History of Christchurch
With a Māori history stemming back to the thirteenth century as the domain of the historic Waitaha iwi, Christchurch was constituted as a colonial outpost of the British Empire in 1850.
Working with his assistant, Edward Jollie, they named the various ports and settlements in the area, and chose a simple grid pattern for the streets of Christchurch.
The area of modern-day Christchurch was originally swampland with patchworks of marshland, grassland, scrub and some patches of tall forest of mostly kahikatea, mataī and tōtara.
[1] The inner coastal sand dunes were covered in hardier scrub bush, including akeake, taupata, tūmatakuru, ngaio, carmichaelia, and coprosma.
[7] Around c. 1500 the Kāti Māmoe tribe migrated south from the east coast of the North Island, and gained control of much of Canterbury.
[8] In South New Brighton there was a major Māori settlement named Te Kai-a-Te-Karoro, this was an important area that had kelp gull presence and mānuka scrub.
[19] North New Brighton and the Travis Wetland were originally called Ōruapaeroa, this area previously was rich in eels and birdlife, numerous whare were demolished in 1862, after an early European settler acquired the land.
[8] The main walking track connecting the major Ngāi Tahu settlements at Kaiapoi and Rāpaki passed through the heart of what is today the Christchurch Central City.
[8] A significant portion of original forest cover on the northern slopes of the Port Hills was lost to fire in the period prior to European settlement, with further areas burned on the flat land.
[23] A whaling station was established in 1839[24] by the Weller brothers, whalers of Otago and Sydney, at Oashore Bay just south of Lake Forsyth.
[25][26] The Wellers believed they had purchased much of the South Island, including Banks Peninsula from Kōrako, an Otago chief of Ngāi Tahu.
From the station at Oashore Bay, parties of European settlers led by James Herriott and a man known as McGillivray established themselves in what is now Christchurch, early in 1840.
Working with his assistant, Edward Jollie, they named the various ports and settlements in the area, and chose a simple grid pattern for the streets of Christchurch.
[39] The Canterbury Pilgrims had aspirations of building a city around a cathedral and college, on the model of Christ Church in Oxford.
By December 1849, Thomas had commissioned the construction of a road from Port Cooper, later Lyttelton, to Christchurch via Evans Pass and Sumner.
[43][44][45] Godley ordered that all work on the road should stop, leaving the steep foot and pack horse track that had been hastily constructed over the hill between the port and the Heathcote valley as the only land-access to the area of Christchurch.
[46] Goods that were too heavy or bulky to be transported by pack horse over the Bridle Path were shipped by small sailing vessels some 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) by sea around the coast and up the Avon Heathcote Estuary to Ferrymead.
[51][53][54] This was the world's first tunnel driven through the wall of an extinct volcano,[51][55][54] and is considered to be nineteenth-century New Zealand's greatest engineering achievement.
[59] Christchurch became the first city in New Zealand by royal charter on 31 July 1856, and Henry Harper was consecrated by the archbishop of Canterbury as the local Anglican bishop.
[83][84][85][86] Spreydon, Beckenham, Linwood, Woolston and New Brighton experienced rapid growth in the 1890s, which was enabled by public transport access.
[112] As central Christchurch grew, many cottages were demolished to make way for light-industrial and retail premises near Moorhouse Avenue as they expanded south.
[115] Despite the central city remaining relatively unchanged between 1914 and 1960,[116] Christchurch grew rapidly during the 20th century in part due to the construction of many state houses.
Despite being initially thought to be under control, the fire suddenly spread to the upper floors and consumed the entire building within minutes.
[143][144] In December 1957, Christchurch was affected by a one in 100 year flooding event, with the Waimakariri River bursting its stop banks near the suburb of Belfast.
[145][146][147] During the 1960s Christchurch experienced urban sprawl, with much of the retail business of the central city moving out to suburban shopping malls.
[171] Although lower on the moment magnitude scale than the previous earthquake, the intensity and violence of the ground shaking was measured to be IX (Violent), among the strongest ever recorded globally in an urban area, which killed 185 people.
Significant liquefaction affected the eastern suburbs, and the total cost to insurers of rebuilding has been estimated at NZ$20–30 billion.
These merged over the next two days and the single very large wildfire extended down both sides of the Port Hill almost reaching Governors Bay in the south-west, and the Westmorland, Kennedys Bush, and Dyers Pass Road almost down to the Sign of the Takahe.
Eleven houses were destroyed by fire, over one thousand residents were evacuated from their homes, and over 2,076 hectares (5,130 acres) of land was burned.
[186] Fifty-one people died from two consecutive mass shootings at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre by an Australian white supremacist carried out on 15 March 2019.
