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 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, Sheps, 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 16 December 1850, having been halted by Godley shortly after his arrival in April due to the mounting debts of the Association. Lord Lyttelton, John Simeon, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, and Lord Richard Cavendish guaranteed ₤15,000 to the Association, which saved it from financial collapse. 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.
The affairs of the Canterbury Association were wound up in 1853.
Read more about this topic: Canterbury Association
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