History of Canterbury

By Yo d

  • Banks peninsula spotted

    Captain Cook spots banks peninsula on the Endeavour, initially naming it Banks Island but found it was a peninsula later on.

  • Europeans land on Banks peninsula

    The sealing ship Governor Bligh landed and the first Europeans set foot on Banks Peninsula

  • Maori population fall

    Hundreds of Maori died from European diseases such as influenza and measles. There was also conflict between the groups of Ngai tahu.

  • Treaty of Waitangi

    Major Thomas Bunbury arrived on the HMS Herald to get signatures from Ngāi Tahu chiefs.

  • Canterbury settlement plans

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

  • Canterbury association

    The Canterbury association was formed in early 1848 and it was decided to name the capital city Christchurch after the college John Godley had gone to at Oxford University.

  • The first four ship loads of settlers

    The Randolph, the Cressy, the Sir George Seymour and the Charlotte Jane.

  • First school opened in Lyttelton

    First school opened in Lyttelton by Henry Jacobs.

  • Christchurch city

    Christchurch became New Zealand’s first city in 1856 under the terms of a royal charter, because a cathedral.

  • Health

    With the increase of people in Canterbury there were epidemics of Diptheria and 152 people died in the Typhoid epidemic.

  • Ernest Rutherford

    Ernest Rutherford gains an MA in mathematics and physics at Canterbury College.