MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1940, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. (Recorded by J.H.S., of Palmerston North, for the "Times-Age.") In 1847 the High Church movement in England had passed its zenith, and Newman's defection caused a panic. The "Young Englanders" began to dream of a virgin soil in which they might bloom free of the blights of much cultivated lands. Gibbon Wakefield and J. R. Godley designed the plan of forming a Church of England colony in this new territory, and obtained a 10 years' charter from Her Majesty’s Government. From the tone of pamphlets published 100 years ago. one learns that class distinctions were even more marked in England than they are today. 'The Canterbury Association was formed "of noblemen, archbishops, clergymen, and gentlemen, who wore to found a colony in New Zealand to look like Home." A Bishop designate was chosen, magnificent plans of palaces and colleges were shown, land was bought from the New Zealand Company. and roads, churches, and universities were promised. These emigrants were known as Canterbury Pilgrims and were likened to the Pilgrim Fathers who migrated to enjoy religious freedom by noble men with a charter, whilst these Canterbury pilgrims were founded by a Land Company with a deed of conveyance. Practical colonists treated the scheme as Utopian. Papers ridiculed it as a slice of England from top to bottom, from the Bishop to the barn door fowl. Low Churchmen called it

a Pusoyite descent on Now Zealand, i By the end c.f 1851 2G')t) colonists ar-j rived. Finer colonists had never be-1 fore left England: but their leaders I were without practical training. Their 1 university training was merely theor-I etical. The Bishop fled to Australia.’ then to England. The majority, aided 1 lovallv by the Maoris and settlors, I succeeded. !