Conditions of use. Although delicate from birth, he showed great intellectual promise and took full advantage of the educational privileges the social elevation of his parents were able to bestow upon him. The early years of his education were spent at home; then he went on to Harrow and later to Christ Church College, Oxford.
He read for the Irish Bar, and was called in During boyhood and youth, Godley had ample opportunity to witness for himself what havoc could be wrought by absentee landlordism when the dire poverty of an overpopulated country-side reduces its dwellers to a potato subsistence. Some relaxation of the exertions indispensable to success appears to have taken place after his departure, and it was not until the whole scheme was on the verge of abandonment, that Lord Lyttelton brought his strong intellect and resolute will to rescue it from destruction.
He became Chairman of the Managing Committee in the spring of , and kept his hand on the reins until the end of the journey. The result of difficulty, however, was, as usual, delay.
The day for selling the land and starting off the colonists was again and again postponed; and even when the day arrived, the funds raised fell miserably short of the anticipated and requisite amount.
In this emergency Lord Lyttelton, Lord Richard Cavendish, Sir John Simeon, and others, came forward again and again, with advances out of their private fortunes, to the extent not of tens or hundreds, but of thousands and tens of thousands , to save the scheme from ruin. When we look back at those times, and ask what motive could have operated to stimulate these not foolish or imprudent men into liberality so unwonted in our commercial days—what it was, which induced men, by no means rich for their position in life, to lay down such large sums when they could have had but a very dim and uncertain prospect of any return, and when the idea of profit was never dreamt of—there is but one answer; and we page 11 believe it is the true one; it was their strong affection for the man who had induced them to join the scheme, and the determination that, in his absence, he should not be deserted.
The work of his life was in peril; and, be the loss to them what it might, it should not be allowed to fail for want of timely aid. There can hardly be any stronger proof of the wonderful influence which Mr. Godley had acquired over his personal friends, than this willingness to incur such large sacrifices for the sake, not even so much of himself, as of his idea.
Rarely indeed do college acquaintances ripen into such noble and absorbing friendships in after life. It was owing to these circumstances that the colonists, who were to have sailed in the spring, did not sail till the autumn; and that Mr. Godley, who, when he started, had no idea that the funds in the colony had been exhausted, found himself absolutely penniless, and without the power of taking any step whatever in furtherance of the object for which he had come to the colony.
The order to stop all expenditure at Lyttelton was one of simple honesty; because every bill which he must have drawn must have been met out of the private resources of the members of the Association, or have been dishonored.
Until the land sales began there was absolutely no means of knowing whether the colony would ever become a reality at all. Godley therefore saw that he had no duty but to wait; so he went Wellington, and there bided the course of events. But political inaction, when there was work to be done, was an impossibility to him. The year was an important one in the history of Wellington and of the colony. Sir George Grey, the then Governor, had two years before suspended the constitution of Lord Grey, and was virtually the despotic ruler of the colony.
He was conducting the government at Wellington, and had come there mainly for the purpose of inducing the people to accept a form of constitution which he had devised, and wished to propose in the place Lord Grey's, The question for or against the proposed constitution was under discussion when Mr.
Godley arrived. He at once took a strong part against it. It seemed to him a sham, and that it would secure no real constitutional government to the people. The whole vigor of his mind was lent to the work of defeating the proposal of the Governor, with what success we all know: the sham constitution was rejected, and the old form of government lasted until Sir J.
Pakington's Bill was passed in In November he was called from Wellington by the intelligence that the first colonists had sailed for Canterbury in the September of that year; and he at once took up his abode at Lyttelton to await their arrival. From the 16th December, , to the 1st December, , when he sailed for England, he was, in all but the name, the governor of the settlement which he had originated and formed.
Such a career is not granted page 13 to many in this life. Most men are but the agents to carry out the schemes of others, or are compelled to see the plans they have formed put into action by agents who but partially comprehend them. It was given to Mr. Godley to design Canterbury, and to be the agent of his own design. What he was amongst us during the first two years of the settlement, some of us remember, and most of us know by tradition.
Not with coffers full, and facilities abundant, but in poverty of funds, amidst great difficulties, amidst much discontent, amidst the disappointment of many sanguine expectations, and the ill concealed hostility of a Government which appeared vexed at the additional trouble imposed on it by the founding of a new colony within its jurisdiction, Mr.
Godley guided the infant for tunes of Canterbury, in the full and entire conviction of the result which must one day come. It would be unfair were we to avoid mentioning some of the difficulties—it may perhaps be said the mistakes which he committed—in his New Zealand career. It was a matter most deeply regretted by all, that in consequence of some disagreement between himself and Captain Thomas, the first Agent and Surveyor of the Association, Mr. Godley was compelled to remove him from his office.
We mention this solely for the purpose of adding that, in , Captain Thomas, who was then in London, called upon Mr. Godley at the War Office, and expressed in the most frank and generous manner his regret for his share in that disagreement. The result of that interview was a complete and entire reconciliation and a long conversation, mutually inter- page 14 esting to each, upon the progress of the settlement which both had so much at heart.
It will be equally gratifying to the friends of both to know, that this one unfortunate difference which Mr. Godley had with any of those who served under him, was thus some years afterwards concluded in a manner so honorable to both. Godley used to mention it as one of the most thoroughly gratifying events of his life—the blotting out of the single unpleasant memory connected with Canterbury. The first step which Mr. Godley found himself called on to take in the colony was to reverse the land regulations of the Association, as regarded the occupation of unsold land for squatting purposes.
The original regulations of the Canterbury Association contemplated the occupation of the land under lease, as a privelege attaching solely to the purchasers of land. No sooner had the settlers landed, than colonists from Australia began to arrive with their flocks and herds, and to claim runs, on which to depasture their stock, after the usual Australian manner.
Godley felt at once that a great practical difficulty had arisen. He had no power to grant these runs, and he plainly saw that it would be ruinous to the interests of the new-born settlement to drive away the capital and the colonial intelligence and experience which was being imported from the neighbouring colonies.
He took upon him at once to reverse the regulations of the Association and to establish new ones applicable to the circumstances of the colony. But even then, he would not violate the most cherished political principle of his life page 15 —the responsibility of those in power, to the people for whose benefit power is held in trust. There had been established a society consisting of all the land purchasers, which formed at starting something like a representative body of the resident colonists.
Godley submitted to 'The Land Purchasers Society' a set of regulations for squatting; undertaking to put them in force, and guaranteeing the assent of the Association at home to their provisions. But he required as a condition, that 'The Land Purchasers Society' should agree to the course he proposed. The resolutions were moved by Mr. FitzGerald and carried. The terms upon which runs were to be held for pastoral purposes, were fixed to the satisfaction of the Australian squatters who had recently arrived; capital and stock continued to flow in, and the ruin, which was inevitable had the Agent rigidly adhered to his instructions, was averted.
Deans of Riccarton, a very shrewd and far-seeing man, used frequently to remark that Mr. Godley had saved the colony. The correctness of Mr.
Godley's judgment is evidenced by the fact, that subsequent experience and discussion have tended to maintain, almost intact, the system then established. It received its final sanction, modified in some matters of detail, when the Land Regulations at present in force were adopted by the first Superintendent and Provincial Council in Amongst other difficulties which he had to encounter and which involved him in very unpleasant duties, were those arising from the claimants to land at Akaroa, under the French Company.
It was thought at the page 16 time that Mr. Godley looked upon those claimants with a jealous eye, and was hard and somewhat unfair in his mode of dealing with them. The fact was far otherwise. He had simply a law to administer, and, right or wrong, he did no more than duty required of him.
It was much to be regretted, that the then Governor of the colony, who knew that these claims were not defined or surveyed, and that the Canterbury settlers were about to occupy the country, neglected to send down a competent commissioner and surveyor to settle the claims before the new colonists arrived.
Godley would have declared Akaroa to be a township, but he found that a special undertaking had been given by the Association to the colonists, that no new town should be laid out. The object of this was of course to enhance the value of the town lands in Lyttelton and Christchurch.
Godley could not therefore break faith with the colonists; nor could he prevent the holders of rural land orders under the Association, from occupying any land not previously included in a grant from the crown, or included in a town under the existing terms of purchase: had he attempted to do so, the holder of every such land order, might have obtained damages against him in an action at law.
All he could do, he did; which was to warn those who selected land at Akaroa, that there were claims of which he knew nothing, and which would, if proved to be good, take the precedence of the Association's land orders. There was indeed, one case in which he undoubtedly committed an error: we record it, as an instance of the frank and unhesitating manner in which he ever page 17 acknowledged and corrected a mistake the moment it was discovered.
The Commissioner of the Government claimed a piece of land which had been selected and occupied at Akaroa, on the ground that it had become the property of the Crown by an exchange for other lands. Two or three gentlemen on returning from Akaroa, where they had been spending a few days, went into the Emigration Office at Lyttelton, and were telling the story, when Mr. Godley, who overheard the conversation from the inner room, instantly came out and said, "I am afraid that is a good claim; I had quite forgotten it.
The deed was at Christchurch, in the Land Office. He immediately rode over and obtained it, returning with it to Lyttelton in less than three hours. On discovering that the claim was good, he went to Akaroa, explained the circumstances to the holder of the property, and advised him to go at once to Wellington in order to see Sir George Grey, and endeavour to obtain a grant of the land from the Crown.
The advice was taken, and though not at the time, yet ultimately, the application was successful. But no one regretted more than Mr. Godley, his inability to prevent the obvious unfairness of allowing the original town of Akaroa, on the faith of which the French settlers had bought small town sections, to be overrun by selections of land under the Association's land orders. Godley's career in the colony was not a wholly unembarrassed one. The second year of his adminis- page 18 tration was clouded by circumstances peculiarly distressing to himself, although little known or understood in the colony.
The one great evil in colonial government which he laboured so long to encounter and remedy, was the retention of all the ultimate powers of government in the Colonial Office at home. The form of constitution in a colony might be a question open for discussion, and subject to variation in different countries and under different circumstances; but as to the powers of Government, whatever they might be, being localised , that, he conceived, admitted of no dispute or question.
This, then, having been the point in all colonial policy upon which he had ever most earnestly insisted, it was with peculiar distress that he found the Canterbury Association pursuing a course of policy which he regarded as identical with that which he had ever most strenuously opposed.
He felt that the Managing Committee in London was virtually constituting itself a new Colonial Office, and repeating in another form all the errors of that department. It would be improper, as it is unnecessary, to enter upon the question, whether he were right or wrong. We are only concerned at present with stating, what it is due to his memory to record, the views which he entertained on the subject That he page 19 deeply and keenly felt this difference of opinion between himself and all his nearest and dearest friends none who knew him during the winter of can ever forget.
The debt of gratitude he owed them, the generous sacrifices they had made to save his work from failure, constituted ties of no ordinary strength; but Mr. Godley was one with whom the idea of principle and duty overruled all other feeling; and when the new Bill which the Association had passed through Parliament arrived in the colony, enacting, amongst other things, that the Association might nominate a board of colonists, to exercise certain of its powers in the colony still retaining in its own hands many of those powers which he thought ought to have been localized, he felt that he could no longer conscientiously continue to carry out a policy so utterly at variance with the principles and purpose of his life.
So deeply did he feel this, that he was on the point at one time of sailing for England, leaving his family here, with the sole object of trying in the course of one month spent at home, to persuade the Association to alter its whole course of policy, and to place the administration of its powers in the hands of the colonists themselves.
But he could not desert his post: he therefore formally resigned his office as agent of the Association, praying them to appoint a successor without delay. It is needless to say that the Managing Committee in London delayed accepting the resignation.
The Association had indeed almost completed its work. Its members were strenuously engaged in pushing on the Constiution Act for New Zealand, and they took powers in page 20 that Act for transferring all their privileges and functions, as a loyal chartered corporation, to the Superintendent and Provincial Council about to be constituted in the colony. Not only officially, therefore, but by urgent private solicitations, was Mr. Godley requested to retain his office until the end of the time for which he had originally engaged to act in the colony; and he did so.
Indeed, the occasion of his difference of opinion with his friends at home had passed away. He always put the needs of Christchurch before the demands from England. In his last few years, he began to lose his voice and when it returned, he was banned from talking. Just a short 11 years after welcoming the First Four Ships, Godley died of tubercular consumption on 17 th November, He was mourned by many.
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