula, were William Gilbert

and Seth Howland. Out on the Plains there was a sprinkling of settlers in North Canterbury, mostly at Motunau, the oldest station in Canterbury outside the Peninsula and Riccarton. There, the Greenwoods shifted in 1847 after selling Purau to the Rhodes brothers. (There had also been a whaling station at Motunau in the mid-1840s). John Scott Caverhill was one of the Greenwood’s more notable employees. Frederick Weld was further north at Stonyhurst, and John Macfarlane already had his eyes on Loburn, to the south.

Numbers of surveyors under the direction of Captain Joseph Thomas were exploring and mapping all the accessible parts of the Canterbury block. Among them were Charles Torlesse, John Cridland, Thomas Cass, Edward Jollie, and John Boys. William Fox, William Hamilton, and Walter Mantell were also involved in important exploratory or survey work, and all left sketches and paintings of their journeyings. It was largely due to Thomas’s industry that the port of Lyttelton was established and ready to receive the first passengers from the Charlotte Jane on December 16, 1850. An immigration barracks had been built under the direction of James Johnstone.

Major Alfred Hornbrook had set up the Mitre Hotel, Lyttelton’s first. Moses Cryer ran a store there; Henry Gouland, the first port official, had a post and customs office; Dr William Donald was ready for action as the new settlement’s first doctor; Donald Gollan was completing the port’s 150 ft jetty with timber shipped from the Peninsula by Captain George Day. The Deans family of Riccarton and George Rhodes at Purau were all set to supply meat and produce to

the Canterbury Association immigrants. When the most celebrated PreAdamite of the lot arrived, John Robert Godley, the new settlement was ready for business. Charlotte Godley was one of a number of Pre-Adamite wives who made a substantial impact on their times. Elizabeth Brown, Madeline Libeau, Margaret Mclntosh, Jean Manson, Rose de Malmanche, Mary Gebbie, Mary Ann Green, Agnes Hay, Mary McKinnon, Elizabeth Sinclair, and Hannah Wright are but a few of those courageous women who almost deserve a separate memorial.

A number of those responsible for getting the Pakeha settlement of Canterbury started have met their reward on the map of this province: Prices Valley, Simpsons Rock, Rhodes Monument, Greens Point, Kennedys Bush, Robinsons Bay, Deans Bush, Duvauchelle, Birdlings Flat, Hornbrooks Track, McQueens Valley, Prebbleton, Cass, Lucas Peak, Mt Sinclair, Gollans Bay, Jollies Pass, Mt Torlesse, the Thomas River, Armstrong Reserve, Mansons Peninsula, Hempelman Drive, and so on. Godley is commemorated not only on the map, but in the presence of Canterbury’s finest statue, in the most conspicious spot in the city he helped to found. But in the main, the Pre-Adam-ite settlers are the forgotten forerunners, their contributions swamped by the superior publicity which has always been accorded the later arrivals on the First Four Ships. It is hoped that the new memorial will do something to remedy this oversight.

More visible

memorial

First recorded hold-up

An oversight

remedied