Canterbury Association

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Plaque commemorating the first meeting of the Canterbury Association

The Canterbury Association was formed in order to establish a colony in what is now the Canterbury Region in the South Island of New Zealand.

[edit] Formation of the Association

The Association was founded in London on March 27, 1848, and incorporated by Royal Charter on November 13, 1849. The prime movers were Edward Gibbon Wakefield and John Robert Godley. Wakefield was heavily involved in the New Zealand Company, which by that time had already established four other colonies in New Zealand. He approached Godley to help him establish a colony sponsored by the Church of England. The President of the Association's Committee of Management was the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Committee itself included several other bishops and clergy, as well as members of the peerage and Members of Parliament. The full list can be found in reference [1]. At its first meeting the Association decided upon names. The settlement was to be called Canterbury, presumably after the Archbishop of Canterbury, the seat of the settlement Christchurch after the Oxford college at which Godley had studied.

[edit] Establishment of the Colony

The Association had arranged to buy land from the New Zealand Company for 10 shillings per acre (4000 m²). The land was then sold to the emigrants for £3 per acre. The additional £2 10s was to be used in "public objects such as emigration, roads, and Church and school endowments." (20 shillings = £1). The provision of funds for 'emigration' was to allow the Association to offer assisted passages to members of the working classes with desirable skills for the new colony. A poster advertising the assisted passages specifically mentions "Gardeners, Shep[herd]s, Farm Servants, Labourers and Country Mechanics". Evidence for the religious nature of the colony can be seen in the same poster's requirement that applicants should be vouched for by the clergyman of their parish, and in the fact that some of the proceeds from land sales were specifically earmarked for church endowments.

Godley (with his family) went out to New Zealand in early 1850 to oversee the preparations for the settlement (surveying, roads, accommodation, etc) which were already being undertaken by a large team of men under the direction of Captain Joseph Thomas. These preparations were advanced, but incomplete when the first ships of settlers arrived on December 16, 1850, having been halted by Godley shortly after his arrival in April due to the mounting debts of the Association. The Charlotte-Jane and Randolph arrived in Lyttelton Harbour on the 16th, the Sir George Seymour on the 17th, and Cressy on the 27th, having set sail from England in September 1850. The settlers on these first four ships were dubbed the Canterbury Pilgrims by the British press. A further 24 shiploads of Canterbury Association settlers, making a total of approximately 3,500, arrived over the next two and a half years. A list can be seen in reference [2]. The affairs of the Canterbury Association were wound up in 1853.