The Life and Times of Sir Julius von Haast

Fifty years after H.M. arrived in New Zealand he wrote that Sir Julius had "convinced him to stay". Sir Julius* was an important figure in early Canterbury and a notable German-born resident. The following excerpts, from the biography written and published by Sir Julius' son, H.F. von Haast, in Christchurch 1948, provide a window onto the town into which H.M. found himself.

CHAPTER LIX (pp.805 - 807)

The Opening of the Great Hall 1877 and 1878
The year 1877… saw the first flood-lighting in New Zealand. The next year, 1878, saw the opening of the semi-final additions to the Museum, including the great Mammal Room; the first train run from Christchurch to Dunedin; and it heard the first telephone transmission in New Zealand.

Christchurch 1878
In 1878, Christchurch was beginning to assume the semblance of a city. The new Customs, Telegraph, and Post Office at the corner of Cathedral Square was approaching completion. The Cathedral walls were up about 23ft. in height, six columns of the nave were up with portions of the arches that rested on them. The trees were being felled in Cathedral Square, and a gum tree fifteen years old and 80ft. high was bought down; sycamores and birches were left. Brick shops and offices were going up in the principal streets.

Over 600,000 young trees were ready for planting out – oaks, ashes, sycamores, birches, planes, and pines – but the pheasants, sparrows, greenfinches, and chaffinches were taking great toll of the seedlings. The walk extending along the east side of the West Belt had been completed from the Riccarton Hotel to Wood’s bridge between the avenue of trees.

Asphalting was proceeding along Worcester Street towards the College and the Museum, the approach to which the future would be “not so dusty”.

But the drainage of Christchurch was in a parlous state, as disclosed by Mr. Clark, M.I.C.E., who reported upon it, and submitted to the District Drainage Board a scheme for pumping the sewage on to 400 acres of sandhills, and using it for the purposes of irrigation, which was eventually carried into operation.

The population in the city was now 12,370, in the suburbs 10,000: total, 22,370. The drainage works were confined to the street channels and a long outfall sewer, partly open, partly covered, to the Estuary 4 3/4 miles long.

Faecal (sic) matter was collected from about half of the houses in the city by the pan system. In the other parts of the city and suburbs, cesspits were holes in the earth without lining of any kind to prevent the saturation of the surrounding soil with filth.

The prominent feature in this connection as affecting the public health was the water-logged site of Christchurch. Over a large area of the city, especially in winter, water was met with at from 4ft. to a few inches only below the surface of the ground; and at Waltham during the winter-time the water was stagnant on the surface. The imperfect removal of the filth was a growing evil, the exhalation from a very damp soil abundantly present; and the combination of the causes of mischief was a present question that could not be deferred for future consideration. The drainage works should lower the level of saturation. Neither the river nor the estuary should be polluted by the discharge of sewage. The solution was the pumping scheme suggested.

The railway, the telegraph, gas, and electricity had come to Christchurch already. It was now the turn of the telephone. Mr. Meddings, the Government Inspector of Telegraphs, had made some primitive instruments and experimented with them. As he required absolute quiet near the instruments in view of their delicate sensibility, Haast gave him the use of the Museum on Sunday, February 10, 1878, when the South Island telegraph was idle. Operators were stationed at Lyttelton, nine miles, Southbridge, thirty-two miles, Dunedin, two hundred and fifty miles, and Cromwell, three hundred and fifty miles distant. The thrill of the special reporter when he heard, first a wee coo-ee in his ear, and then every note of a flute from Cromwell, can be easily imagined.

The educational institutions were now housed in those old-world picturesque Gothic buildings that are the pride of Christchurch.

Music and Entertainment 1877 (pp.813)
With their usual good nature, Haast and his wife lent a helping hand to a German musician just arrived in Christchurch, Mr. H. M. Lund, a fine pianist, if somewhat exuberant and extravagant in execution, who became a well-known teacher and was musical critic of the Press for many years, his critiques, clearly the work of a musical expert with artistic taste and a felicitous gift of expression, being one of the features of that journal. At a concert given by Lund on September 13, 1877, in the Oddfellows’ Hall, the first of many, Haast, who was “in fine voice,” sang Beethoven’s “Mignon,” while Mrs. Von Haast played with Lund Schumann’s duets, “Wreathing Garlands,” “Ringdance,” and “At the Fountain”. The only exception taken to them was that of the soldier to the sausage, “They were too short”. Mrs. von Haast took lessons from Lund for several years, and improved wonderfully under his tuition.

… Haast and Lund were associated again on December 20, when the Christchurch Musical Union gave a performance of Haydn’s “Creation”. Lund was at the piano, there being no orchestra. Haast was among the bass soloists.

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CHAPTER LXI : The Early 'Eighties (pp.839-840)

In the early ‘eighties Christchurch was a civilized city. The nave and aisles of the Cathedral had been completed, the tower and spire erected, the bells placed in position and rung; and what a din they made! A Cathedral School was to be established to train choir boys for the Cathedral.

But the Anglicans were not having it all their own way, for the Synagogue was erected. Tramway lines had been completed to Papanui and Sydenham, and that by the Ferry Road to Sumner was in course of construction. Old wooden shops were being replaced by large handsome buildings; the Loan and Mercantile building, 47ft. high, was being constructed of Hoon Hay stone.

A crowded meeting clamoured for a Canterbury and Westland Grand Trunk railway via the Hurunui and Cannibal Gorge.

In the Provincial Council Chamber, the degree of M.A. was for the first time conferred upon a woman in the British Empire, Miss Helen Connon, who was later to marry Professor Macmillan Brown.

John Ollivier on his seventieth birthday received handsome silver-plated gifts and a purse of 750 sovereigns.

Clark’s sewerage scheme for separating the sewage from the surface water and carrying it by pipes to the pumping station at New Brighton sandhills for filtration and absorption, was completed; and many houses were connected with the sewers.

Business men had connected up their premises with the telephone.

The refrigerating process was enabling sheep-farmers to export the carcasses as well as the wool of their sheep, and to make “Canterbury lamb” famous.

* HAAST, Sir Johann Franz Julius von, K.C.M.G., F.R.S. (1822–1887) -- Geologist and explorer.
Julius von Haast was born and educated in Bonn, Germany. He first came to New Zealand in 1858 and soon began mapping the West Coast where he discovered coal and gold. He was quickly appointed Provincial Geologist and 'played an active part in the intellectual life of Christchurch' including founding the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury (1862) and Canterbury Museum (1870), co-founding Canterbury Collegiate Union (1872) and as a member of the Senate of the University of New Zealand (1880–87).
Read his full biography: 'HAAST, Sir Julius von, K.C.M.G., F.R.S.' from An Encyclopedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966. Te Ara - updated 18/09/07
Also see Haast and the Haast Pass linking South Westland and Wanaka, Otago and the Franz Josef Glacier.