'It was the beautiful foliage, and new trees with parrots etc singing in them, which reminded [one of] … being in a new country…'

Charlotte Godley’s letters from New Zealand reveal something of the quality of life at the start of a most forward-thinking colony. Her husband, John Robert Godley had been dispatched in 1850 on behalf of the Canterbury Association (constituted primarily out of members of the House) to oversee the creation of a daughter settlement of the House; to this day his statue stands proud in Christchurch New Zealand, bearing the inscription ‘Founder of Canterbury’.

The ties between Oxford and New Zealand are many and it was a privilege to add to this as I travelled to Christchurch in March to lecture at the University of Canterbury, give concerts in Christchurch, and work with the musicians at the Cathedral.

Charlotte Godley had preferred the idea of a stone Cathedral, but noted that ‘some…incline to a wooden frame for the Church, filled in with bricks, which would be must safer in case of earthquakes…’. In building the Cathedral at Christchurch the stone-lovers won out, ultimately resulting in the devastating loss of the Cathedral in the 2011 quakes. In spite of this destruction, the sense of generations of prayer and praise which echoed from the partially-restored building was palpable.

'It was delightful to go to Church and hear…the organ! ! and the chaunting [sic] and singing…'

Some of the music making in which I participated was in honour of architect Benjamin Mountfort, who designed so many of Christchurch’s famous buildings, and who was supervising architect for Gilbert Scott’s designs for the Cathedral: 2025 marked the bicentenary of Mountfort’s birth.

Prof. Te Maire Tau, Ūpoko of Ngāi Tūāhuriri, "unfurled" (in his words) the genealogies, myths, metaphors, and history of New Zealand Māori life before European settlers arrived. He also offered rich cultural context around the interactions between Māori, and the Godleys and their successors.

Charlotte Godley recorded in her letters that the wife of Bishop Selwyn found life in New Zealand ‘dumb drudgery’. Having experienced it first hand, supported by the OXFORDs project, and through the kindness of Haydn Rawstron (1968, Music), I know this to be untrue. I returned to Christ Church with a deep appreciation of the links that enabled the Godleys to bring Christchurch into being so successfully, and to prosper into the present.