Edmund arrived in New Zealand in 1841 as a member of the Management Committee of the Canterbury Association as well as Commissioner of Native Reserves. He was to protect the rights of the Maori during the development of the new colony. He took his new duty with great seriousness, studying and reporting on the way of life and the conditions that the tribes lived in. He also organized a census for the Maori people which gave the total of 107,219 persons counted for. Year unknown.
For many decades, Halswell was regarded as a Satellite Town, meaning it was a striving little independent township close to a large city but in the last few years with the build up of the new suburbs of Oaklands and Westlake, Halswell is now a part of Christchurch. The use of the word of Halswell for the area was first used in 1868.
Edmund was not in New Zealand for very long, he eventually died in London on New Years Day 1874 at the ripe age of 83.
*image courtesy of the http://www.otago.ac.nz/*
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