# The Story of Christchurch, New Zealand/Chapter 16

Chapter XVI.
1870–1876.
The Museum—The Southern Railway—The New Zealand Shipping Co.—Canterbury College.
The Canterbury Museum was opened on October 1, 1876, its successful establishment so early in the history of the province being due to the untiring energy of Dr. von Haast, who became its first Director. Probably it is in connection with the Museum that Sir Julius von Haast is best remembered, but Canterbury has cause to be grateful to his memory for many other services; those in connection with the Moorhouse Tunnel have already been referred to, but his work runs like a warp and woof through the early history of Christchurch, as an explorer, geologist, man of science, and in the valuable assistance he was able to give to the Acclimatisation and Philosophical Societies. At a meeting of the Colonial Society, in August, 1859, presided over by Dr. Donald, a resolution was passed in favour of establishing a Natural History Museum, and the following year Mr. von Haast, as he then was, came to Canterbury, bringing a collection of mineral and other specimens, which he had formed while travelling with Dr. von Hochstetter.
Skeleton of a moa in the Canterbury Museum.
Plate 22.
​entirely. The position of the remains leads to the idea that these birds had all sought shelter from fire under the steep hill, at the spring there, and were overtaken by the fire before recovering from their state of exhaustion.”
The explanation suggested seems probable, and would account for the two great deposits at Glenmark and Waimate, each in heavy swamp land. The discovery of the three specimens at Glenmark was followed up by more important “finds” on that estate, and Dr. von Haast in his “Geology of Canterbury and Westland,” tells how he, in December, 1866, went there at the invitation of Mr. G. H. Moore. His host generously presented the bones already discovered to the Museum, and supplied labour for further excavations, with the result that Dr. von Haast returned with a large American four-horse waggon loaded with bones. In August, 1867, and again in 1872, other visits were made, and further large and valuable collections of Dinornithic remains obtained. Dr. von Haast was not slow in realising the “exchange value” of this extraordinary find. The Dinornis was an extinct bird, peculiar to New Zealand, and nowhere except in Canterbury could its well-preserved hones be dug up from peat swamps in quantities sufficient to fill four-horse waggons. The bones were sorted and assembled into skeletons, with as nice a regard for individuality as circumstances permitted, and many of the skeletons so obtained were exchanged with European and other Museums to the great advantage of the Canterbury collection.
The Director of the Museum was well qualified for this work; he was probably the best known scientist in New Zealand, and was in correspondence with the foremost scientific men of the times, such as Professors Darwin and Tyndall, Dr. Hooker and others, who were interested in the geology, flora and fauna of these islands. Indeed, it is said that one of the Provincial Councillors ​querulously inquired who the Dr. von Haast might be “who, as I hear, is using his position as Canterbury’s ecologist, to build up a European reputation for himself.”
In later years, another great “find” of Moa bones was made near Waimate, in South Canterbury. In this instance, also, the skeletons were found closely packed together in a swamp. Captain F. W. Hutton, who was then Curator of the Museum, took charge of them, and by his application and study in their classification, made himself, probably, the greatest living authority on the Dinornis, with the possible exception of Mr. Richard Lydekker, F.R.S., of the British Museum.
The Museum and Library were vested in a Board of Trustees, of whom the Superintendent, his Honor the Judge, the Provincial Secretary, the Provincial Solicitor, the Speaker of the Provincial Council, and the Chief Surveyor, were members, ex officio, sitting with other nominated members.
By a later ordinance of the Provincial Council the control of the Museum was handed over to the Canterbury College Board, then recently constituted. It is entirely supported by provincial endowments, and has benefited by numerous generous gifts, both of money and specimens. The Philosophical Institute, in its early days, made frequent grants of money, and the late Mr. George Gould gave the greater part of the statuary, as well as making other presentations. The Museum also received a generous contribution of specimens from Captain Scott’s first Antarctic expedition, as well as from that led by Sir Ernest Shackleton. Another unique gift was that of the largest skeleton of a whale to be found in any Museum. The whale, of the species known as Balaena Sibbaldei, or Blue Whale, was stranded on the Okarito Beach, on the West Coast of New Zealand in 1906, and it was due to the energy of Mr. Edgar Stead, of Christchurch, and Mr. Robert Turnbull, of Welling ton, backed by private subscriptions, that this enormous ​specimen was secured and transported to its present position. It may be added that the whale, when found, was in an advanced state of decomposition, and that the tusk of “taking if to pieces” was not a pleasant one. The skeleton is estimated to weigh about nine tons, the jaw-bones are twenty-one feet in length, and the entire skeleton measures eighty-seven feet in length.
Sir Julius von Haast died in 1887, and was succeeded by Mr. J. Forbes, who resigned in 1892, and Captain F. W. Hutton was then appointed Curator, a position which he held with great advantage to the Museum until his death in 1905. During his term of office, besides his important work in connection with the Waimate find of Moa bones, he undertook the systematic classification and orderly arrangement of the mass of material collected by Sir Julius. von Haast. Subsequent Curators have been Mr. Edgar R. Waite, F.L.S., and the present holder of the office, Mr. Robert Speight, M.S.C., F.G.S.
It is due primarily to the untiring energy of Sir Julius von Haast and the discovery of the Moa bones, and secondarily to the systematic industry of Captain F. W. Hutton, that Christchurch now possesses a Museum which can probably bear comparison with that of any city in the world of similar size and age.
Canterbury, in the early seventies, was going through a transition state, and the following extract, taken from “The Melbourne Leader,” of April, 1871, gives the impression of the Christchurch of that day formed by a friendly critic:—
“A nice, clean, comfortable, well-ordered, square city is Christchurch. . . Everything is green-looking and English-like in and around Christchurch. Green hedges, green fields and lofty green poplar trees, with artesian wells here and there, are the features of Christchurch. To that add the best hotels in the Colonies—old English-looking houses, well-built, and cosy and comfortable, with the best of beds and nicest kept tables. The houses ​are mostly wood built, the streets clean and well kept. So are all the people. It is easy to see that they are well-selected, first-class immigrants—related, no doubt, many of them, to good families in England.
“A fine high road runs from Christchurch to Dunedin—a three days’ cruise upon wheels. . . . At six o'clock on a gloriously fine morning in midsummer, we got a seat beside the driver on a fine old English stage coach, a real old stage, with four fine horses. It was Christmas time, and what with that and the stage coach, we thonghi that time had travelled backwards for once, and that we were boys again, and going home for the Christmas holidays. It says something far the place we were leaving that we could leave it with such feelings. There is something of the school and of all its proprieties about Christchurch; but if we ever turn Quakers, we shall, of all the places we know, go back to live there as to a large Society of Friends.”
Evidently the old leaven of the Canterbury Association had not worked out, But the pld coaching days were drawing to a close, at least, on the Canterbury Plains. The Main South Railway line was creeping onward to meet another line which was advancing from Dunedin (through railway communication between Christchurch and Dunedin was opened September 6, 1878); and on April 29, 1872, the Superintendent formally opened the Northern Railway as far as Kaiapoi. This line, like the Lyttelton Christchurch Railway, and the first section of the Main South line, was a broad gauge railway, five feet three inches in width. On the initiation of Mr. Vogel's Public Works Policy, in 1870, the present narrow gauge was adopted as a standard for New Zealand, and the broad gauge Canterbury lines were converted accordingly, and the rolling-stock sold to go to Australia. Mr. Dobson, the Provincial Engineer, strenuously opposed the change, ​and would have liked to have seen the broad gauge adopted as the general standard.
Not only were land communications progressing, but on November 20, 1872, the prospectus was issued of the New Zealand Shipping Company, Ltd., and was followed up by the foundation of that important Company in 1873.
The New Zealand Shipping Company was founded entirely by Christchurch merchants, and its inception was mainly due to the enterprise of Mr. J. L. Coster, then Manager of the Bank of New Zealand. Its headquarters were then at Christchurch, and its fleet consisted entirely of sailing vessels.
During the first three years of its existence the Company despatched 150 ships from the United Kingdom to New Zealand, carrying 28,670 passengers. The first direct steamer, the “Stad Harlem,” sailed from London in 1879, but it was not till 1883 that the first line of direct steam communication between England and New Zealand was inaugurated by the New Zealand Shipping Company. The first steamer of that service, the “British King,” sailed from London on January 26 of that year. As the business grew in importance, it became necessary to obtain British capital, and the headquarters of the Company were removed to London. Soon after the opening of steam communication, the development of the frozen meat trade became of importance, and necessitated the building of a new fleet, with very great insulated space. Mr. H. P. Murray-Aynsley is Chairman of the Christchurch Board of Directors, a position he has held since 1893. (He was first elected Chairman in 1887, but retired the following year in favour of Mr. Leonard Harper.)
The Provincial Council, on June 16, 1873, passed the Canterbury College Ordinance, a very liberal measure “to make provision enabling all classes and denominations of Her Majesty's subjects resident in the Provincial District of Canterbury, and elsewhere in the Colony of ​New Zealand, to procure a regular and liberal course of education, and with that: intent to establish and incorporate a College within the said Province.” Prior to the passing of the Act, there had been in existence a body called the Canterbury Collegiate Union, which had provided instruction in classics, mathematics, modern languages and certain branches of science. Mr. C. C. Bowen was President, and Rev. C. Fraser, Secretary of this Union in 1872. The new Ordinance was designed to continue and extend the work of the Union, and for that purpose, it incorporated Canterbury College and appointed a Board of Governors, including the Right Rev. H. J. C. Harper, the Bishop of the diocese, The Provincial Council voted money for the purchase of a site for the College, and the erection of buildings.
In the preceding year, the Provincial Council (January 15, 1872) had requested the Superintendent to set aside an area “not exceeding in the aggregate 100,000 acres of purely pastoral land as an endowment for a School of Technical Science, and the other educationary purposes contemplated by the ‘Canterbury Museum and Library Ordinance, 1870,’” and the Superintendent had accordingly reserved three blocks of land for the purpose, having a total area of 87,000 acres. Other endowments were made in later years, e.g., on April 13, 1875, a Crown grant of several blocks of rural land, totalling 218,950 acres “as an endowment for schools of technical science and agriculture, and for the promotion of superior educa tion,” was placed in the hands of the Superintendent. During the following year, 1876, these lands were transferred to Canterbury College. Again on August 16, 1875, various parcels of land, aggregating 8,089 acres, reserved under Acts of 1854 and 1862 as endowments for a classical school, were placed under the control of Canterbury College. There were other endowments wade later for special purposes, such as an area of 5,000 acres reserved by proclamation on December 27, 1877, ​“as an endowment for the maintenance of the Medical Department or Faculty of Canterbury College.” The College, not possessing a medical school, this endowment was afterwards applied to the maintenance of a biological laboratory. Additional endowments were provided during 1878 for Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools, the endowment for the latter being 2,578 acres.
The areas that have been mentioned are the principal endowments of Canterbury College, though they are by no means a complete list; they indicate that the educational plan of the Canterbury Association was not lest sight of during the days of the Provincial Council.
By an amending Ordinance, passed in 1873, the properties and the control of the Museum and Public Library were vested in the Board of Governors of Canterbury College. The Museum has been mentioned earlier, but it may be well to explain here how the Public Library came to be associated with the College. The plan of Christchurch, as originally drawn, provided a site for a Mechanics’ Institute, and as early as the middle of 1852, an effort was made to raise by public subscription, the money required to realise this portion of the plan of settlement. The attempt was not successful, and it was not until seven years later, in May, 1859, that a public meeting, held in Christchurch, appointed trustees and officers far a Mechanics’ Institute, which was opened in temporary quarters in August of that year. The site that had been provided by the founders of the settlement was no longer available, but the Provincial Government agreed to make a grant of £500 in lieu of the land, and the trustees used a portion of the money to buy the section at the corner of Cambridge Terrace and Hereford Street, occupied by the present Public Library. An additional sum of £650 was raised by the issue of shares at £5 each, and a small building was erected.
During 1868, the name of the Institute was changed to “The Christchurch Literary Institute,” in recognition ​of the fact that the library had outgrown its original sphere. The next step was the transfer of the land, building and library to the Superintendent of Canterbury, “upon trust for the purpose of a public library, to be established and maintained under and in pursuance of the provisions of the ‘Canterbury Museum and Library Ordinance, 1870.’” The transfer was subject to a pledge that the Institute would he maintained “in accordance with the usual and recognised standard of a public circulating library and reading-room.”
Another part of the original plan of the Canterbury Association was realised on July 19, 1880, when the Governors of Canterbury College opened an Agricultural College at Lincoln. This College was separated from the parent institution by Act of Parliament on January 1, 1897, and is now administered by a separate Board of Governors, one member being appointed by the Governor, three members elected by Canterbury members of Parliament, and three by the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies of the Province.
At the present time, the Board of Governors of Canterbury College has control of Canterbury College (the first block was opened in 1877); the Girls’ High School (opened September 13, 1877); the Boys’ High School (opened May 18, 1881); the School of Art (opened March 1, 1882); the School of Technical Science and Engineering (opened about 1890); and the Museum and Public Library.
Of these institutions, perhaps the School of Engineering alone calls for special comment. Each of the four large cities of New Zealand specialises in some form of education. Auckland, until recently, had its School of Mines, and has now a School of Commerce; Wellington has its School of Law and Jurisprudence, Dunedin its Medical School and Mining School. Christchurch has its important School of Engineering, one of the three outside Great Britain recognised by the British Institute ​of Civil Engineers. The other two so recognised are Sydney University and the M’Gill University (Canada).
The Canterbury College Buildings are all in the Gothic style of architecture; they are built of a handsome hard grey stone from local quarries; the doorways, windows, cornices and other features of the buildings are of white stone, and the combination is very effective. The first block of buildings, including the College Hall, was designed by the late Mr. B. W. Mountfort, and subsequent additions have been in keeping with the original design. It is a pity that more use should not be made of the small-leaved Virginian Creeper instead of so much ivy in covering these buildings—the tender green in spring and the glowing crimson of its autumn foliage would both harmonise with the grey buildings. Many of the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges are effectively draped with the various varieties of ampelopsis.
Under its present constitution, three members of the Board of Governors of Canterbury College are appointed by the Governor, three are elected by Canterbury members of Parliament, six by graduates, three by teachers and three by school committees, and one is elected by the Professorial Board. The present Chairman is Mr. J. C. Adams, B.A., and the staff includes ten professors, four lecturers, with about fifteen assistants, demonstrators, etc.