# The Story of Christchurch, New Zealand/Chapter 8

Chapter VIII.
Christchurch Life in Early Fifties.
These were not only the young days of the settlement, but were also the young days of most of the settlers, who had come out with their life’s work before them. Even the leaders were not old; Sir George Grey, when he welcomed the Canterbury Pilgrims, was in his thirty-ninth year; Mr. Godley was thirty-six; Bishop Selwyn forty-one; Mr. FitzGerald was under thirty when he became Superintendent; Sir Charles Bowen was only twenty-four when he became Provincial Treasurer. According to a census taken in March, 1857, there were 6,230 persons in Canterbury, of whom 5,577 were under forty years of age, and only forty-two over sixty years old. By way of comparison, it may be noted that out of a similar number to-day, there would be about 400 persons of sixty years or over.
Naturally, in a community consisting almost entirely of young people, there was a greater freedom of social intercourse—life was brighter and friendships more easily formed.
Among the various records of those days, one of the most graphic is the unpublished diary of Mr. Henry Sewell, covering the period 1853-1856; it was intended to be read by the members of the writer’s family in England, and to take the place of letters. Writing for so intimate a circle, Mr. Sewell allowed himself a frankness of expression in describing his friends and acquaintances which might cause offence, and the diary was therefore left by him to be held in trust by the Bishop ​of Christchurch for the time being. It is through the courtesy of Bishop Julius that the author has been privileged to read it and to make use of some of the good material with which it abounds.
Christchurch, when Mr. Sewell landed in February, 1853, was an odd straggling place, with small wooden buildings dotted about, and a few gardens enclosed by rough palings. Mr. Sewell found it entirely unattractive, though assured by its inhabitants that, like olives, it improved on further acquaintance. The most striking feature was its lack of trees, not one tree being in sight nearer than the Riccarton Bush. The town was, in fact, so open that everyone could see what everyone else was doing at any hour of the day.
Christchurch and Lyttelton were then rivals, and Mr. Sewell’s anticipation was that Lyttelton, as the port and centre of distribution, would become the chief city. He did not give pride of place to Christchurch even on the plains, believing that a more important town would grow up at Kaiapoi, and possibly another in the Ellesmere district, within easy reach of Lyttelton by way of the low saddle at the head of Gebbie’s Valley.
Mr. Sewell experienced a great deal of bad weather on his arrival, and his early diary is full of ravings against the climate. “Oh, this New Zealand climate—this South of France with Italian skies. I am told that the present season is exceptional—so it was last year, perhaps it will be the same next: speak as you find it, is my motte.” The climate has changed since then under the influence of plantations and the cultivation of the plains. Those were the days of the old-fashioned sou’-westers, when the track between Lyttelton and Christchurch became impassable. However, in later entries, Mr. Sewell retracted a good deal of his criticism.
A feature of New Zealand life in those days was the scarcity of labour. The Victorian gold diggings had just been discovered, and it was very little use bringing ​emigrants to Canterbury, for Lyttelton often proved to be a sort of roundabout way to the diggings. Shipmasters had great difficulty in keeping their crews. The labour problem became so serious that there was even talk of importing Chinese coolies. The early settler had to do his own work, while his women folk cooked the dinner and scrubbed the floor.
Some fine stories are told about the feats performed by the pioneers. Mr. Marmaduke Dixon dug a well eighty feet deep, with his own hands. He rigged up a windlass and a bucket on a rope, and when he had filled the bucket, he climbed out of the well and pulled the bucket up after him. Think of the labour! But his section at West Eyreton was waterless, and he had to get water. Then there is the story of Mr. John Studholme, who walked, with his brother, all the way ta Dunedin to buy cattle. One can imagine what that meant across the unbridged rivers and trackless plains. But when he got to Dunedin, the cattleman would not take his cheque, there being no Bank in Otago, so, after tossing up with his brother which should go, he shouldered his swag and walked back, cashed his cheque at Lyttelton, and tramped to Dunedin a second time with the money. This was in 1853, and was one of the first overland trips made between the two places. Mr. John Anderson, who came out in the “Sir George Seymour,” established a blacksmith’s shop at “The Bricks,” and after his day's work was done, often walked in to Lyttelton to bring back the iron he needed for the next day’s work,
Another effect of the diggings in Victoria was to raise the price of all foodstuffs. Mr. Sewell tells how in May, 1853, the flour ex “Hampshire” sold at £70 a ton. His diary is full of references to the cost of living. “In truth, the expense of living is about double that of London, with one-fourth part of the comfort,” he said, in a characteristic passage. “People with fixed ​incomes had better stay at Home. Nothing hut going into some colonial line, sheep-farming, merchandising, etc., can make the colony pay as a residence. I who am condemned from such profitable pursuits by many causes, have no means of balancing the account. Firewood (there is no coal) casts now at cheapest 30/- a cord, and a cord is equal to about one-third of a ton of coals. Think of coals at £4 10s. a ton! But then during the winter, we paid £2 a cord, Next winter I expect it will be £4 a cord, and I am laying in a stock in time. Butter 1/6 a lb.; in the winter it was 2/-. Eggs 2d. and 3d. apiece. Vegetables to us who have no garden, and cannot afford one, paying 6/- a day for labour, are almost mythical and fabulous things. We had new potatoes and green peas for a rarity for our Christmas dinner, but the potatoes were 2d. a lb., and the peas 2/- a peck. The economy of a colony consists in doing without things. Butchers’ meat is about 8d. a lb., but inferior in quality and sometimes not procurable at all. Nobody engaged in colonial pursuits cares about these things, for their profits (made out of these enormous prices) are in proportion.”
“I think I must retract a good deal of my abuse of the climate. We have certainly had some charming weather lately, and the alternations of rain are really a relief. I can imagine fifty years hence the place being really agreeable and preferable for residence, but it is a great and long hill to climb before it attains real civilisation.” Again on October 24, he wrote, “The price of everything is prodigious—stock is high and rising—sheep up to two guineas a piece; cattle £15 a head; horses an incredible price—nothing rideable under £60 or £70. My opinion is that the tendency will be upward. I see no chance of a fall. Australian gold will go on: population will increase; mouths to be fed will multiply.”
Not only were stock and provisions dear, but many of ​the ordinary accessories of civilisation were often unprocurable—the shops kept little stock, and settlers had to do their shopping from tramp vessels from Sydney. Mr. Sewell described one of these ships, the “Mountain Maid,” “a sort of maritime peddler’s shop. Her arrival in these parts is like that of a travelling peddler in a country village a hundred years ago. She brings down goods of all kinds from Sydney, and sells them at an exorbitant price, 150 per cent. above London prices—linens, prints, boots, shoes, tea and sugar, wine and spirits, candles and groceries, kettles, pots, pans, etc.; one is obliged to lay in a store, not knowing when one’s next chance may be.”
Several of the city’s present business houses started in those days. Mr. John Anderson, as mentioned above, opened a blacksmith’s shop at “The Bricks,” but soon afterwards purchased the present site of Anderson’s Foundry. Mr. W. D. Wood, another pilgrim who arrived in the “Randolph,” built a flour mill in Windmill Road in 1856, and in 1860 established the mill on the Avon near Riccarton. Dunstable House, now Ballantyne and Co., was started by Mrs. Clarkson in 1854, and Mr. E. Reece’s ironmongery establishment was opened two years later.
By December, 1844, the big rush to the diggings was over, and disappointed diggers were beginning to arrive in Lyttelton seeking work. This was the opening of a new era in Canterbury. Hitherto there had been a general acquaintance amongst the settlers, and a freemasonry which was very pleasant; hospitality had been unbounded, people stayed by storm were taken in as a matter of course. Most of the inhabitants of Canterbury up to that time were people carefully selected at Home by the Canterbury Association in the first place, and by the Canterbury Immigration agent afterwards, the later arrivals being often the relations or friends of the early pilgrims.
​There were too, a few pioneers like the Deans and Rhodes—men of enterprise and resource, or they would not have been there, Nature’s own selection of strong hands for an advance guard. Also a few Australian squatters who brought valuable experience to aid the newly landed settlers in the practical work of colonization. Altogether in the early fifties, the community was a united family; the members rendering each other mutual assistance, and always ready to give a hand to help a newcomer. The arrival of a party of disappointed diggers from Melbourne was the first wave of a new stream of emigration, which gradually altered the characteristics of the settlement. The diggers were rolling stones, rough, adventurous men from all parts of the world.
One great trouble to the early settlers was the lack of fencing. In 1854, out of 4,000,000 acres in Canterbury, only 7,000 acres were fenced, and the result was that cattle of all sorts strayed at large. The many Cattle Trespass Bills of the Provincial Council bore witness to the extent of the trouble.
About this time, there appeared in a Wellington newspaper, an amusing series of pen portraits of the members of the House of Representatives; in one of them, describing Mr. John Hall, it was said that he had a curious habit when speaking of constantly rising on tiptoe. The writer went on to say that he had noticed the same peculiarity in other Canterbury members, and hazarded the conjecture that it arose through the flatness of the Canterbury Plains, and the consequent necessity of a strained attitude when looking for sheep amongst the tussocks.
Another story from Mr. Sewell’s diary is worth telling, as illustrating both the cattle trespass difficulty, and the general life of the period:—
Mrs. Sewell had a mule lent to her, “a quiet, respectable animal, safe for a lady to ride.” The mule ​was given in charge to “a young gentleman of colonial turn of mind” to take it over the hill to Lyttelton, where the Sewells were living. “He was specially instructed to leave the animal in Port, and he brought it in duly enough; but having done so, he felt himself at liberty to take it back with him to Christchurch on his own account. They do these things in a colony. It is part of the pleasant free and easy way of going on.” The mule was ultimately delivered, but when wanted for use a few days afterwards “it had vanished again! It had been seen among the hills over in Mr. Cookson’s valley—was likely to be gone to Riccarton, might be off to Motunau—in short, was anywhere or nowhere.” The offer of a reward caused the mule to be brought back, but only to escape again next morning, when it was seen going full gallop over the hill. “This sort of thing also is colonial habit—animals always stray away. Mr. Allen, the clergymen, declares that every third person he met asked him whether he had seen that bullock, or that mare, or that cow, or some erratic beast—whence he included as an interesting statistical fact that one-third of the time of the colony was consumed in looking after stray cattle. However, another 10/- reward brought the animal back on Tuesday evening.”
This chapter has been introduced not only in the endeavour to give some idea of Canterbury life in the fifties, but as a recognition of the sterling character of many of those who lent a hand to build up old Canterbury.
There is no doubt that the “mana” of the settlement continued to survive long after its first foundation, and attracted many men of unusual character and attainments.
One of them was Mr. John Cracroft Wilson, of whom, in April, 1854, Mr. Sewell wrote: “In the evening a new arrival, the ‘Ackbar,’ from Sydney, bringing Mr. Wilson, an Indian with a retinue of coolies, and intended ​to bring all sorts of animals, antelopes, hares, deer, etc., but unhappily, most of them died on the voyage.
“I am sadly afraid that the Indian Nabob will be grievously disgusted, and carry back evil reports to India, whither he is to return.”
Mr. Sewell, apparently, was responsible for the nick-name “Nabob” by which Sir Cracroft Wilson was afterwards known. Mr. Wilson did return to India, and greatly distinguished himself during the Mutiny, and was recommended by Lord Canning to the favourable consideration of Her Majesty’s Government as having “saved more Christian lives than any man in India.” As a reward for this service, he was made a K.C.B., and later on a K.C.S.I.
After the Mutiny, Sir Cracroft Wilson took up his residence at “Cashmere,” near Christchurch, where he died in 1881.