As the ‘Isabella Hercus’ – the Canterbury Association’s 6th ship – broke through the waves 200 miles north of the Equator that warm November morning, Chaplin James Wilson was on the deck, murmuring a desperate prayer. He was aware of Captain Houston crouching down beside him impatiently but this poor dead young woman lying before …
Those walking or travelling down Riccarton Road – known as Harewood Road in them days – during 1851 or thereabouts, I’m sure would have slowed their step and craned their neck in wonder at what was rising out of the Shands Estate. What was that crazy John Shand up too? Is that a tower? Widower …
William Flower Blatchford (pictured on the right)arrived in Canterbury on the 1st March 1851 aboard the ‘Isabella Hercus’, the Canterbury Association’s 6th emigrant ship. From all accounts and from where he put down his roots, he seemed very fond of Lyttelton Harbour. The bay of Te Rapu – named after a stream that flows through …
