Mt. Algidus
(Runs 195, 278, 355 and 356)

Mt. Algidus lies in the fork of the Rakaia, Mathias, and Wilberforce rivers, and runs along the dividing range from the Mathias Pass to Browning's Pass. Run 195 (five thousand acres) was taken up in June, 1857, by James Phillips, and transferred for £300 to G. A. E. Ross in trust for William Rolleston on 8th July, 1859. Run 278 (five thousand acres) was taken up by J.J. Oakden in October, 1858. On 10th February Oakden sold it for £250 to Ross for Rolleston. In April, 1860, Rolleston took up Runs 355 and 356 in Ross's name. On March 25th, 1861, Ross transferred all four runs to Rolleston. In his diary Rolleston gives slightly earlier dates for the original licenses of 195 and 278, but I have followed the original lists.

Neither Phillips nor Oakden stocked his run except perhaps with a few head of cattle to hold the licenses. Rolleston had been a cadet or shepherd with Ross and Harper at Lake Coleridge. On February 18th, 1861, he and a man named Appleyard crossed the Wilberforce and pitched their tent to start the station. Appleyard finished building the house and yards and left onpage 209April 26th, but came back from time to time and did most of the building and fencing in the station as long as Rolleston kept it.

In March, 1861, about 200 head of cattle belonging to Archdeacon Mathias arrived on the run, and on April 11th Rolleston took delivery of the sheep at Lake Coleridge, about 1550, 900 of them being Ross's to run on terms. Rolleston shore 1508 at the following shearing. Soon after Rolleston settled on the station Alured George Mathias joined him as manager and stayed till Rolleston sold the place. John James Thomson told me that when he went to Mt. Algidus in 1863 'Mathias was called manager but there was no one there to manage except Rolleston and himself.' But I have since read Rolleston's station diaries which show that Rolleston was away a great deal, and that several permanent hands were always employed. Mathias afterwards managed the Hamilton station near Mossburn for Hamilton and Rowley and bought the homestead block when the place was cut up. He died there in 1912. He was the Archdeacon's third son.

In May, 1865, Rolleston sold the station to F. D. S. Neave for about £5,000. Neave took delivery on June 3rd. The sale included, besides the leases and seventytwo acres of freehold which Rolleston had bought to protect the bush, 3,275 sheep, two bullocks and two horses. It was Neave who named the station Mt. Algidus. Rolleston named the actual hill after which it is called but he and Mathias always called the station the Rakaia Forks.

Rolleston was afterwards Superintendent of Canterbury. He was famous in New Zealand politics, and was a man of high classical attainments. Downie Stewart has now published an admirable biography of him. He was said to be prouder of being the best bullock driver in Canterbury than anything else. As a matter of fact, he told me once that his reputation was greater than he deserved. He said he was not in a class by himself as a bullock driver, but just 'a very good bullock driver indeed.' It is said of him that instead of swearing at his bullocks, he addressed them in Latin page 210or Greek. What always struck me most about him was his simplicity and kindliness.

It is to him and Sale and Neave that we owe the fine classical names in those parts. The Hydra (the manyheaded serpent) is a very apt name for a winding creek which splits into a dozen branches on its way through the swamp 'before joining the river, as anyone will see who has to find his way across it for the first time.

Neave sold in 1884 to J. H. C. Bond and Charles Stewart Wood, who had been his cadets. Soon afterwards Wood sold his share to Bond, who took his brother W. N. C. Bond, into partnership about 1886. The Bonds sold to Pringle about 1892, but took the place back about 1895, and finally sold it in 1897 to Mrs George Murray-Aynsley, whose executors are still [1945] the owners. Mrs Murray-Aynsley's first manager was Roderick Urquhart, now at Mesopotamia. He was succeeded by his brother William, who managed it until 1934 when he was succeeded by R. A. Anderson, the present manager.

The runs of which Mt. Algidus originally consisted took in all the river facings and safe country, but there was a wedge-shaped block of ninety thousand acres of high tops, mostly bush-bound, in the middle, which was not included in the leases. David Stott, a gorge musterer, applied for this country, and was given a lease for £12 a year rent. He put out four thousand wethers on it, but finding he could not winter them there, sold his rights to Mrs Murray-Aynsley.

Alfred Comyns once took two thousand sheep through the Mathias Pass and stocked the open country on the West Coast side between the Pass and the bush, but he abandoned it after a year as impracticable.