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

South Island

The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...

 of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

Formation of the Association

The Association was founded in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on March 27, 1848, and incorporated by Royal Charter on November 13, 1849. The prime movers were Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield was a British politician, the driving force behind much of the early colonisation of South Australia, and later New Zealand....

 and John Robert Godley

John Robert Godley

John Robert Godley was an Irish statesman and bureaucrat. Godley is considered to be the founder of Canterbury, New Zealand, although he lived there for only two years.-Early life:...

. Wakefield was heavily involved in the New Zealand Company

New Zealand Company

The New Zealand Company originated in London in 1837 as the New Zealand Association with the aim of promoting the "systematic" colonisation of New Zealand. The association, and later the company, intended to follow the colonising principles of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of...

, 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

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. The President of the Association's Committee of Management was the Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

 and the Committee itself included several other bishops and clergy, as well as members of the peerage

Peerage

The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...

 and Members of Parliament. 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

Christchurch

Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

 after the Oxford college

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

 at which Godley had studied.

Establishment of the Colony

The Association had arranged to buy land from the New Zealand Company for 10 shillings per acre

Acre

The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

 (4000 m²). The land was then sold to the emigrants for £3 per acre. The rest, 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

Charlotte-Jane

The Charlotte Jane was one of the First Four Ships in 1850 to carry emigrants from England to the new colony of Canterbury in New Zealand.-Arrival in Lyttelton:...

and Randolph

Randolph (ship)

Randolph was a 664-ton ship-rigged merchant vessel constructed in 1849 in Sunderland. She was one of the first four ships to settle Christchurch, New Zealand ....

arrived in Lyttelton Harbour

Lyttelton Harbour

Lyttelton Harbour is one of two major inlets in Banks Peninsula, on the coast of Canterbury, New Zealand. The other is Akaroa Harbour.Approximately 15 km in length from its mouth to Teddington, the harbour was formed from a series of ancient volcanic eruptions that created a caldera, the...

 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.

The affairs of the Canterbury Association were wound up in 1853.

External links and references

• The Canterbury Association (1848–1852): A Study of Its Members' Connections, By Michael Blain (2007)
• NZBound Genealogy site
• Terry Hearn. ' English', Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 11-Jul-2005.
• Philip Temple. 'A sort of conscience: the Wakefields' Auckland University Press (2002). ISBN 1-86940-276-6
• Bishop Harper and the Canterbury Settlement