Places

Date: 1850

By: Weld, Frederick Aloysius (Hon Sir), 1823-1891; Scrope, Mary Constance, 1907-1987

Reference: A-269-011

Description: Shows a tent and shelter with camp fire on the nearer (south) side of the river. On the far side are two Maori whare and two food storage platforms. A range of foothills of the Southern Alps, including Mount Grey, is in the distance. In the centre foreground by the tent, are a European man, woman and child, probably the Godley family. Two further people are by the campfire and tent on the right. There are flax bushes and scrub on the south side of the river, and a cabbage tree on the north side Compare a very similar view in Canterbury Museum titled by Weld 'Camp, banks of Courtenay (Waimakariri) Canterbury Plains, Dec 5th, 1850'. The Canterbury Museum view contains more people and a clearer view of the shelter and camp fire on the right. On Dec 5th 1850, Weld camped on the south bank of the Waimakariri with John Robert Godley, Charlotte Godley and their three-year old son Arthur Godley, as well as Charles Torlesse, Charles Hunter Brown, E J Wakefield and a surveyor, Mr Boys. Charlotte Godley wrote to her mother about the camp 'The little tent, just big enough for a bed for us three ... The flax bushes and grass grew all about, higher than our tent ... As it got dark, a party of natives, who had been assembling at some huts just across the river, came over in a canoe to pay us a visit ... Next morning we were up early, and ... had to cross the river in a canoe, the horses having to be swum over' (Godley, Charlotte. Letters from early New Zealand. Christchurch, 1951, pp 143-144). The man seated in the tent is likely to be John Robert Godley, while Charlotte Godley will be the woman holding the hand of their small son Arthur by the river. Quantity: 1 watercolour(s). Physical Description: Watercolour, 170 x 245 mm Provenance: Scrope/Weld Collection.