“I have been an active promoter of the Canterbury Association, and I now stand here to defend it on this ground alone, that is better than the Government. For 12 years….Sir George Grey [the Governor of New Zealand and pictured here in 1861] and his predecessors have had nearly the whole of New Zealand under …
“I know you will be angry with my talking in this way of Canterbury. But if your Lordship were to land, I fear that, while you admired the material progress if the Settlement, you would share the heart-sickness of those who remember the aspirations of Mr [John Robert] Godley’s time and who have learned that …
“For the last five years, ever since the plan of founding a settlement of Church People in New Zealand was first suggested to me…the thought of it has hardly been for a moment out of my mind; I have become, for the time at least, a man of one idea, to which everything else, public …
“[Robert Heaton]Rhodes (otherwise Bob the nipper)was there. What a different version one hears of the same story. It had been told greatly to [John] Deans’ credit that when the first 4 ships came out Deans supplied the settlers with meat at 6d a lb, whilst Rhodes [pictured] raised the price to 8d a lb which …
“Mr [John Robert] Godley whom I remember as a boy at school thoroughly respected by all his schoolfellows, seems early in life to have been taught by the Tractarian movement at Oxford that the religion of a community should be its most important consideration…his letters have recently been published…and no volume of correspondence ever fell …
“You know what a strange person [Captain Joseph]Thomas is; and though [John Cowell] Boys and I received a handsome testimonial from him on the occasion of our discharge he has followed up the injury of disappointing us by constant snubbing and insulting conduct. However, we have restrained ourselves, taken everything quite coolly, and been careful …
“There was one feature in his character which is not a popular one, and which he never cared to conceal or control, and that was his unmitigated hatred and contempt for humbug of every kind: whether it appeared in the form of dishonesty in money matters, or hypocrisy in religion, or of corruption in public …
The story of the Simeon Family and that of Canterbury, New Zealand begins very much like the story of Canterbury itself. Sir John Simeon (pictured), like other lads from wealthy families, saw his teenage years in at Christ Church College in Oxford, as did his younger brothers, Charles and Cornwell. It was there that he …
What actually inspired me to do the story of Godley Head was the old Maori term for the place, ‘Otokitoki’ which means ‘a place of axes’. My imagination was instantly stirred, but it proved to be one of the biggest anticlimaxes since I began to peel back Canterbury’s history almost 3 years ago. Standing like …
I love nothing more than coming across a description during my studies that brings alive an historical figure like never before. So, I thought I would share this one concerning our Founder, the man that did the long hours and pushed the pen to get Christchurch up and started, John Robert Godley. But first, the …
