SCOTS IN THE SOUTH
The Settlement of Dumedin and the Province of Otago

Passenger Lists to Dunedin

On March 23 1848 the John Wickliffe, the first of two small sailing ships chartered by the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland to bring settlers to Otago, dropped anchor at Koputai (Port Chalmers). That day - March 23 - has ever since been observed as the anniversary day of Otago. Only three weeks later, on April 15, the second ship, the Phillip Laing, reached Port Chalmers with her 247 passengers. The formal settlement of Otago had begun.

The first arrivals found a relatively small number of Maori, which meant that they were not likely to encounter the difficulties the settlers in the North Island faced, and also a few Europeans, many of them whalers who had stayed on to farm and trade after their stations had failed.

John Jones was the most important of the European pre-settlers. More successful than the Wellers as a whaler, he purchased in 1839 a large block of land from the Maori, and in 1840 he persuaded several European families to migrate from Sydney to Waikouaiti, where at Matanake and Cherry Farm, he was establishing an agricultural settlement. About 35 people, the Magnet settlers of 1840, acted on the invitation of Johnny Jones and took up residence at Waikouaiti. The farm produce of this small community helped for a year or two to ease the path for the Free Church colonists who arrived in 1848. Indeed, the official centennial historian of Otago, A. H. McLintock considered that "It was fortunate indeed for the Scottish immigrants .... that Jones' agricultural settlement was in so flourishing a condition and able to supply those essential foodstuffs without which the Free Church colony would have all but perished.

Origins of the Otago Settlement
At least three influences blended to produce the Otago settlement. These were the colonising activities of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the New Zealand Company, the religious situation in Scotland produced by the Disruption of 1843 and the consequence emergence of the Free Church of Scotland and social conditions in Scotland in the 1840s. But, by no means satisfied with his earlier experiments in systematic colonisation in South Australia, Wellington, Nelson and New Plymouth Wakefield had reflected that the most effective of the early American colonies had been those in New England in which a single church or denomination had provided inspiration as well as an integrating force. Wakefield didn't have to look far to find men of one faith who were aglow with spiritual zeal and a desire to found a colony in which Christian unity would produce internal harmony.

As early as August 1842, George Rennie, a Scot of great versatility - he had made a name as a sculptor, a farmer and a politician - wrote an article for the Colonial Gazette on the desirability of founding a colony "on the Eastern coast of the Middle Island of New Zealand" to relieve "the unemployed and destitute masses". Whether or not this article warrants the description of  Rennie as "the father of the Otago settlement", as he has been termed on the centennial history, he certainly followed it up by writing to the directors of the New Zealand Company and later to the Colonial Office. There his proposal might well have lain dormant or been dropped altogether had it not been for the Disruption wherein 474 ministers seceded from the Established Church, giving up their manses and churches and signing away stipends which amounted on aggregate to £100,000. Their new Free Church of Scotland aspired to concentrate in one colony at least sufficient of the 4,000 Scotsmen who were migrating every year to make one homogeneous society. Here they were at one with Edward Gibbon Wakefield's latest thinking on the subject. The Lay Association of the Free Church, a group of about 50 prominent members of that Church established in 1845, agreed to promote the project which Rennie had advanced and, for that purpose, to combine with the New Zealand Company. Furthermore, both the Industrial Revolution and the Highland Clearances created conditions which led many Scots to seek new homes and better conditions in the United States of America or the colonies.

Fitful Progress
For a variety of reasons, such as the lack of finance, the uncertainty for a time about the New Zealand company's claims to land in the south Island and the apparent hostility of the Colonial Office to the scheme, the proposed New Edinburgh scheme made very slow progress. Eventually, in March 1844, Colonel William Wakefield, the Company's principal agent in New Zealand, dispatched Frederick Tuckett, the surveyor of the Nelson settlement, to the south to select a site. Tuckett sailed at the end of March in the Deborah, decided against Port Cooper (Lyttelton) which had been favoured by some, and having reconnoitred a good deal of the land both to the north and to the south of Otakou on foot, decided on the coastal strip between Taiaroa Head and the Nuggets as "the lands to be annexed to the Settlement of New Edinburgh". In July Colonel Wakefield hurried south to complete the negotiations begun with the Maori owners by Tuckett. On July 31 1844 Tuhawaiki, Karetai, Taiaroa and 22 other Maori chiefs signed the deed of sale, on receipt of the sum of £2,400, for the Otago block which Wakefield thought admirably suited to its purpose, being, "essentially.... a poor man's country" where unlike Port Cooper, there was plenty of wood for fuel, fencing and building as well as ample pastures. Tuckett's Resignation, and doubts about the company's credit, imposed further delays. But, in 1845 William Davidson, one of Tuckett's survey cadets was established at Port Chalmers, and in February 1846 Charles Kettle arrived to be the principal surveyor. He and his assistants, Robert Park and Davidson, proceeded with all speed to complete the survey and planning of both Port Chalmers and Dunedin, as they thought the settlers would be coming within a few months. They completed their task before the end of the year, and, although the plan for the future Dunedin did not resemble that of Edinburgh, many of the latter's street names were used again in the new town. The surveyors placed at the centre of Dunedin an octagonal Moray Place with a smaller octagonal area within it from which George and Princess Streets took their departure to the north and south respectively. This octagonal area was subsequently to be known by the now familiar name, the Octagon.

Emigration Organised
Meanwhile, in Britain, little or no progress had been made with plans. By stages, the more exclusively Free Church leaders, Captain William Cargill and the Rev. Thomas Burns, surplanted George Rennie as the negotiator with the directors of the New Zealand Company. With the emergence of the Lay Association in 1845, Rennie departed the scene. In that same year Burns took up with enthusiasm the suggestion made two years earlier by William Chambers that they should try to avoid a crop of "News" and should use the old Gaelic name of Dunedin for the capital of their colony rather then "New Edinburgh".

Eventually, in 1847, Cargill was recognised as the Resident Agent of the Company in the proposed Otago settlement, and terms were settled for the 144,600 acres of land to be divided into 2,400 properties each containing 60¼ acres consisting of a town section of a quarter of an acre, a suburban allotment of 10 acres and a rural allotment of 50 acres at the very reasonable price of 40/- an acre. There was also ample provision for devoting the proceeds of land sales to emigration and civil funds as well as to religious and educational purposes, and the leaders were practically ready to proceed. The Company, which was to get its cut, was to provide the land, the transport, the surveys and the public works, while the Lay Association was to arrange the sale of properties, the selection of the emigrants, and to make the arrangements for preserving the Free Church character of the scheme. Partly because if the delays and partly because the leaders were so unreservedly Free Church, some of the enthusiasm for the project had evaporated, and by the end of 1847 only 72 properties had been sold to private purchasers, by no means all of whom were Scots.

Nevertheless, Cargill, Burns and John McGlashan, the new Secretary of the Otago Association, decided to proceed. Three hundred and forty-four persons who declared their willingness to migrate were accepted as settlers; the directors of the company selected the two ships, John Wickliffe (662 tons) and the Philip Laing (547 tons). The former, the storeship of the expedition, with supplies of tools, muskets, bricks and other building materials, carried Captain Cargill and 96 passengers. The later, with Burns as the Company representative as well as the spiritual father of the expedition carried 247 passengers, 92 of whom were children under the age of 16. Although her pumps were in use night and morning throughout the voyage, the John Wickliffe proved to be the faster ship. Before the Philip Laing left Greenock, the Rev. Patrick Macfarlan, a prominent Free Church minister conducted a farewell service at which the reading was appropriately take from the 72nd Psalm, verses 8, 9, 16 and 17, and all present joined finally in singing the paraphrase "O God of Bethel".

Arrival and the first Years
Edmund Smith, one of the young men on the John Wickliffe, has described how "The weather was at the time simply glorious, and we were assured by the surveyor's men that it was only a sample of what they had enjoyed for weeks past". At first, the women and children stayed on board the ships while the barracks were completed. This rather primitive accommodation resembled two "long houses". Two separate buildings, the English and Scottish barracks, were built, without windows, flooring or partitions, out of the local timbers, flax and rushes. For obvious reasons, the young men were put at one end, the young or single women at the other and the married couples in between. The "glorious" weather broke with the onset of autumn and the problems of coping with outdoor cooking, heavy rains, wet bush and mud underfoot were considerable and trying.

The frames of the houses occupied by Burns and James Blackie, the schoolmaster, had been brought out on the ships and were quickly set up on prominent sites, as was the building which served as both school and church. Once sections had been selected on April 21 1848, owners were able to get on with the building of their own homes, most of which were wattle and daub two roomed structures with clay floors or tree-fern cottages of a very simple style. When in December 1848 the first number of the Otago news appeared (under the editorship of Henry B. Graham, a printer from Carlisle), with its promising motto "There's pippins and cheese to come", it was able to report some progress:"..... now, instead of seeing one or two solitary houses, with a narrow, swamp footpath, the eye is gladdened with a goodly sprinkling of houses, some of wood, others of mud and grass; whilst numerous gardens, well fenced and cleared, and one street, at least, showing a broad track from end to end of the future town, gives evidence of the progress we have made. We have two hotels - a church - a school - a wharf, small though it be. We have butchers, bakers and stores of all descriptions. We have a Odd Fellows Society - a Cricket Club - we have boats plying on the bay and the river, and every outward sign of commercial activity and enterprise". Settlers continued to arrive in the later months of 1848 the ships Victory, Blundell, and Bernicia brought nearly 200 more; in 1849 over 500 came in the Ajax, Mary, Mariner, Larkins, Cornwall, and Mooltan. The most important arrival in January 1849 was undoubtedly William Henry Valpy, an Englishman who was reputed to be the richest man in New Zealand at the time, having an income of £2,000 per annum. His impotence lay in the fact he brought with him his family and an extensive staff of servants and proceeded to establish a sawmill and a flourmill on the Leith stream. He also contributed generously to the improvement of roads, including one out to his Forbury or St. Clair property. Unfortunately he died in September 1852.

By the end of the first year, the settlement had a population of 745. In keeping with Cargill's policy of "concentration", 444 of these people lived within the Dunedin Town Belt in some 99 buildings but the others had begun the expansion on to the Taieri Plains. For example, Valpy had two sheep runs at Waihola and Horse Shoe Bush in addition to his properties at St. Clair and Caversham. The celebration of the first anniversary of the settler's landing on March 23 and 24 1849 revealed the differences which were bound to exist and grow in the little settlement. Whereas the more religiously minded engaged in "a day of thanksgiving, humiliation and prayer" and attended two services, one at 11 a. m. and the other at 2 p. m. and the other, who were not necessarily irreligious but wanted to enjoy themselves, participated in aquatic and athletic sports on the first day and ran a small race meeting on the second, when seven horses were engaged in a flat and hurdle race.

Expansion and Development
The government of the infant settlement was necessarily limited in the first instance: on the one hand, Captain Cargill was the Resident Agent of the New Zealand Company, on the other, Governor Grey appointed A. C. Strode to be the Resident Magistrate. When the New Zealand Company surrendered its charter in July 1850, the Lay Association aspired to take over its responsibilities for Otago, but quickly gave up the idea when the financial cost was appreciated. The Crown or central Government therefore took over all authority. The prospect of a measure of self-government under the New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852, however, was hailed with great delight; the rejoicing and celebrations in Dunedin might well have marked the end of a war. In the Otago Province, which now covered the whole of the South Island south of the Waitaki River, Captain Cargill was in September 1853 elected unopposed the first Superintendent of the Province. In December of that year the first Provincial Council met. Its political activities were limited by the diversion to the General Assembly in Auckland of the more important spheres of legislation. Nevertheless, on three fronts in the late 1850's - the division and settlement of the land, immigration and education  - the council made some progress.

Initially, settlement proceeded slowly. The small number of settlers meant an easily satisfied demand for land. thus, in 1853, only 300 people lived on the land between Taieri and the Clutha. Furthermore, labourers predominated on the first ships and they could afford to buy neither land nor stock. Prices varied, but a good horse cost up to £80, a working bullock £20 to £25 and sheep between £1 and £2 each. With wages at 3s 6d a day, labourers did not readily become land proprietors. Furthermore, exploration, surveys and roadmaking took time. By stages, however, such men as Walter Mantell, Commissioner of Crown Lands in Otago, J. W. Hamilton, the draughtsman on the Acheron coastal survey, Charles Kettle, Charles W. Ligar, the Surveyor-General of New Zealand and John Turnbull Thompson chief surveyor of Otago, marked out blocks and revealed the extent of the inland plains. Indulging in permissible poetic licence, the Otago Witness, which succeeded the News as a fortnightly and later , weekly publication, claimed in March 1860, "With us the sheep may be said to be the real pioneers of the interior - onward they march, and make country inhabitable and inhabited in their progress". Of course it was the sheepmen such as Nathaniel Chalmers, John Chubbin, W. G. Chubbin and Nicholas Von Tunzemann who pushed land claims through to the shores of Lake Wakatipu by 1860. Earlier F. L. Mieville had taken up land in the Mataura Valley, and in 1857 Watson Shennan had established his run at Gallway. A few statistics sum up the story of growth. Between 1851 and 1855 potential settlers brought only 5,500 acres, whereas between 1856 and 1859 they brought 183,000. In 1850 there were under 20,000 sheep in Otago, in 1855 Otago had 6,500 cattle and 59,000 sheep, but in 1861 there were 44,000 cattle and 694,000 sheep. The agricultural farmers were trying to keep pace with the pastoralists: by increasing the amount of land under cultivation and using reaping machines they succeeded in making Otago more than self-sufficient in wheat and flour. In 1859 for example, they exported over 61,000 bushels of grain to the value of £21,191.

Although the subject of education was debated frequently, the Council had difficulty in settling whether the Government or the parents were responsible for paying for the teaching of the young. But despite arguments at the top level, schools opened in the country as well as the town. Thus, in 1858 the first school in South Otago was opened at Inch Clutha. Although argument also raged as to the degree to which the Church should influence the curriculum, the trust funds set aside for "Religious and Educational Uses" were eventually to serve their purposes, even if the ideal of the colony as "the centre of civilisation in the Southern Hemisphere" was never fully realised.

A Changing Community
By the time Captain Cargill retired from the superintendency in 1859, it was abundantly clear that the exclusive Free Church character of the Province could not be preserved. Although his successor as superintendent James Macandrew, was also a Free Churchman, he was elected in January 1860 more on account of his tremendous enthusiasm and flair for the promotion of schemes with a popular appeal than for his religious afflictions. In any case, from the outset quite a proportion of the colonists were not Free churchmen. The census of 1861 revealed that of the overseas born population of Otago, only 42 per cent were born in Scotland, while 36 per cent came from England, 15 per cent from Ireland, and 4 per cent from Australia. Burns held that Otago's promise to give what they wanted to those "who valued religious principles so highly coveted education for their children so strongly" had brought to the colony "a very superior body of settlers". Some of them, indeed, may have been the salt of the earth, but there were others of a lower order. Another divine, the Rev. D. M. Stuart, in late August 1860 claimed that in 1857 the amount spent on spirits and other alcoholic beverages per head of population in Dunedin was about 19 times that spent on books or on the support of religion. In 1858 the figures were slightly better: by his estimate, £3. 15s. 0d per head was spent on spirits, 3s 2d on books and 5s 2d on the support of religion. No wonder that, at the same meeting, the Rev. William Will held that the same title of a lecture, "Grog - the element in which Dunedin lives, moves and has its being" was not inappropriate. About this same time, anxious to see a Total Abstinence Society founded, the Rev. Mr Johnstone trusted that it would reclaim Otago "from the stigma of being called the most drunken Province in New Zealand". Drunkenness was certainly common, but references to the subject cannot detract from the achievements of the founding fathers. They succeeded in stamping upon the Otago settlement a character which lasted for generations: the prominent place of the Presbyterian Church, the emphasis on education, and the general Scottish cultural flavour remained until well after the dawn of the 20th century. When André Sirgfied, the French publicist visited Otago in 1904, he wrote "Today, after fifty years, Dunedin is more than ever the Scottish town of New Zealand, the New Edinburgh, as some enthusiasts love to call it".