new zealand company

Events In History

Articles

Exploring New Zealand's interior

  • Exploring New Zealand's interior

    After charting the coastline, European surveying and exploration of the interior were a fundamental part of the settlement process, defining the boundaries of ownership and identifying resources, useable land and access routes.

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  • Page 1 - Exploring New Zealand's interior After charting the coastline, European surveying and exploration of the interior were a fundamental part of the settlement process, defining the boundaries of ownership and

Treaty timeline

The Wairau incident

  • The Wairau incident

    On 17 June 1843, 22 European settlers and four Māori died when an armed party of New Zealand Company settlers clashed with Ngāti Toa over the purchase of land in the Wairau valley, near modern-day Blenheim.

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  • Page 2 – Ngāti Toa and the New Zealand Company

    The Wairau incident had its origins in the migration of Ngāti Toa and its allies from Kāwhia to the Kāpiti coast in the southern North Island.

  • Page 3 – Violence erupts

    When Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata told William Wakefield to stop the survey, he told his brother Arthur to ignore them.

  • Page 4 – The fallout from Wairau

    The news from Wairau shocked settlers throughout the colony. The killing of men who had surrendered was viewed as cold-blooded murder. Many feared that these events signalled

British & Irish immigration, 1840-1914

Taming the frontier

  • Taming the frontier

    In 1832 James Busby was appointed as the official British Resident to New Zealand. After arriving in the Bay of Islands in May 1833 he took steps to tame what he saw as a chaotic frontier society.

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  • Page 4 - Land issues on the eve of the Treaty of WaitangiIn the late 1830s the British government became concerned about how land was being obtained from Māori. Action was needed, it decided, to protect Māori from the worst ravages of

Biographies

  • FitzRoy, Robert

    Robert FitzRoy, who first visited New Zealand as commander of the Beagle in 1835, was Governor from 1843, succeeding the late William Hobson. He served until 1845, when he was recalled to Britain and replaced by George Grey.

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  • Bell, Francis Dillon

    Politician Francis Bell staunchly supported the Waitara purchase in 1860, which led to the Taranaki war. In 1862 he became Minister of Native Affairs. His administration has been described as 'not particularly efficient or vigorous', although he did support the 1862 forerunner of the Native Land Court

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  • Spain, William

    William Spain was a land commissioner who investigated the New Zealand Company's claims that it had purchased 20 million acres in 1839. The claims were not settled until several years after Spain's death

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  • Wakefield, Edward Gibbon

    A clever theorist of mercurial character, Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796-1862) masterminded the large-scale British settlement of New Zealand.

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  • Heaphy, Charles

    The multi-faceted Charles Heaphy made quite an impact on colonial New Zealand as an artist, explorer, soldier and colonial administrator. He was the first colonial soldier to win the Victoria Cross.

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  • Featherston, Isaac Earl

    A stalwart of Wellington political life, Featherston served as provincial Superintendent and later served as a member of the House of Representatives, colonial secretary and minister without portfolio.

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  • Wakefield, Edward Jerningham

    As the only son of New Zealand Company director Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Edward Jerningham Wakefield's life was inevitably bound up in his father's colonial and political ventures.

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  • Wakefield, William Hayward

    Colonel William Wakefield was one of the earliest European settlers at Port Nicholson (Wellington), where he served as the New Zealand Company’s Principal Agent between 1840 and 1848.

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