Talk:First Four Ships

Untitled

The second, third and fourth paragraphs address the settlement of Canterbury and the history of the Canterbury Association, and do not relate directly to the topic. This material seems better suited to the articles on these topics rather than The First Four Ships. Otherwise, the additions by Kiddo54 on 18 December seem to make excellent contributions to the overall quality of the article.

These comments refer to edits made in 2006, which are now under the heading Preparations. I think these preparations are directly relevant to the arrival of the First Four Ships. One failing of previous New Zealand Company settlements was the failure to survey the purchased land prior to settlement. Having an adequate survey before the settlers arrived was seen by members of the Canterbury Association as an essential prerequisite to settlement. If that surveyors' story is not told in this article then were is it better told? The story of the surveyors of the Canterbury settlement has been skipped over briefly by many Canterbury Historians and become somewhat forgotten. Yet it is apparent every day in the plans of the Central City and historic Lyttelton. Decisions these people made before the ships arrived have shaped the subsequent settlement story. The preparation story might need to be told better but it needs to be told here because this is the notable article. Besides nobody has considered removing it since 2006. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 23:25, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

A sign of disctinction?

Why is the ability to trace one's ancestry to the settlers a sign of distinction? This seems like an uneccesary comment. Will remove. Jmlee369 21:23, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Page Name

I'm surprised about the article in the title. Is there any opposition to changing this to First Four Ships instead? Schwede66 (talk) 08:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Identifying sources

When this article was first written the requirements for citing sources was not so strict. Much of the article relied on only a couple of general sources published by the Christchurch City Council, but is not clear which statement comes from which source. In a couple of places the word order of these sources is so close to the Wikipedia article that I would call it plagiarism, so I have tagged it as a possible copyright violation. One problem using those general reference sources is that they have sumarised other more detailed sources, so it would be good to identify those more detailed sources as further reading, for a more in-depth treatment of the subject. I also think these two general references need to be treated with care, as they may not be entirely accurate. I am not sure if these sources have inaccurately sumarised their source material or the sources they have used are also inaccurate. The challenge (problem?) with using multiple sources is that they do not always agree. This could be the result of a misinterpretation of earlier sources by the historian involved or a different viewpoint or recollection by the author concerned. Determining which is the best source to use, or who is correct, may be a question of judgement. It might even be that no one source tells the full story and several sources need to be cited to support one statement made in the article. I have also changed the banner for this article to ask contributors to cite additional sources and tagged the paragraphs which I think need in-line citations. Potentially every fact should have it's own in-line citation that is noted at the foot of the article. Additionally, the placement of some of the information in this article closely follows the source material. I think the article might read better if Captain Thomas's instructions from the Canterbury Association, about selecting land and naming places, was clearly separated from what he did on site using his own initiative; in other words separating his brief from his actions in the field. Godley's actions also need to be discussed, and how this affected Thomas and the people he had employed. Lastly, the story does not really end with the arrival of the First Four Ships. What they did once they landed needs to be told in sufficient detail to point readers in the direction of other articles about their life in the new colony. The article probably needs to cover the period up to the formation of the Canterbury Provincial Council in 1853 and at least briefly cover the arrival of the other ships sent out by the Canterbury Association over the following three years. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 01:59, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Article development

This article essentially explains why Canterbury's Provincial Anniversary Day is 16 December. All very well for school children wanting information about that single event, but this is an encyclopedia article, so it should be encyclopedic and treat the subject in more detail. I don't think it currently does the job very well, so I think this article needs a development plan. So here are some suggestions for how to improve the article.

• Start with a brief mention previous explorations of this area of New Zealand and why it had not been developed earlier.
• Briefly discuss the settlement attempts of the French at Akaroa and other early settler activities farming on Banks Peninsula and the Canterbury plains.
• Briefly discuss the land purchase issues and the "Kemp Deed" to secure freehold title. This should be a brief introduction of the topic and its relevance, not a main article.
• The writings of Felix Wakefield and the new thinking of the need to plan and survey before settlement. Something that was not done with earlier settlement attempts of New Zealand. Again, this should be a brief introduction of the topic and its relevance, not a main article.
• Briefly talk about the immediate post-arrival events, such as the meetings of the "Society of Land-Purchasers", first issue(s) of the Lyttelton Times, other notable events during 1851 including commemoration of the first anniversary of the first ship's arrival. These events can probably be expanded upon in separate articles but should be mentioned here to give a post-arrival context.
• Initial allocation of land. The process of allocation, who was involved and perhaps mention some of the notable landowners and where they were allocated land. The Lyttelton Times published an initial list across several issues between February and May 1851. Again to give a post-arrival context.
• Local transport of goods. As a starting point to direct readers to more relevant articles. Such as those about the Bridle Path, Sumner Road, Ferrymead, shipping goods to Canterbury by sea, the dissatisfaction settlers had and what subsequently happened, such as building a railway tunnel to improve transport. Port development beyond the initial arrival should appear in articles about Lyttelton or Lyttelton Harbour rather than here.
• A list of additional Canterbury Association ships during the period 1851 to 1853. I think this just needs to be the name of the ship, its arrival date and passenger numbers. This information should be obtainable from the Shipping News in the Lyttelton Times. I have tried searching for such a list but I don't think anyone has compiled it. If others consider such a list is not appropriate in this article, then perhaps include it in the Canterbury Association article. However, I am thinking this list would simply be introduced by words like During the next two (or three) years the Canterbury Association sent xx ship with yyyy settlers, and by 1853 the population of the settlement was about zzzzz when the Canterbury Provincial Council was established. If someone wanted to expand on the notable ships that subsequently arrived in port then that should be a wiki-link from the ship name.
• Memorials, as a separate section. Cover the memorial(s) already mentioned as well as the memorial to Edward Jollie, surveyor of Christchurch, and others that are relevant.
• Social and cultural influences of the First Four Ships, their settlers and their descendants over the years and today. In other words, what is the relevance of these First Four Ships and what impact and influence did they have on Canterbury and New Zealand society in later years and how is this viewed and interpreted today by historians and social commentators.
• Celebration(s) of the arrival of the First Four Ships today and why Canterbury does not now hold the Provincial Anniversary celebration on 16 December. (Brief explanation.)

I see this article as a starting point to explore the various articles in Wikipedia about the settlement of Canterbury, New Zealand. It can briefly touch on related topics, but shouldn't cover thing too much detail, especially if those subjects should be (and hopefully are) covered elsewhere in a lot more detail. Does anyone have any other suggestions or opinions? Am I being too ambitious or should the article be more limited? Also, I am not suggesting this needs to all happen, either overnight, or longer; this is just an ideas list to simulate some thinking about what the scope of this article should be. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:42, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I guess the question that I have is scope. Yes, if we are talking brief mentions, then the other items could all be useful to give context. The list of Canterbury Association ships may be more appropriate with that article, but it might be useful to introduce ships #5 and #6 here given the 75th jubilee get-together. I'm happy to help; I've got a few good sources on my book shelf. Schwede66 03:35, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I, too, am concerned with scope, which is why I proposed the plan so that the scope can be refined. I would be happy if the article confined itself to the first four ships, plus a brief mention of Castle Eden and Isabella Hercus, in other words the "Summer Ships" of 1850 and 1851, as well as confining itself to the initial settlement actions such as the establishment of local administration during that Summer immediately after arrival and touch on the allocating the first sections in early February 1851. After that, other articles could take up the story, because we are no longer talking about the ships but the settlement of Canterbury. There were some articles on Stuff on 16th and 19th December 2020 that contain some good starting points for further research. The National Library's Papers Past website also contains voyage reports for each of the first four ships that were published by the Lyttelton Times, which is a valuable contemporary resource. Covering all the ships sent by listing them in the Canterbury Association article is a better idea, than doing it here. The first commemorations at the end of 1851 would need to have separate brief treatment as a first commemoration section that would refer to a main article about Show Day, or Canterbury Anniversary Day. At some point there needs to be a handover from arrival to settling in, so discussing the happenings in the colony from about February of 1851 should be covered elsewhere, rather than in this article. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 04:55, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Good plan. I get reunited with my library in a week’s time. Schwede66 04:20, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I have added a list of Canterbury Association related Ships to the Canterbury Association article. I have found 2 existing sources but these disagree in the way to count and include ships. And both are somewhat inaccurate with the arrival dates. So I have cited the Shipping News in the Lyttelton Times to resolve the disagreements, reasoning this contemporaneous early source is unlikely to be in error. Although it might be tedious to verify the other 20 arrival dates that way, I think this is one item down; ten to go. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 19:53, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Help appreciated

This article is tagged as having potential copyright violation. I cannot find sources online that would indicate; if anyone has more information about books, that would be nice. Otherwise, I am preemptively removing the paragraph and I ask that you not restore until a source can be indicated and the copyvio can be confirmed as such or as a false alarm. Sennecaster (talk) 03:38, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The copyrigh violation can be seen in the second general reference at the bottom of the article, at this [1] Wayback machine url. Around the the sixth paragraph down, which starts "July 1849 ...", you will find the wording I tagged as a copyright violation, which has now been preemptively removed, in about the third or fourth sentence. I had tagged it as a reminder and had intended to go back and fix how the name Port Cooper came about and also came to be changed when I found a better source, but I haven't discovered one, yet. I didn't remove it at the time because the page was only available in the archive, not on the main City Council website. The cleanup tag does not have an easy way to identify the copyrighted source material and the inline Template:Copyright violation is not clear about what to do when a copyright violation is found or suspected. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 11:02, 29 March 2021 (UTC)