Enticing new settlers

Enticing new settlers

The English-born artist, surveyor and soldier Charles Heaphy (1820-1881) was employed by the New Zealand Company as a draughtsman on 6 May 1869: three days later, he was onboard a ship to New Zealand, arriving in Queen Charlotte Sound on 18 August 1839.

In the early 1840s Heaphy worked as an assistant surveyor for the Company in Wellington. This watercolour, Thorndon Flat and part of the city of Wellington (April 1841), is his earliest depiction of the settlement, painted the year after the arrival of the first New Zealand Company immigrants.

Heaphy's watercolour emphasises the settled and orderly nature of the new town. The painting was sent to London to be reproduced as a lithograph, and used by the New Zealand Company in its publicity campaign to promote Wellington and encourage emigration.

The view is taken from above the junction of modern Willis Street and Lambton Quay. Pipitea Pā can be seen in the distance, close to the point. The clearings in the bush on Te Ahumairangi (now Tinakori Hill) are gardens where Te Āti Awa (the local iwi, or tribe) grew kūmara and potatoes. In the first years of New Zealand Company settlement new immigrants were largely dependent on local Māori for food and building materials, and as a source of labour.

Charles Heaphy biography – Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa must be obtained before any reuse of this image

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