Richard James Strachan Harman

With the financial assistance of long-standing friends of Canterbury, John Robert Godley and Henry Selfe, he established emigration to the province.

[7] The Lyttelton Times' editor, Crosbie Ward, made an imputation of unknown content, and this spurred FitzGerald to set up The Press as a rival newspaper.

A deed of association for "The Proprietors of The Press" was drafted, and it lists the five members of the previous committee (John Watts-Russell, Rev.

[9] Surprisingly, the deed was not executed, but four month later, FitzGerald, who had no funds, was the sole owner "through the liberality of the proprietors", as he called it later.

Harman and Stevens took over most of Fitzgerald's shareholding in 1871, and in June 1872, they bought the business premises in Cashel Street from him.

In its centennial history, the period of high debt and poor financial management under Fitzgerald is described "as a discolouration of the brightest character connected with The Press in its founding years.

[14] Harman was elected onto the council of the Society of Land Purchasers, the organisation that looked after the interests of the settlers and dealt with the representative of the Canterbury Association, John Robert Godley.

Finding that he lacked the money, Moorhouse obtained permission from his executive to take funds from the provincial account.

Harman, acting treasurer and outside the executive, resigned rather than approve this cavalier means of obtaining money.

Moorhouse's foes on the provincial council, led by Joseph Brittan, were strident in their criticism of the 'Branch Railway Job' and tried, unsuccessfully, to drive him from office.

For many years, Harman and Stevens were the agents for English businessman, Benjamin Lancaster, who, in 1850, had bought Rural Section 62, on Ferry Road, just outside the original boundary of the City of Christchurch.

In 1880, Christchurch sportsmen sought land which they could enclose and where the public would pay to witness cricket, cycling and rugby.

When a new vestry was built in 1901, he had a bad fall on the construction site and broke his thigh bone, which made him bed bound for three months.

[1][24] It is assumed that Harman never fully recovered from his accident at St Michael, and he died on 26 November 1902 at his residence in Windmill Road.