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Title New Zealand Company, Original Correspondence from Colonial Governors, 1840-1847
Date 1840-1847
Document Type Correspondence
Reference CO 208/125
Library / Archive The National Archives
Collection Name New Zealand Company Original Correspondence, etc.
Description Letters concerning the expansion of New Zealand Company emigrant settlements to areas around Whanganui and Taranaki, including discussions and speculations over selecting a particular district upon which to establish the second colony. Instructions are issued by William Spain to Governor Fitzroy and other officials in New Zealand to aid their agents to complete a valid purchase of the lands selected. Other letters refer to concerns over the reaction of indigenous peoples who were either in captivity or absent from the lands in question at the time they were said to have been sold to the Company and reports filed for investigating and determining land title and claims. The legal troubles of the Company are referred to within the letters, along with colony conditions and views of inhabitants in Port Nicholson, with many letters written to Governor Hobson and William Wakefield. Near the end of this collection of letters, the subject matter concerns town planning and the translation of Peoria Purchase deeds.
Series Description This series contains original correspondence and entry books of the New Zealand Company which were handed over to the Colonial Office after the surrender of the company's charters in 1850. Also included are minutes, accounts, registers of emigrants and land transfer records.
Biographical Note / History The New Zealand Company was a chartered company formed in 1839 and incorporated in 1841 with power to buy, sell, settle and cultivate land in New Zealand. It did not prove a satisfactory agency for colonising New Zealand and was induced to surrender its charters in 1850. It was finally dissolved in 1858.
Theme(s) Ships and Shipping Lines; Colonisation Companies and Emigration Societies; Politics, Legislation and Governance
Country (from) Great Britain
Country (to) New Zealand
Places Akaroa, New Ulster, Nelson, Auckland, Whanganui, Taranaki, Dunedin, Cooks Straight, Peoria, New Zealand
Ports Wellington, New Zealand; Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Nationality English; European; Māori; Scottish
Ships Victoria; Tory
People Wakefield, William; Governor Hobson (Hobson, Captain William); Thouson, E D; Russell, John; Shortland, Edward; Symonds, John Jermyn; Spain, William; Fitzroy, Robert; Sinclair, Andrew; Eyre, Edward John; Richmond, M; Gipps, Sir George; Beit, John; Beit, Henry; Paynter, John
Keywords government, agent, land, New Zealand Company, colony, colonisation, emigrant, emigration, emigration scheme, citizenship, law, land sale, surveying, expansion, indigenous people, land sale, crown lands, shipping, property, compensation, agriculture, geology, tax, port, cargo, police, commissionaires, border, racism, dispossession, foreign policy, land grant, town planning, expenses, fishing and fishermen, civil rights, chief, settlement, food, slavery, finance, housing, military, army, petition, purchase agreement, regulations, court, land price, contract, newspaper, coal, mining, road
Language English
Copyright Crown Copyright documents © are reproduced by permission of The National Archives London, UK