25 August 1958
Dear Mr. Metcalfe,
Thank you for your letter of 8th August.
Mrs. A.E. Woodhouse’s George Rhodes of the Levels and his brothers, published in 1937 by Whitcombe & Tombs contains various references to your great great grandfather, William Thomas Green, who arrived from Sydney, New South Wales, in W.B. Rhodes’s barque “Eleanor” in November, 1839.
In James Hay’s Reminiscences of earliest Canterbury published in 1915 by the Christchurch Press Company is the following passage on p190: “The first male child born in Canterbury was Peter Green, a son of William Green, who landed in Akaroa in 1839 in charge of cattle for Mr. W.B. Rhodes. He was born at the Red House, near Akaroa, before the French landed. To commemorate his birth the Maori chief at Akaroa or Wainui gave him a section of land at Green’s Point. I believe his father got the land, and the boy never really got it. He died at Dunedin in 1864.”
There are various references to William Thomas Green in the editions of H.C. Jacobson’s Tales of Banks Peninsula. The following extracts are taken from the third edition, edited by his daughter in 1914, p264-65: “Mr. William Green arrived in Akaroa in 1839 in charge of the first shipment of cattle landed in Canterbury. These cows…were landed in the bay in Akaroa harbour called Red House Bay. Mr. Green built the first hotel in Canterbury at the place now known as Green’s Point, where the monument stands to mark the spot where the English flag was hoisted on August 10th 1840. Mr. Green was present at this memorable ceremony. He sold his house later to Mr. George Tribe…After selling his first hotel Green built a second one at the point opposite the old Akaroa wharf, the house being afterwards known as Armstrong’s buildings.”
On page 269 of the same book there is a brief reference: “Island Bay was the scene of whale fishery early in the forties. The first to start there were Messrs. W. Green of Green’s Point…[and others].”
I have looked through Directories from the 1850s without finding any W.T. Green’s listed at Akaroa or thereabouts. Of course these old directories are not infallible, but he had certainly left hotel-keeping and was not a property holder. The list of Freeholders made in 1882 does not list any William Thomas Green with property in that part of the country.
I hope this information may be of some assistance.
Yours faithfully,
(Mrs.) G.M. Strathern
(The Hocken Library – University of Otago – Dunedin NZ)
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