Painting Canterbury and making a home at Mount Peel
1830–1905
Artist
Emily had arrived at Lyttelton with her family the previous year. She was 26 and the eldest of fifteen children of Henry John Chitty Harper, the first Anglican Bishop of Christchurch, and Emily Wooldridge Harper. Her painting is now held by Christchurch Art Gallery, where it provides a detailed visual record of the young settlement.
On 17 January 1860, Emily married John Barton Arundel Acland at St Michael’s Church in Christchurch. John had established pastoral runs with Charles Tripp in inland Canterbury. After the partnership was divided, the Aclands became closely associated with Mount Peel Station in South Canterbury.
The Mount Peel homestead was constructed during the 1860s and became the centre of the Acland family’s station life. Emily and John had eleven children. The nearby Church of the Holy Innocents, completed in 1869, served the family, station workers and neighbouring community.
The surviving public histories give much more information about John’s land, politics and pastoral business than about Emily’s work. She managed family and household responsibilities within a large and geographically isolated station community.
Emily’s early watercolours show that she was already observing and recording her surroundings before moving to Mount Peel. Her known artwork is significant because women’s visual records of early Canterbury are comparatively uncommon. Christchurch Art Gallery has described the painting as both an artwork and an important view of the developing settlement.
Acland and Harper family papers covering 1840 to 1902 are held through the National Library. These records offer the strongest next route into Emily’s own voice and her life at Mount Peel.
Emily died in Christchurch on 24 July 1905. Her contribution currently rests on two connected stories: the visual evidence she created as an artist and the less fully recorded work through which she helped sustain a large South Canterbury household and family.
Existing WuHoo coverage: The Women of WuHoo: My Year of Hunting for Women’s Stories: Walk This Way: Be a Tourist in Your Own Backyard
Sources
Christchurch Art Gallery: Christchurch from near the Gloucester Street Bridge
Supports Emily’s arrival, age, artistic work and marriage.
Heritage New Zealand: Mount Peel Station Homestead
Confirms the surviving homestead and its heritage status.
National Library: Acland family papers
Identifies correspondence and records relating to the Acland and Harper families at Mount Peel.