The following is by Roselyn Fauth inspired by a blog written by Ben Curnow.
When reading about Betty Curnow, it is easy to begin in the 1940s, with Rita Angus’s famous portrait and the vibrant circle of modern artists gathering around Christchurch cafés and studios. But Betty’s story begins much earlier, and much closer to the sea.
To understand that portrait properly, we have to walk down to the shoreline of nineteenth century Timaru.
In the 1850s the town was little more than a rough landing place on an exposed coast. Ships could not come safely into harbour, so cargo and passengers had to be brought ashore in small surfboats through heavy breakers. It was dangerous work. Everything depended on timing, skill, and courage.
One of the men who helped make this landing place work was Henry Le Cren, Betty Curnow’s ancestor....
Le Cren arrived in Canterbury in 1849 with his cousin James FitzGerald. A merchant by trade, he soon recognised the potential of the remote landing place at Timaru. Alongside his business partner John Longden he began supplying goods to settlers in the district. By the late 1850s he had established a store at the foot of the cliff where Strathallan Street now meets the sea.
Running that store required someone capable and determined. Le Cren turned to Captain Henry Cain, sending him south to manage the operation. Together they organised what became Timaru’s early landing service. Surfboats carried cargo, livestock and passengers between ships and shore, while sheds and stores grew along the beach below the cliffs.
This rough maritime enterprise helped transform a lonely landing place into a working town.
Over time Le Cren prospered. His commercial success allowed him to invest in land, build estates, and support civic life. By the late nineteenth century he was one of South Canterbury’s most influential settlers. His home, later renamed Craighead, would eventually become the site of Craighead Diocesan School.
And through the generations that followed, his family became woven into the cultural life of the district.
By the early twentieth century the world had changed dramatically. The surfboats had vanished, replaced by harbour works and railways. Yet the Le Cren family name remained part of Timaru’s fabric.
Into that legacy, in 1911, Elizabeth Jaumaud “Betty” Le Cren was born.
She grew up in a house overlooking the bay, able to see both Aoraki/Mount Cook and the Pacific Ocean from her bedroom window. Her mother Daisy painted almost every day, filling the home with colour and creativity. It was a very different kind of work from the surfboats and stores of her ancestor’s time, yet it grew from the same place.
The Le Cren story had moved from commerce and shipping into culture and art.
Betty carried that legacy forward in her own way. She became part of the circle of artists who helped shape modern New Zealand art, working alongside figures such as Rita Angus, Colin McCahon, and Doris Lusk. Her prints and paintings captured the distinctive light and landforms of South Canterbury, the very landscape her family had helped settle generations earlier.
Seen this way, Rita Angus’s famous portrait holds a deeper layer of meaning.
The young woman seated in her grandmother’s chair is not only an artist. She is also a descendant of one of the men who helped build the town behind her.
From the surfboats of the 1850s to the studios of twentieth century artists, the thread runs quietly through Timaru’s history.
And in Betty Curnow’s life, that thread ties the town’s earliest beginnings to the flowering of modern New Zealand art.
Here you can see the passenger landing service sheds with signal station on the cliff above at Timaru - Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1691-114 the landing service was established by Henry Le Cren and Captain Henry Cain at the foot of what is now Strathallan Street, Timaru.
Timaru 1864. This was first buildings on the Turnbull site on Strathallan Street where Henry Le Cren with Captain Henry Cain established a landing service and a store. The two to the right was Cains original landing services.
Side Quest: The Le Cren Legacy and the Birth of Shand House
When you walk through the grounds of Craighead Diocesan School today, Shand House stands calmly beside Kitchener Square, its brick walls and bracketed eaves giving it the quiet dignity of another era. Students pass it every day on their way to class. Few realise that the house connects several chapters of Timaru’s history at once. And like many Timaru stories, it leads back to the Le Cren family.
The house was originally built around 1875 by Henry John Sealy, a surveyor who had arrived in New Zealand in 1859 with his brother Edward. The Sealys helped map and shape the young district during the decades when the town was still finding its form. Their house reflected the confidence of that period. Designed by local engineer and architect Thomas Roberts, it was built in the Italianate villa style, popular in prosperous colonial towns of the late nineteenth century. With its bay windows, decorative quoins, and bracketed eaves, the house would have stood proudly in open countryside on the edge of town.
At the time, this area was not the leafy suburb we see today. It was rural land overlooking Timaru, where large homes sat within extensive gardens and paddocks.
In 1881 the property was purchased by Henry Le Cren, one of the most influential figures in early South Canterbury. By then Le Cren had already helped establish Timaru’s early commercial life through his merchant business and the landing service he operated with Captain Henry Cain at the foot of Strathallan Street. As the town grew, so did his interests in land and property.
Le Cren renamed the estate “Craighead.” The name came from Scotland, echoing a castle belonging to his brother in law, and it reflected the Victorian habit of anchoring colonial homes in the memory of older European landscapes.
Under Le Cren’s ownership the property became a substantial estate. Additions were made to the house in 1888 by the architectural partnership of Meason and Marchant, expanding the residence and reinforcing its status as one of the prominent homes in the district. The grounds stretched across what was then more than forty acres, complete with gardens and a gardener’s lodge.
From this house Le Cren lived out the final years of his life. When he died in 1895, Craighead stood as a symbol of the prosperity achieved by one of Timaru’s founding settlers.
In 1910 the Craighead estate was subdivided, opening a new chapter in the growth of the town. Streets such as Chalmers Street, Craighead Street, Wrights Avenue, and Kitchener Square all emerged from that subdivision, transforming former farmland into a developing residential neighbourhood.
Soon after, the old house itself took on an entirely new role, and in 1911 four sisters, Anna, Eleanor, Fanny, and Elizabeth Shand, daughters of University of Otago professor John Shand, opened Craighead Girls’ School in the former Le Cren residence. What had once been a private colonial estate became a place of learning for young women.
A house built in the era of surveyors and merchants became the heart of a school dedicated to education and opportunity. Generations of girls would pass through its rooms, shaping futures far beyond the walls of the old villa.
Today the building is known as Shand House, honouring the sisters who gave it its educational purpose. Yet its earlier layers remain embedded in the walls.
It carries the memory of Henry Sealy, who first built it.
It reflects the ambition and success of Henry Le Cren, who turned it into the Craighead estate.
And it honours the Shand sisters, whose vision transformed it into a place of learning.
For students walking past today, it is simply part of the school grounds.
But look a little closer and Shand House quietly reveals how Timaru’s history unfolds through generations, each leaving their mark on the same piece of land.
From surveyor’s residence, to merchant’s estate, to girls’ school.
And through it all, the legacy of the Le Cren family remains part of the story.
Elmsdale School was a private boarding school for special needs children situated on Selwyn Street, Timaru, in the former home of Frederic Le Cren. The school was established in 1917 by George Benstead.
Photograph taken at Selwyn Motor Camp in 1969 on a record day. Elmsdale is at the top left.
Side Quest: Elmsdale and the Le Cren Family
Just a short distance from Craighead and the old Le Cren estates was another house that used to be connected to the Le Crens. Its name was Elmsdale.
Today the site is less obvious than Craighead. The building is long gone, and now home to Timaru top 10 Holiday Park. For many years Elmsdale stood as one of the significant homes connected with the Le Cren family.
The property was associated with Frederic Le Cren, brother of Henry Le Cren and another prominent figure in the district’s early development. Like his brother, Frederic was deeply involved in the growth of South Canterbury during the nineteenth century. The Le Crens were merchants, landowners, and civic participants. Their names appear frequently in the early records of the town, connected with commerce, farming, and the shaping of local institutions.
Elmsdale reflected the prosperity and stability the family achieved during those formative decades.
By the early twentieth century, however, the role of the property had begun to change, reflecting the needs of a growing community. In 1917 the house became the site of Elmsdale School, a private boarding school established by George Benstead.
The school provided education and care for children with special needs, something that was rarely addressed formally in early twentieth century New Zealand. At a time when few such institutions existed, Elmsdale became an important place of learning and support for children who might otherwise have had very limited opportunities.
Many of the large nineteenth century estates built by early settlers gradually shifted into new roles as the town expanded. Homes became schools, hospitals, boarding houses, or community institutions. In this way the physical legacy of the pioneer generation continued to serve the district long after the original families had moved on.
A house built during the era of merchant settlers became, in the next generation, a place of care and education. Later photographs show the property during its time near the Selwyn Motor Camp, a reminder of how the surrounding area continued to change as the twentieth century unfolded.
Today, like many historic homes, Elmsdale survives only in photographs, memories, and local records.
From the surfboats of the landing service, to the Craighead estate that became a girls’ school, and then to Elmsdale’s role as a special needs boarding school, the legacy of the Le Crens can be traced through the institutions that helped shape the community. These buildings may have changed their purpose over time, but each carried forward the same quiet thread of local history.
And sometimes, if we follow that thread carefully enough, we discover that the places we pass every day were once homes, schools, and stories all at once.