FARR, Samuel Coleridge (Charles?) 1827–1918

Born Baldock, Herts., England: trained as architect. Became engaged to Mary Ann Pavitt in England and sailed with Pavitt family to New Zealand. They left London 19 November 1849; a faulty rudder carried the ship into Akaroa Harbour instead of Lyttelton, and 41 passengers decided to remain there, Samuel Farr among them. His marriage to Mary Ann Pavitt was the first celebrated in Canterbury. His first job was resetting Haylock's flour mill. He made mills, designed the first English church in Akaroa; in 1852 blazed the track from the head of the bay to Purau. Worked with surveyor C. E. Fooks for a time but in December 1862 started on his own as surveyor and architect. Designed and erected in Christchurch the first iron verandahs. Was Secretary of the Acclimatization Society and was said to have stocked almost every lake and river in Canterbury with fish. A panoramic view of Akaroa Town and Harbour, the outline by E. Norman, was painted by Farr in 1856 and exhibited in Lyttelton and Christchurch, and later shown by Farr at the Canterbury Exhibition 1870. At Canterbury Jubilee Exhibition 1900 won a gold medal for a base relief plan of Banks Peninsula carved in wood.