First Four Ships

The First Four Ships refers to the four sailing vessels chartered by the Canterbury Association which left Plymouth, England, in September 1850 to transport the first English settlers to new homes in Canterbury, New Zealand.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Irish-born John Robert Godley, the guiding forces within the Canterbury Association, organised an offshoot of the New Zealand Company, a settlement in a planned English enclave in an area now part of the Wairarapa in the North Island of New Zealand. The inaugural meeting of the Canterbury Association took place at 41 Charing Cross, London, on 27 March 1848. The meeting passed a resolution "that the name of the proposed settlement be "Canterbury" and the name of the chief town be "Christchurch"."

The Canterbury Association sent Captain Joseph Thomas as chief surveyor and leader of the Association’s preliminary expedition. With his two assistants, Thomas Cass and Charles Torlesse (a nephew of Edward Wakefield), Thomas was sent to select, survey and prepare for the proposed settlement. They arrived at New Plymouth aboard the Bernicia on 2 November 1848, destined for Wairarapa. The Bernicia called at Nelson where Thomas was told by settlers of unexplored plains stretching north and west of Banks Peninsula. The surveyor's interest was aroused, so they proceeded to Wellington where Thomas wrote to Bishop Selwyn saying he intended to head to Port Cooper (present-day Lyttelton) to inspect this area. The three, along with Sir William Fox (the newly appointed principal agent to the New Zealand Company) and five survey hands, arrived in Port Cooper aboard the cutter Fly in December. A quick but thorough exploration of the plains left them in no doubt that they had found an ideal site for Canterbury.

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