This 1868 William Ferrier photo shows the cottage built for George Rhodes and his employees in 1851 at the foot of George St. Supplies were landed and wool shipped from the Rhodes brothers’ sheep runs to the world. Hocken Collections (23485)
Timaru was once two towns: Rhodes Town north of North Street and Government Town to the south. Rhodes Town became the commercial heart of today’s CBD. The Rhodes brothers helped establish colonial Timaru around their landing place, where surfboats ferried people and supplies between ships and the shore. In 1857, Captain Henry Cain established a store and improved the landing service. He became Timaru’s second mayor; surveyor Samuel Hewlings, who laid out Government Town, was the first in 1868. Horses carried people and supplies, worked the runs and linked inland stations with the coast. George and Elizabeth Rhodes moved to The Levels, near Pleasant Point. In 1855, John Sidebottom and Māori shepherds Taiko and ‘Seventeen’ caught James Mackenzie with about 1,000 sheep missing from the Rhodes brothers’ Levels Station. He was convicted then pardoned in 1856. This drew attention to the farming potential of the inland country later known as the Mackenzie Country.
By 1856, former whaler Sam Williams (Timaru’s first licensed publican), his wife Ann, daughter Rebecca and son William were living in the George Street cottage, operating a store, selling liquor and providing accommodation for travellers. The first edition of the Timaru Herald was later printed in the kitchen of the George Street cottage on 11 June 1864.