page_title: History of the Dunedin urban area
section_title: The village of Dunedin (1848)
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Dunedin urban area / The village of Dunedin (1848)
caption_attribution_description: English: Dunedin city urban area no inset, New Zealand
context_page_description: The villages and then city that lay at the head of Otago Harbor never existed in isolation, but have always been a staging ground between inland Otago and the wider world. While Dunedin's current official city limits extend north to Waikouaiti, inland to Middlemarch and south to the Taieri River mouth, this articles focus is the history of the Dunedin urban area, only mentioning Mosgiel, the Otago Peninsula, Port Chalmers and inland Otago for context.
  Archaeological evidence shows the first Māori occupation of the wider Dunedin area occurred within decades of their arrival in New Zealand. The population at this time was concentrated along the southern coast and they relied on seals and to a lesser extent moa for the bulk of their food. With reduced moa and seal numbers the population slumped. Elsewhere in New Zealand it grew again with the evolution of the horticulture based Classic culture, necessitating fortified villages. However, this culture did not fully spread to the colder southern South Island. In this period there were two Māori settlements in what is now central Dunedin—Ōtepoti and Puketai.
context_section_description: As the upper harbour had no deep water port the two locations of Port Chalmers and Ōtākou, both in the lower harbour, were initially suggested as the colony's location. However, the lack of flat land on the Otago Peninsula and its proximity to Māori settlements lead to the upper harbour being settled as the site. The Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland, through a company called the Otago Association, founded Dunedin at the head of Otago Harbour in 1848 as the principal town of its Scottish settlement.  Initially the best 120,000 aches from the Otago block sale were divided into urban (quarter acre), suburban (10 acre) and rural (50 acre) blocks, 2400 properties altogether.
  The name comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. Charles Kettle the city's surveyor, instructed to emulate the characteristics of Edinburgh, produced a striking, 'Romantic' design. The result was both grand and quirky streets as the builders struggled and sometimes failed to construct his bold vision across the challenging landscape. Captain William Cargill, a veteran of the war against Napoleon, was the secular leader. The Reverend Thomas Burns, a nephew of the poet Robbie Burns, was the spiritual guide.
  With the founding of Dunedin the new colony, still reliant on Māori for food, began to clear land for farming. Initially harvests were erratic but generally superior to those in Britain. Once food production was stabilized grain was exported to Australia and some settlers started practicing the trades they had specialized in before immigration.
  Dunedin prior to European settlement, much of the area of The Flat was poorly drained and marshy. Early settlement of the area took place along the hill fringes at Caversham and St. Clair. The arrival at St Clair of William Henry Valpy (1793–1852) in 1849 led to the first development of permanent roading in the area; Valpy, reputedly the wealthiest man in New Zealand, had a branch dray road built from Dunedin's central settlement to his St. Clair farm which ran along the edge of what is now South Dunedin.
  In 1852 when the provinces were created Dunedin became the capital of the Otago Province, the whole of New Zealand from the Waitaki south. It was the only one of New Zealand's original six provinces to have a Māori name - a reflection of the area's European settlement in pre-colonial times. There were squabbles between 'the Old Identity' - the Scottish, Presbyterian majority, and 'the Little Enemy' - the English, Anglican minority. Specifically, there were frequent clashes between the Dunedin City Council and the Caversham Borough Council; Caversham, now a mainly residential suburb of Dunedin, was originally a thriving industrial town which had been founded by predominantly English settlers. The town quickly gained a reputation for mud and a line of branches were put down on the main street from 1848 to 1850 to make transport bearable.  In 1846, an ordinance for the establishment and maintenance of a constabulary force was passed.
caption: Remaining buildings and locations in Dunedin from before the gold rush of 1861.
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