Timaru timeline of our featured homes

Like us, once you start learning about the history of your home and who lived there, you might be intregued to learn how their story fits in context with early Timaru. Here is a timeline based on what we have learnt from our profiled homes...

6 February 1840 The Treaty of Waitangi (Māori: Te Tiriti o Waitangi) is first signed.

1843 George Rhodes arrived in New Zealand and farmed in Akaroa. Samuel Williams had a two year stint of whaling in Timaru and then worked on the Rhodes farm. He suggested the Timaru area would be suitable as a sheep station. In 1849 George Rhodes visited the area.

1851 Timaru’s First European House George Rhodes moved 500 sheep and some cattle from Akaroa to Timaru. The brothers took a look further south and purchased 75,000 acres between Opihi and the Pareora Rivers. They named this new run ‘The Levels’, after one of their father’s properties back in England. The first house is remembered by a plaque on the Landing Services Building Wall. 126 acres of ‘The Levels’ is now known as the Central Business Centre of Timaru!

1854 Elizabeth Rhodes born in 1835 joins her husband and settles in Timaru. She was the second European women to live in South Canterbury. Her first home is a tiny thatch roofed cottage on the beach, next to the Landing Services Building that you see today. George and Elizabeths son, George William Wood Rhodes was born August 18, 1855 and died 9 August 1859, one of the first European children to be born in Timaru. Their fourth son George Hampton Rhodes was born at the Levels Station on 13th February, 1862. George junior married Miss Alice Henrietta Thierens of Otaio in 1884 and moved to Claremont House, 222 Mt. Horrible Rd, a famous Timaru neo-Gothic style home where he lived for 25 years. The Timaru Herald published a list of their wedding gifts in 1887 - Mr & Mrs Perry gifted them silver entree dishes for their wedding.

1854 Michael Studholme moves to "The Cuddy" owner of Te Waimate Station, it was constructed from a single totara tree. He made a peaceful accord with local chief Te Huruhuru. Their first meeting is immortalised on the painted silos in Waimate. A woolshed was built by Michael Studholme and his brothers in 1855. A lot of the timber is adzed, and all the inside timber is pit-sawn totara. In the peak period of station history nearly 100,000 sheep were shorn annually in the shed. Early steeple chasing events were run from the shed over the nearby fences. Te Waimate Woolshed is one of the most attractive and historically important of any in New Zealand; and is one of the oldest working woolsheds in the country.

1855 James McKenzie rustled 1000 sheep from the Levels station to an area few Europeans had explored. His escape, recapture, trial, further escapes and pardon made him a legendary figure. This region was later named the Mackenzie Country. The dog Friday that was caught up in the chaos stayed with George and Elizabeth Rhodes at the estate.

1857 Timaru's third home is built. Lieutenant (later Captain) Belfield Wollcombe is often referred to as the grandfather of Timaru, he would later claim to be the oldest resident of Timaru when he arrived in 1857. In his time, he was the government rep, beach master, health officer, registrar, coroner, returning officer and over seer of public works and magistrate. (That’s a lot of multi-tasking!) He built Timaru’s third house and lived later in a colonial cottage called "Ashbury" with his family at Ashbury Park. Though the house is long gone today, you can still walk beneath the English trees that he planted on his land that overlooked the Waimataitai estuary at southern end of the park. The Waimataitai Lagoon was later drained and the reclaimed land became Ashbury Park. However despite settling in one of the most remote parts of the world, this didn’t stop his eldest daughter venturing out and even being caught up in the Boer war.

1858 The modest flock of 500 increased to 30,000, and a few years later to over 100,000. At this time the property comprised three runs, amounting in all to a 159,000 acres. The old hut built when the brothers and families first went on the station still stands in the garden at Levels.

1858 Timaru was two towns The Rhodes brothers who had bought the land behind Caroline Bay had laid out a town. In 1856 the government laid out a second town to the South. Eventually the two merged at “North Street”, which is why the roads adjacent to North Street do no align. Alexander Square was going to be the center of town if the Government surveyor Samuel Hewlings (1820-1896) had have gotten his way. The South Canterbury runs were first surveyed in 1858 by the late Messrs Edward Jollie and Samuel Hewlings. He built the first home in Geraldine 1854 near Totara Forest (Raukapuka). It was constructed of totara bark walls and roofed with niggerhead. The house, known as the "old bark house," was burned down some years before 1911.  The couple had already welcomed 4 children to their family when their 5th Catherine (Kate) Hewlings was born. To commemorate the birth of the first child of European descent in the Geraldine area, Samuel and his wife (Nga Hei, who was from the Ngāpuhi tribe in the Bay of Islands) planted a Totara in the centre of Geraldine. Hewlings later surveyed Temuka and Timaru, becoming the first Mayor of Timaru in 1868.

1857 The Rhodes brothers need a store at Timaru. So Henry Le Cren employs Captain Henry Cain (1816 -1886) to start one up. "It is well remembered by those who survive that Captain Cain had no building in which to house his stock when he first arrived in Timaru to open a store, and could only cover it with a tarpaulin, which he stripped off by day and put on again at night, and slept under it as substitute, for bar and bolt." He married Jane Espie in Melbourne in 1860, she joined him in Timaru in May 1862.  Jane died in 1878. In 1864 wool was being directly exported from Timaru to London. In 1866 the Government took over the landing service. The Timaru Landing Service and Shipping Co., was started at the foot of George St. in 1867 or 1868 by Frederic LeCren with Henry Cain as secretary and treasurer. It did not do well and the plant, buildings and lease were sold to Cain at auction in 1870 for 975 pounds. In 1868 Cain had purchased the ship Susan Jane in the US. Capt. Cain owned stores in Cain's Terrace, Timaru, was a former mayor of the town from 1870-1873 and saw the establishment of the Timaru-Washdyke railway and harbour pilot. He died at his home, Woodlands (between Cain and Harper sts.), Timaru on 28 January 1886 at the age of seventy after being murdered, poisoned by Thomas Hall.

1858 Timaru Merchant Henry Le Cren Builds Beverley. When he and Captain Cain had got the landing service working effectively, Margaret Le Cren came down with their first three children. In 1859 Le Cren and Cain hired 6 boatmen from Deal Kent, the same year the first immigrant ship The Strathallan sailed direct from the UK to Timaru boosting the towns popultation by 110 people. Helped by the efforts put into the landing service, Timaru grew so rapidly in the early 1860s that, by 1864, wool was shipped directly from Timaru to London. The firm of H. J. Le Cren and Company was engaged in that trade. It also acted as an agency, borrowing from financiers and lending to farmers. member of the Timaru and Gladstone Board of Works and the Timaru Municipal Council. He also pursued land interests as a partner in Simon's Pass, Peel Forest and Otaio stations. It was not until 1873 or 1874 that he sold Beverley homestead, moved his family to London. In 1878 Henry's wife died returned to Timaru about 1880, where he had bought another house that he renamed Craighead. He died on 20 May 1895. - teara.govt.nz/le-cren

1859 John Ingram James King, born at Otipua. He is the son of James King, sheep farmer, and Frances Jane King (Shrimpton). In July 1852 Rhodes and James Senior landed at Timaru from the schooner Twins. They were South Canterbury's second serious immigrants.

1861 The pioneering Burnett couple set off from Scotland for the other side of the world. Catherine MacKay 1837-1914 and Andrew Burnett 1838-1927 travelled by bullock wagon and camped at Perth Street, Timaru. They later planted an oak tree there. The Burnetts' first home at Mt Cook station was a "one-room hut of black birch logs plastered with clay and thatched with snowgrass." Thier youngest son Thomas David (TD) represented Temuka in Parliament until he died in 1941. He left in his will the Perth Street property to The South Canterbury Historical Society. It was TD's wish that any new building on the site be named Pioneer Hall, so the Historical Society gave that name to their new museum on the site. In 1966 the museum building was replaced with a new building in the iconic octagonal design by Ron Dohig. Next time you are at the museum, seek out a boulder with a plaque. You will find it under the oak tree planted by the pioneers all those years ago.

1861 Jeanie Collier becomes the first woman runholder in South Canterbury, and the first European woman to live in the Waimate District. She was born in 1791 or 1792 at Monimail, Fife, Scotland. She came to Canterbury in 1854 with her three orphaned nephews, and set about establishing them on the land.  In 1855 she was granted a licence. The runs covered 11,534ha between the Otaio and Makikihi Rivers, and another 11,534ha between the Makikihi and Hook Rivers, both from the sea inland. Jeanie Collier died in 1861, and was buried near the site of the home she established in the wilderness of tussock, flax and fern. Her grave was marked with a headstone in 1955, in a reserve of gum trees. Horse Shoe Bend Road, Otaio.

1873 Elizabeth And Arthur Perry Beverley from Henry Le Cren. Elizabeth was widowed when George Rhodes died in 1864. Three years later she married lawyer Arthur Perry, who came from Tasmania. They remained at Linwood until 1873 when they purchased Beverley from Henry Le Cren. A large house on 8 hectares of land at the junction of Wai-iti Rd and the Great North Road She moved a young Wellingtonia Gigantica tree from Linwood to Beverley where a case of champaign was bet on it's survival. Today the tree is the tallest in Timaru. Beverley was for many years considered the showplace of Timaru. Built in the 1860s, the 30-room house was set in 12 acres of grounds.

1874 24 immigrant families who arrived on the Peeress Ship. The town was only supposed to be a temporary settlement, but with nowhere else to go, many families stayed on. After a typhoid breakout and issues with some "un-savoury characters" the area got a bad reputation and some Timaru Borough residents wanted it gone. Eventually the town was emptied and the buildings razed, leaving the former residents to find new homes.

1872 A cottage is constucted from Penticotico clay and tussock. Henry John LeCren was the legal owner of the land 1st July 1872 to 12th Jan 1883. James Paterson purchased the property on 13th Jan 1883 and was the owner until 19 Dec 1893.  It is understood that James Paterson lived there with his wife, three sons, one daughter and a step son but there is no real evidence to verify this. On the north bank, where State Highway 82 meets the Penticotico River, is Paterson's accommodation house, built in 1872.

1864-1898 George Knowles was the head gardener for the Beverly Estate. Mr and Mrs Knowles, known to the five Perry children as Mr and Mrs Poddles, lived in a cob cottage on the property at the back of the home of Mr Arthur Jones, Beverley Road. The gardens were known throughout the Dominion. A feature of the gardens was a long driveway arched over by magnificent macrocarpa. In the grounds were also four glasshouses in which grew orchids, begonia, pineapples, bananas, lemons and oranges. Down the valley, on the bed of which was built Beverley Road, ran Beverley Creek. It had its source at the top of Selwyn Street and flowed into a pond of about an acre in extent, at the foot of Beverley Road. Weeping willows, backed by stately English trees, dipped their green fronds into the still waters. On the edge of the pond were iris and clumps of marsh flowers. Bright-plumaged ducks, swimming peacefully in this sanctuary, added colour to the brilliant flowers that grew on the grassy banks. The music of the splashing and laughing children seeking out the tiny fish that teemed in the pond can still be heard in memory by those Timaruvians who recall outings to Perry's pond.

1890 During the voyage from Glasgow to New Zealand, Alpheus Hayes met and fell in love with his future wife Anna Groves. He promised that one day he would build her a beautiful house with an extensive garden and Centrewood in Waimate is the result of that promise.

1898 Mr Perry died. Mr Knowles bought a portion of his late employer's grounds, and started the Beverley Nursery. His eldest son, Mr George Knowles, was Curator of the Timaru Domain

1898 the Beverley homestead was sold to the Turnbull Bros. and the land subdivided rootsweb.com/beverley The boundaries of Beverley were ringed by pines and ran from the Great North Road [SH1] up Wai-iti road to Grant's property (now the Aigantighe Art Gallery), opposite Le Cren Street; across the gully to Hart Street; then down the brow of the hill at the back of Trafalgar Street to meet the Great North Road boundary there.

1912 26 Preston Street was home to Elizabeth Blackham and her family. Originally from Invercargill, Elizabeth and her husband Richard had a large family with 11 children. Sadly, as was common in those days, three of them died in infancy. After Richard also died, in 1912 Elizabeth moved the family to Timaru where they settled at the house on Preston Street. The Blackham family were living there in 1915 when World War I broke out, changing their lives forever.

1936 Jill Harlands Beverly Road Home is built of double brick.

1951 Beverley House used as a veterans home post World War Two

1952 Astrid Mollie Steve (1906-1999) moved to Beverley Road. Born in Nelson, she completed her degree at Canterbury College of Art in 1931 same place and era that produced artists Rita Angus and Colin McCahon. She married and became Mrs Mollie Davies and in 1951 arrived back in New Zealand. She finally settled in Timaru at Beverley Road in 1952 and lived in Jills current home until 1972. Along with several other young artists including Clifford Brunsden in Vivian Lynn, she was influenced by the modern art that she had experienced in her studies and traveled through North America and Europe. She brought her contemporary art to the Timaru scene. She left for her birthplace in Nelson, where she died on the 23rd April 1999.

1974 the grand old Beverley House is demolished