Today in History

1840 New Zealand Company surveyors arrive in Port Nicholson

Surveyors arrived in Port Nicholson to lay out plans for the proposed New Zealand Company settlement of Britannia at Pito-one (Petone). When this original site proved unsuitable, the decision was made to relocate across the harbour. The new settlement would be called Wellington.

The survey party, led by Captain William Mein Smith, arrived on the Cuba, a name that would become a familiar part of the region's landscape, with Cuba Streets in both Petone and – most famously – central Wellington. A map for the new settlement had been prepared in England by Samuel Cobham. It was designed primarily to convince investors to support the venture. This incredibly orderly design with its grid pattern contained familiar names to remind settlers of England – Covent Garden, Soames Square and Billingsgate Fish Market – although none of these made it to the final settlement.

The New Zealand Company and its model of systematic colonisation was the brainchild of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Central to his plans for this new settlement town was a ‘package' of land which consisted of a town acre and an accompanying 100 country acres. There were 1100 one-acre town sections in the plan for Port Nicholson, but William Mein Smith struggled to reproduce this due to the geography of the area.

Time was also against Mein Smith. The Company was desperate to move before the British government intervened in New Zealand. As a result an impossible timeframe was set for the Company surveyors. When the first settler ship arrived a few weeks after the Cuba on 22 January, there was no sign of the carefully laid out plan.

Image: The Cuba at anchor in Port Nicholson

1930 First NZ-made 'talkie' screened

Coubray-tone News, the work of the inventive Ted Coubray, had its first public screening at Auckland’s Plaza Theatre. When ‘talkies’ arrived in New Zealand in early 1929 Coubray began experiments to make his own sound-on-film system.

Six months and £3000 later, the Coubray-tone sound system was operational. This entirely New Zealand-made enterprise was the first of its kind in Australasia. Filmed on location, footage included 'The Romance of Maoriland', capturing poi and haka performances, and the waiata 'Under the Maori Moon'.

Image: Coubray Films sound truck (NZ Film Archive)