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

Guinness's Run — (Run 138, afterwards re-numbered 110, Class II)

Guinness's Run
(Run 138, afterwards re-numbered 110, Class II)

This run was on the Halswell above Burke's. It was of six thousand acres, and roughly speaking ran from Tai Tapu to Ladbrooks. Colonel Guinness and Burke took it up in February, 1854, for Frank Guinness. Frank Guinness, who died in 1892, was the father of Sir Arthur and of E. R. Guinness, now the owner of Glentanner in the Mackenzie Country. The homestead was where the Braithwaites used to live, on the land afterwards bought by Sir Heaton Rhodes and given to given to the people of Tai Tapu for a park.

Guinness lived there from 1855 untl 1860 when he transferred it to Thomas Barrett. Guinness called his page 45run the Halswell Station, but early settlers usually applied that name to Burke's, and called his 'Guinness's' simply.

Barrett was, according to the Cyclopædia of New Zealand, one of four brothers who had had runs in Western Australia in the 'forties and early 'fifties. They came to New Zealand about 1858 and two of them, Charles and Thomas, settled on this station. There were three hundred and forty acres of freehold when they bought it and the run was almost intact, but settlers came very fast in the next few years. The Barretts had only a thousand acres of leasehold left in 1865, fifty-four acres in 1866, and a year later the run disappeared from the lists altogether. The Barretts called the place Reeds, and are said by the Cyclopædia to have bought it from Stewart, the manager of the Union Bank. He was perhaps Guinness's agent.

Charles Barrett was still farming two hundred acres of the freehold when the Cyclopædia of New Zealand was written, about 1900.