History of Canterbury

By claudiamcdonald
  • First Moa hunters
    Jan 1, 1000

    First Moa hunters

    Moa hunters arrive in NZ
  • Captain James Cook sees Canterbury

    Captain James Cook sees Canterbury

    The first time Canterbury is sighted from the sea

  • Europeans set foot on Canterbury

    Europeans from the ship Govener Bligh set foot on Canterbury

  • Local Maori population fell

    The local Maori population fell as a result of inter-tribal fighting and introduced European diseases

  • Treaty signatures collected

    Captain Thomas Bunbury came to Canterbury to collect signatures for the Treaty of Waitangi

  • British flag raised in Akaroa

    In August 1840 Captain Owen Stanley of the Britomart raised the British flag at Akaroa, just before the arrival of sixty-three French colonists on the Comte de Paris.

  • Canterbury settlement planned

    In November 1847 John Robert Godley and Edward Gibbon Wakefield met to plan the Canterbury settlement.

  • First settler ships arrive in Lyttelton

    The first of the four ships, the Charlotte Jane, arrived in Lyttelton

  • First land auctions

    The first ‘selection days’ to ballot sections of land in the new towns were held in February 1851. At first Lyttelton was most popular, until people climbed the port hills to Christchurch

  • First superintendent

    Under the new provincial system, Canterbury’s first superintendent was James Edward Fitzgerald.

  • Lyttelton tunnel

    William Sefton Moorhouse, the new superintendent, decided to propose the idea of a tunnel, he was granted permission to start the build

  • First hospital

    Christchurch's first hospital built