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The Early Canterbury Runs: Containing the First, Second and Third (new) Series

Other Peninsula Runs

Other Peninsula Runs

There were four more Class III runs on Banks Peninsula, all on the eastern side, which I have never been on, and have only seen from the sea, so I can say little about them. However, I give a list of them, with such particulars as I can.

page 348

Run 77, of five thousand acres 'at the south-eastern end of Banks Peninsula '(so I suppose it was the run next north of Flea Bay) was taken up in March, 1853, and in 1864 it belonged to Etienne de Malmanche. From 1865 until 1868 it stands in the names of Malrnanche and Francois le Lievre (who was Malmanche's son-in-law). By 1874 it had dropped out of the list of runs, so had either been all bought freehold or reduced to a small grazing run. Malmanche and le Lievre were two of the most successful French colonists. In the 'thirties le Lievre had spent some time in Akaroa in a French whaler and returned to France before he came out again with the other colonists in 1840. He worked for some time as a blacksmith at Akaroa before he went in for sheepfarming, at which he did very well. He died at Akaroa in 1902, in his ninety-third year, and left many descendants. Etienne le Lievre was his son.

Run 70, of five thousand acres, was taken up in January, 1857, by P. Pidgeon. and F. Narbey. I don't know where the country lay but it was probably near Long Bay, where Pidgeon was settled at least as early as 1857. About 1867 the run was transferred to H. Magee, and that is the last trace I have seen of it. By 1874 it had dropped out of the list, though the sheep returns show Hugh Magee as having 600 to 1000 sheep until 1881. I know nothing of Pidgeon or Magee. The Cyclopedia of New Zealand says that F. Narbey arrived at Akaroa in 1849 and settled at Long Bay in 1854, and eventually bought four thousand acres of freehold there. He was born at Rouen in 1829, and died at Akaroa in 1913.

Run 364, of seven thousand acres 'at Pigeon Bay' was allotted in May, 1860. In 1864 it belonged to Richard John Phillip Fleming, of Port Levy, and by 1874 had been merged with other country and renumbered 704. Fleming was a well-known pioneer on Banks Peninsula and afterwards bought Ahuriri from the Rhodes's. He was born in London in 1819 and came to Canterbury in the Randolph in 1850. He page 349went straight to Port Levy in the ship's boat, having bought a freehold section and pre-emptive right there before leaving England. He eventually made a great deal of his runs into freehold. Two thousand six hundred and fifty acres of this still belongs to Miss G. M. Fleming, his granddaughter. A. E. Williams has managed it for over twenty years. No Fleming has lived there since 1920. E. W. Coop has Fernlea, their old homestead. R. J. P. Fleming died there in 1894.

Run 491, of five thousand acres at Le Bon's Bay, was first taken up by E. Rouse, in January, 1864. Rouse still held it in 1865, but by 1866 it had dropped out of the run list. I can find no trace of Rouse in the 1879 sheep returns, which are the earliest I have.

This completes all the Class III runs that I can trace on the Peninsula, except one which I once saw listed in an old manuscript book that used to be among the Land Office records, but cannot be found now. My notes of it were burnt many years ago, and I have forgotten its number, but it was of five thousand acres, lying at the head of Lyttelton Harbour and was taken up by Cotterill in 1851 or 1852. It was probably the same country that was afterwards occupied by Rhodes Brothers as Run 206. Cotterill is almost sure to have been the Rev. George, afterwards Canon Cotterill; and he probably either abandoned the run or sold it unstocked to the Rhodes brothers, though his son, Henry Cotterill, told me he could not remember hearing his father speak of ever having owned a run.

Andersen mentions a run at Godley Head, twentynine thousand acres, carrying 1000 sheep, in 1857, and belonging to Parkinson. I am quite sure there is a mistake about this. In 1857 there was no room for a run of half the size in any direction from Godley Head. Furthermore, there is no record of it in any of the lists of Class III runs. Andersen took the particulars from an old stock return, and I think either the stock inspector or his clerk must have written twentynine thousand for two thousand nine hundred. Parkinson was a butcher in Lyttelton, and may have had a page 350small run somewhere between Gollans Bay and Godley Head at the time.

Andersen also mentions Craigforth, Run 167, at Holmes Bay, ten thousand acres. I cannot trace this either, though the run lists of 1864 onwards show Holmes as a holder of a small Class I run, numbered 167. Anyhow, it must have been part of the country on which Captain Francis Sinclair settled in 1843, and which his family afterwards sold to George Holmes, the maker of the Lyttleton tunnel.