# The Story of Christchurch, New Zealand/Chapter 5

Chapter V.
1851–1852.
Demand for Local Government—Friction between Mr. Godley and the London Council of the Canterbury Association—Australian Gold Diggings, and their effect on Canterbury—Survey of first year’s work of colonisation—Society of Canterbury Colonists—Visit of Governor Grey—Land Sales—Constitution Bill, including provision for Provincial Council—Criticism of the Canterbury Association—Resignation of Mr. Godley, and his departure for England and death.
The first year of the Canterbury Settlement was an important period in the general politics of New Zealand, as the problem of constitutional government was then under consideration. On June 18, the Provincial Council Bill was introduced in the Legislative Council, then sitting in Auckland. Mr. Godley, in the previous year, had taken a strong part in opposing Sir George Grey’s “Paper Constitution,” which, while granting nominal self-government, retained all real power in Downing Street. He was now equally insistent that the implied promise of Earl Grey should be fulfilled, and that the Canterbury Settlement should be constituted a separate province with real power to manage its own affairs.
Sir George Grey had not forgotten Mr. Godley’s former opposition, and he raised the jealousy of the Nelson settlers against the Canterbury Settlement by ​suggesting that the Association was trying to extend its boundaries at the expense of Nelson. No intention of the kind had been indicated in any of the official correspondence, and the suggestion was distinctly repudiated by a public meeting referred to later, but there probably was a desire—and a reasonable one—that the whole of the Canterbury Plains, for which Lyttelton was the natural outlet, should be controlled from the same centre. Any other arrangement must, in the nature of things, have proved vexatious to both provinces and harassing to the settlers. The disputed territory, belonging nominally to Nelson, was not then settled, except by a few unlicensed squatters.
Other points were raised, such as the justice or injustice of compelling settlers who might not be members of the Church of England to contribute £1 per acre of the purchase money of their land to the religious and educational objects of that Church. The personal friction between Sir George Grey and Mr. Godley was reflected from this time onwards in the attitude of the former towards the Canterbury Settlement.
Mr. Godley realised that the settlers were too fully occupied by their own affairs lo give much attention to general politics, but the occasion was too important to be passed over, and he organised public meetings at Christchurch and Lyttelton on August 14, presiding himself over the gathering at the Port.
The speech made by Mr. Godley on that occasion throws some additional light upon his relations with the Governor:— “I entirely agree with Sir George Grey in his disapproval of colonising associations, whether they be composed of land speculators or of amateurs,” “I believe that their existence and functions are altogether repugnant to sound theory, and almost necessarily productive of great practical evils. Yet I have been an active promoter of the Canterbury Association, and I now stand here to defend it on this ground ​alone, that it is better than the Government. If we had a Government able and willing to make its waste territory available for British immigration, and to give facilities to intending colonists for managing their own affairs, and colonising on their own principles from the first, 1 should be prepared to admit that an amateur association like ours was an Intruder. But, as it is, I have no hesitation in asserting that our mission is perfectly legitimate and exceedingly beneficial. It must have been really rather difficult for Sir George Grey’s audience to keep their countenance while he denounced the Canterbury Association as an obstacle to the legitimate colonisation of this district by the subjects of Her Majesty —in other words, as keeping people out of Canterbury. If anyone else but the Governor had used such language, I should really have supposed that it had been used in irony. Why, what is the fact? Most of those whom I address know, and all of them ought to know, that for seven years, that is, from 1839 to 1846, the Government of which Sir George Grey is the representative, possessed almost unlimited powers and opportunities for colonising these Islands. . . They have had every conceivable advantage and facility at their command: funds, troops, steamers, civil administration, surveyors. They have spent more money in one year than we are likely to have at our disposal in five—and what have they done? I will tell you. By means of an extravagant expenditure they have founded one settlement, or rather they have founded one seaport and garrison town, which is not a settlement, to which I do not believe five hundred actual settlers have ever gone. That is all, literally all, that the Government of New Zealand has done for colonisation. And yet Sir George Grey gravely complains that the Canterbury Association are keeping Her Majesty’s subjects from colonising this district under the auspices of the Government; he taunts us, m fact, with being an obstacle to colonisation.
​Why, if it were not for the Canterbury Association, this district would be a wilderness still, as it was for so many years before we came. We discovered it, we surveyed it, we made it available for settlement, we made known its existence and capabilities in England and Australia; we organised and administered the system of operations by which this desert has been peopled, and after having done all this, at vast labour, and with no small outlay, it is rather too bad to be told by those who have been doing nothing all the time that we are keeping for our own purposes a great and fertile district out of the hands of Her Majesty’s subjects. ... We may colonise badly, but they (the Government) do not colonise at all, We have done more for colonisation in a month than they have done in twelve years.”
Resolutions were passed at both meetings (1) in favour of constituting Canterbury as a separate Province; (2) asking for economy of administration; (3) and declaring that “it is no part of the business of this meeting to point out the boundaries of the proposed Province, but that it distinctly disclaims any desire to encroach on territory to which other settlements may have a fair claim.”
In seconding the last resolution, Mr. Templer contended that the natural and impassable boundaries of the great Southern Plain enclosed an area “evidently intended by nature to form a whole,” and should not arbitrarily be subdivided. One more resolution passed at the meetings should be quoted: “That this meeting, while urging this claim to a local government for Canterbury, desires to guard itself carefully against being supposed to imply assent to, or approval of, the measure fer establishing Provincial Councils which has lately been enacted, inasmuch as that measure does not give to the people of this country any real or efficient control aver the management of their own affairs, and the expenditure of their own revenues.” After passing such ​a resolution, the next one, tendering thanks to His Excellency the Governor “for the gracious and constitutional manner in which he has referred the decision of this question to those whom it mainly or alone concerns,” shows that in those days differences of opinion on public questions did not prevent the disputants observing the amenities of polite society.
But all this tone, while Mr. Godley, as agent of the Canterbury Association, was administering the Province’s affairs with almost despotic power, building up the settlement, and moulding its public opinion, he was becoming more and more intolerant of the control by a London Council, arbitrary in its decisions, and sometimes ludicrously ignorant of local conditions. Those frank and outspoken letters of his to his friend, Mr. Adderley, afford a clue to the change which was rapidly taking place in his mental attitude. See for instance, his letter of May 21, 1851: “I often think what fun we should have taken in old times out of the didactic despatches which are written to me, if they had emanated from Downing Street. Do you read them? To one reading them out here, there is something inexpressibly comic about those (especially) on the conduct to be pursued towards the natives, and in the ecclesiastical arrangements. It is very fortunate, it sounds a ‘cocky’ thing to say, that you have an agent who feels himself strong enough and independent enough to act upon his own view of what is right and politic.”
In another letter, dated August 29, in which he enclosed the newspaper account of the meeting mentioned above, he not only advocated self-government for the colonists, but went so far as to claim for them the right to decide whether the scheme of the Canterbury Association should be retained. By December 15, Mr. Godley’s sentiments had grown stronger still, and, after referring to the last despatch of the Association as “a thorough Downing Street document,” he went on to ​say: “No scheme could be carried out against the will of the colonists, and if it is to be carried out with their will, why not entrust them with its management? It will be most painful to me if I have to enter into an open conflict with the Committee; it is like going to war with one’s brothers.” There he broke off, spoke of being “gloriously well,” and told of a cricket match in which “Brittan and I distinguished ourselves very creditably.”
A few months later, on January 20, 1852, he gave definite expression to a new confession of faith: “I long held with Wakefield that they (colonising associations), were positively good; then I came to look on them as lesser but necessary evils; now I am convinced that they do more harm than good.” The immediate occasion for this outburst was the conflict between the New Zealand Settlement Act of the Imperial Parliament and a local ordinance on the same subject. The two enactments were passed simultaneously, but of course it was some months before the Imperial Act arrived to supersede the ordinance. In the meantime, people had been acting on the ordinance, buying land, etc., “and behold out comes the Act, and everything that has been done under the ordinance falls to the ground.”
It is easy to imagine how galling this was to Mr. Godley, and we need not be surprised to find the breach widening. In the same letter, he continued: “My heart is very sore after reading the Fatima letters. I find that my friends of the Committee are most unreasonable and inconsiderate, quite as much on their side as Tam on mine. Wakefield out-Herods Herod in the outrageous virulence of his abuse; tells me I am inconsistent, ungrateful, wild, furious, incapable, worn-out, perverse, delirious, and winds up by advising me to retire into the country and cultivate my health, which is all I am now fit for. I think, if God spares my life, I may show him yet that I am fit for something else.”
​Then as in a former letter, he broke off suddenly. “But let that pass. I hardly see my way to getting back to you in England. I think I am more wanted here, and that I ought to stay until Canterbury affairs are settled on a satisfactory and permanent footing.” So, however his faith in colonising associations may have been shaken, he was loyal to the settlers who trusted him.
The first year of the Canterbury Settlement, which had now drawn to a close, was remarkable for the discovery of gold in Australia. If the “Diggings” had broken out a year earlier it is impossible to say how great an effect they might have had in diverting intending Canterbury settlers to Australia. The discovery, as it was, proved a severe handicap to the early settlement. Labour that had been imported at great expense, drifted away to the goldfields, and provisions were forced up to famine prices, flour standing for some months at about £40 per ton, quadruple the price at which it had stood at Nelson during the previous year. The latter effect might have been beneficial in providing a market for Canterbury produce, but till that produce became available, there was no counterbalancing advantage to the settlement.
During the first year of settlement, nineteen ships had safely arrived, bringing over 3,000 persons; 25,000 acres of freehold land had been sold, and 400,000 acres of pasturage runs had been taken up, and coal had been found in the Malvern Hills. The unfinished Sumner Road was still the main topic for the Society of Land Purchasers, whose Committee urged the raising of a loan, and the prompt prosecution of the work. Sir George Grey expressed sympathy, and sent a surveyor (Roys) to report upon the road. The report, dated April 3, 1852, thoroughly endorsed Mr. Thomas’s selection of route, and stated that the road to Heathcote Ferry could be constructed in eighteen months at a cost of £12,500.
​An intermittent agitation against the continued transportation of convicts to Australia was also being carried on, point being given to the protest by the avowed dread lest New Zealand should become a convict station.
This survey of the first year of settlement would be incomplete without some reference to sport. It will have been gathered from Mr. Godley’s reference to the subject that cricket had been acclimatised at a very early period in provincial history. The formation of a Jockey Club was projected at a meeting held in the Reading-room at Christchurch on September 18, 1851, and Riccarton was then suggested as a suitable site for the racecourse. The names of the members of the Provisional Committee created on that occasion gave a preliminary guarantee for the clean sport for which Canterbury afterwards became famous. The Committee consisted of J. R. Godley, H. Lockhart, Hon. J. Stuart Wortley, T. Hanmer, J. C. Watts Russell, E. M, Templer, W. G. Brittan and E. J. Wakefield. Those readers who are interested in the story of the Canterbury Jockey Club will find a short account of its inception and growth in the Appendix.
The political ambitions of the community, still lacking the privilege of self-government, found an outlet in the proceedings of two societies. Early in 1852, the Society of Land Purchasers dissolved itself, with the expressed object of making room for a new Society, which should represent all classes of settlers. The proposed society was to have been called the Society of Canterbury Colonists, and initial meetings were called at Christchurch and Lyttelton. The outcome, probably due to local jealousy, was the formation of separate Colonist Societies for Christchurch and Lyttelton. Mr. Henry Tancred was Chairman of the Christchurch Society; Mr. Godley of that of Lyttelton, with Mr. J. E. FitzGerald as his active lieutenant. Mr. W. G. Brittan, who had ​been Chairman of the Land Purchasers’ Society since its inception, declined nomination on the new committee. Later in the year, a third Society, the Christchurch Athenæum, claiming to be non-political, was founded under the Chairmanship of the Rev. O. Mathias.
In March, His Excellency Sir George Grey paid a visit to Canterbury, the first since the arrival of the Pilgrims. His Excellency met with a cold reception, the fact being that Mr. Godley had carried the Canterbury Settlement with him in his uncompromising hostility to Sir George Grey’s paper constitution.
The “Lyttelton Times” of April 24 announced the advent of its first rival, a weekly newspaper, “The Guardian and Canterbury Advertiser,” remarking that “apart from the pleasure which is afforded by so unmistakable an evidence of the advancing prosperity of the settlement, the appearance of an additional voice for the expression of public opinion will relieve us from the difficult position of endeavouring to do justice to the opinion of all parties in the community.” The new journal survived for less than a year, but the building in which it was printed became the seat of the first Provincial Council of Canterbury.
During this year there were frequent sales by auction of Christchurch sections. Hagley Park, 445 acres, was leased for one year at 2/7 per acre, and the Domain, 64 acres, at 4/7. (“Lyttelton Times,” April 24, 1852.) The prices secured for Christchurch sections at auction did not indicate the existence of a speculative spirit, but they showed that the colonists had confidence in the settlement. In April, a town section coveted by several bidders brought £40, and the “Lyttelton Times” mentioned that quarter-acre sections beyond the city boundaries had “fetched as much as eight pounds.” These prices were exceeded quickly, but the fact that the Canterbury Association was still offering town sections ​at low upset prices, placed a check on the rise of land values.
The year 1852 was Mr. Godley’s last year in Canterbury. Overshadowing all local matters were two great questions: (1) The New Zealand Constitution Bill; (2) The attitude of the Canterbury settlers towards the Canterbury Association. It will be convenient to take them separately in their order. Fostered by Mr. Godley, a constant agitation was kept up against the Constitution Bill in general, and more particularly against Sir George Grey’s Provincial Council Ordinance. This agitation, as events proved, was unnecessary, as in his despatch, April 2, 1851, Earl Grey, who had at that time only received the draft of the Provincial Councils Bill, had decided to disallow it on two grounds, stated therein as follows:—
“I do not find that it contains any provision for the initiation of money votes. ... The second point is, your proposing to rest the power of confirming and disallowing the ordinances passed by the Provincial Council in the Governor-in-Chief, instead of in Her Majesty. This is an innovation of a serious character, and one which I conceive the Legislative Council of New Zealand would have no power to make, were it not that the language of the Act which you cite, 11th and 12th Vict. C. 4, is such as to be open to the interpretation that this very unusual power is conceded to it by that legislation. I am not prepared to advise Her Majesty to consent to so material a change in the ordinary form of a colonial constitution.”
This despatch, with its implied censure on Sir George Grey’s autocratic methods, was made known to the Canterbury public by the “Lyttelton Times,” on July 24, 1852, fifteen months after it had been written. During that period, the agitation against the Provincial Council Ordinances had been allowed to continue. In later days, the suppression for more than a year by the ​Governor, of a despatch dealing with a matter of such vital importance, and one moreover, in which the Governor was himself at variance with the majority of the settlers, would hardly have escaped comment. Curiously enough, the issue of the “Lyttelton Times” which published Earl Grey’s despatch of April 2, 1851, also announced to the Canterbury public the fall of Lord John Russell's Government on February 19, preceding—another illustration of the time then taken by the mails. This news came by way of the Mauritius, and was published in a second edition of the newspaper just 151 days after it occurred. Lord John Russell was succeeded by the Earl of Derby, and Earl Grey was replaced at the Colonial Department by Sir John Pakington. Largely at the instance of Mr. E. G. Wakefield, and of Mr. Henry Sewell, the new Government agreed to the New Zealand Government Bill, granting a Constitution for New Zealand, and passed it on June 30, 1852. The Act provided for six Provincial Councils, the superintendent and members to be elected, the latter to be not less than nine in number, and the term of appointment to be four years. These Councils were restricted from legislating on certain defined subjects. Provision was also made in the Act for the creation of Municipal Corporations. There were also two Clauses, 75 and 76, dealing with the affairs of the Canterbury Association. The first clause protected the Acts passed on behalf of the Association against repeal or interference by the New Zealand Legislature, so long as the Association continued to exercise its “functions, powers and authorities.” The second clause permitted the Association to transfer its powers to the Provincial Council. The remainder of the Act which constituted a general government for the colony need not be particularly referred to here.
And so another milestone slipped by, and New Zealand gained a Constitution, and Canterbury the right to a Provincial Government.
​Let us now turn to the other main question then occupying the attention of the settlers—the relation subsisting between the Canterbury Association and the settlers themselves. In the previous year, the Association had promoted a Bill, which amongst other things, authorised the Association to appoint a local Committee to administer the affairs of the settlement. This measure was passed by the British Parliament, but it was resented by the settlers, who demanded that the local Council should be elective. In effect they said to the Association: “You undertook to found a settlement, not to continue to govern it; give us now the management of our own affairs.” Complaints, too, were made of the conflict of authority between the Association and the Home Government; also that the Association did not fulfil its promise to publish detailed accounts. (This referred to the London accounts, as Mr. Godley was always careful to give every possible explanation of the expenditure in the colony.) That these complaints were not much louder was entirely due to the loyalty of Mr. Godley to the Association, and to his own good judgment, and tact. The malcontents were led by Mr. Thomas Cholmondeley, who, in February, 1852, published an open letter to Mr. Godley, criticising the Association. The letter was, in some respects, unfair, but as indicating the strong feeling prevalent at the time among a section at least of the community, the following passage may be quoted:—
“There was once on a time a certain philanthropist who by making emigration his hobby, thereby became better acquainted with the subject than the majority of his neighbours; one of them, John, by name, was desirous of emigrating to some foreign land, in order to better his condition. Our philanthropist proceeded to enlighten this man as to the best means of doing so. ‘My good friend,’ said he, ‘there is a certain savage land which is sometimes called Barataria, because it is governed from a distance, and in a most unconstitutional ​manner. I am anxious to see you settled there, and indeed a man of your spirit will easily be able to resist the inroads of the Governor (who, poor fellow, knows no better.) I will assist you to repel his marauding interference in your private affairs. You shall be well backed up from the first with a sound title to the farm which I shall buy for you, and since it seems desirable to retain our parochial system, etc., etc., in Barataria, I, who know the country, will tell you hew to go to work in a manner worthy of yourself. You shall place a certain sun of money in my hands, which I will promise to spend for you in the manner herein described (he gave John a bit of paper); but, of course, as the money is really yours, the management of it shall be really yours also. Thus you will benefit by my experience, which I tender gratis.’ And John believed him and did as he recommended. When he arrived at Barataria, he found something done, and a great deal begun. Setting to work with the money he had left, he struggled with all his heart. I grieved him to receive from his ok friend many ignorant letters, and still more to get but very little of his trust money, without any account of how it went. At length the philanthropist, whose tone grew higher and higher, despatched an overseer to take charge of John altogether. ‘The freaks of the grisly tyrant of Barataria (who laughed at the philanthropist) now seemed light to John, compared with this astounding act of dictation coming from his old friend. What he did I know not. I only know that the philanthropist goes about to this day, talking of the black ingratitude of John.’’
Remembering Mr. Godley’s private letters to Mr. Adderley on the evils of “Baratarian” Government, one would think he must have had some sympathy with his correspondent.
Before the end of March, it was rumoured in letters received from England, that Mr. Godley had ​tendered his resignation to the Association, and, in s letter dated May 25, and published in the settlement’s newspaper, he gave his reasons for resigning. Briefly expressed, these were, as might have been anticipated, that he had expected the Association to leave the local administration in his hands, and finding the Committee took a different view, he did not choose to be an instrument in carrying out plans of which he might or might not approve. The Committee’s reply was written in a frank and reasonable spirit. It stated that it was the Association’s intention “to apply during the present session of Parliament for an Act which shall transfer their functions to the Provincial Government about to be constituted,” and concluded with an earnest request that he should continue to act as their agent in the meantime, a request which Mr. Godley felt it was impossible for him to refuse. Therefore the resignation was withdrawn, and Mr. Godley continued to act as agent for the Canterbury Association.
As has been already seen, the New Zealand Government Bill passed on June 30, and at a meeting held in London on July 15, the Committee of the Association recommended that the functions of the Association should be transferred (under Clause 76 of the Act) to the colonists (the Provincial Council); that the colony should assume the liabilities of the Association on receiving a transfer of the Association’s property: and that a suitable trust should be created for the management of the ecclesiastical and educational funds. The Canterbury Association was to pass out of active existence, and its functions were to be handed on to the Canterbury Provincial Council as soon as that body should be elected. Mr. Godley, after declining an urgent requisition to become the first Superintendent of Canterbury, sailed for England on December 21. In his farewell speech, he admitted that his dream of a Church of England settlement had not altogether come true. “I ​often smile,” he said, “when I think of the ideal Canterbury of which our imagination dreamt, yet I see nothing in the dream to regret or to be ashamed of, and I am quite sure that without the enthusiasm, the poetry, the unreality if you will, with which our scheme was overlaid, it would never have been accomplished.” “Besides,” he added, “I am not at all sure that the reality, though less showy, is not in some respects sounder and better than the dream.” Captain Simeon, who early in the year had been appointed a Resident Magistrate, succeeded as agent for the Canterbury Association.
Mr. J. R. Godley was, indeed, the founder of Canterbury; it was he, almost single-handed, who formed the Canterbury Association in London. For the first two years of the settlement, he held the position, except in name, of Governor of Canterbury. Standing between the London Committee, supremely unconscious of its own ignorance of colonial affairs, on the one hand, and a justly indignant band of colonists on the other, Mr. Godley achieved the marvellous feat of retaining the confidence of both. Both, in fact, recognised the truth that the whole of Mr. Godley’s life here was devoted to the single-minded purpose of promoting the highest interests of Canterbury and of the settlers under his charge. An opportunity was afforded him on his return to England to emphasise the lessons he had learned here in colonial government. The occasion was a banquet tendered to him at Greenwich, and attended by many of the foremost British statesmen interested in colonial affairs. It is pleasant, incidentally, to note that his old Canterbury opponent, Mr. Thomas Cholmondoley, was amongst the men who assembled to do him honour.
The following extract from Mr. Godley’s speech is taken from the report in the “Morning Chronicle,” of July 21, 1853:—
“Many of you have the power of exercising, directly or indirectly, great influence in the affairs of British ​colonies. May I earnestly and solemnly impress upon them the one great fundamental maxim of sound colonial policy—it is to let your colonies alone; not chiefly because your interference will probably be of an injudicious kind in this or that particular matter, still less because it will be costly and troublesome to yourselves, but because it tends to spoil, corrupt and to degrade them, because they will never do anything or be fit for anything great so long as their chief political business is to complain of you, to fight with you, and to lean upon you; so long as they consider you as responsible for their welfare, and can look to you for assistance in their difficulties. I protest quite as much against subsidies and subscriptions as against vetoes and restraints-indeed, more, for the poison is more subtle, and the chance of resistance less. I want you neither to subsidise their treasuries nor support their clergy, nor to do their police duty with your soldiers, because they ought to do these things for themselves, and by your doing all you contribute to make them effeminate, degenerate and helpless. Do not be afraid to leave them to themselves; throw them into the water and they will swim. ... To this rule the Canterbury Colony is no exception. ... Now it must go alone. It has been called into existence, it has been given its opportunities, if has been started on its way; henceforth it must work out its own destinies.
“They (the members of the Canterbury Association) have done their work—a great and heroic work; they have raised for themselves a noble monument; they have laid the foundations of a great and happy people.”
Mr. Godley afterwards held the position of Commissioner of Income Tax, and later of Assistant Under-Secretary for War. He died on November 17, 1861. The Provincial Council erected the statue to his memory which now stands facing the Cathedral. It was the work of an eminent sculptor, Mr, Woolner, and was unveiled on August 6, 1867, by Mr. C. C. Bowen, who ​had been intimately associated with Mr. Godley as his Private Secretary. The statue was presented by the Superintendent to the City Council of Christchurch in trust for the people of Canterbury, and bears the inscription—