John Watts-Russell
He was a significant runholder and, together with a business partner, was responsible for building up the Canterbury sheep stock.
Watts-Russell was born in Ilam Hall in Staffordshire, England in 1825, one of nine children and the youngest son of the family.
His father was Jesse Watts-Russell (1786–1875), a wealthy landowner and Conservative MP for the rotten borough of Gatton,[1] and his mother was Mary Watts.
[2] His father, who was originally called Jesse Russell, took on the new family name of Watts-Russell in March 1817.
The valley and surrounding hills reminded his father of the Alps, and consequently he had some new cottages built in a Swiss chalet style and rehoused most of the villagers.
[2] The couple plus some of their staff (Elizabeth's personal maid, Johanna Wornall; Sarah Hodgkinson née Mellor and her husband Charles) arrived in Lyttelton on 17 December 1850, on Sir George Seymour, one of the First Four Ships.
He and his friend and business partner, Alfred Richard Creyke, were instrumental in establishing and building up the Canterbury sheep stock.
[7] Creyke had a large sheep run on the Canterbury Plains that he managed together with Watts-Russell on behalf of an absentee land holder.
FitzGerald documented the occasion in a letter dated 5 June 1861:[13] Sitting after dinner at Ilam about a month ago, I said I saw no hope for a better state of public policy here unless there was a new newspaper started which would tell the truth without fear or favour.
If I would undertake the management of it, it was to be started and five hundred pound was put down on the spot; it was soon found there was a little press and some types to be bought.
The first number appeared three weeks after the conversation referred to.In February 1856, they returned to England after having leased their house and sold all their furniture.
A much larger house, it was an excellent entertainment venue; it was the largest private residence in Christchurch at the time.
For many years, the house was the residence of the rector (now the vice-chancellor), and is these days used as the staff club for the university.
After Creyke died in 1893, she arranged for the western porch of the ChristChurch Cathedral to be built in his memory.
[16] Dovedale Avenue in Ilam is named after their staff member Sarah Hodgkinson's birthplace.
