The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 485, 27 June 1857, Page 6

The Lyttelton Times.

Saturday, June 27. Our readers are perhaps aware, from an announcement lately made in our columns, that arrangements have been made for handing over to the College the "Somes " Estate in Lyttelton. The circumstances of the grant of this piece of property are perhaps not so generally known, or are by this time forgotten ; and we are in a condition to overlook the obligations under which the College and the settlers of Canterbury lie towards Mrs. Somes for her liberal donation to the cause of education in a settlement which had no particular claims upon her. A paragraph extracted from a speech delivered at Exeter on the 2nd of August, 1850, by the Rev. Thomas Jackson, D.D., Bishop Designate of the Canterbury Settlement then in embryo gives the particulars of the donation. It is as follows r — I may state a pleasing fact in connexion with our efforts to found a college broadly anj well. I waited recently upon Mrs. Joseph Somes, the widow of the eminent shipowner and governor of the New Zealand Company, who had been one of the chief promoters of New Zealand colonization. I asked her in the name of the future Chuich of Canterbury, if considering the intimate connection of Mr Somes With the well-being of the colony, she would found a scholarship in the college. Readily consenting she purchased for the purpose fifty acres of land fn the settlement for the sum of £150. On the day appointed for the ballot for the choice of land, the name of Mrs. Somes, the munificent foundress of this scholaiship, was the first drawn out in the ballot, and thus fifty acres of land, in the very best part of ihf settlement, are from the first day of the landing of the settlers devoted to purposes of reli gious and useful learning—(loud cheers). Some men have gathered good omens from trifling accidents, such as falls on the ground j 1 trust that we shall not be thought wanting in Christian propriety if we draw a good omen from such an occurrence relative to the future fortunes of our college. In the very Comhill, or Lombard-street, or whatever else you would call the most valuable part of the

port in a commercial point of view, there lies this land to be devoted for ever to the educational improvement of the people—(cheers). Dr. Jackson's anticipations were not groundless. With the gradual growth of the settlement, the value of Mrs. Somes'donation has increased ; so that the property, which cost £150, though hitherto sadly neglected, now, gives a yearly return of at least as much. Mrs. Somes's grant to the College was, we believe, originally conditional, and, we are further informed, might have been withdrawn before now. The grant, however, has been confirmed ; and, as we before announced, attornies have been appointed to perform the necessary duties of taking charge of the estate and transferring it to the College. The funds arising from the arrears of rents which have accrued during the last five years will form a considerable sum, and, together with the late grant from the Provincial Government, will place the College in a position to provide itself with the buildings now necessary.