History

The Otago settlement, an outgrowth of the Free Church of Scotland, started in March 1848 with the arrival of the first two immigrant ships from Greenock on the Firth of Clyde, the John Wickliffe and the Philip Laing. Captain William Cargill, a veteran of the Peninsular War, was the secular leader: Otago citizens subsequently elected him to the office of provincial Superintendent after the provinces were created in 1852. The Otago Province comprised the whole of New Zealand from the Waitaki River south, including Stewart Island and the sub-Antarctic islands. It included the territory of the later Southland province and also the much more extensive lands of the modern Southland Region. Initial settlement was concentrated on the port and city but it then expanded, notably to the south-west, where the fertile Taieri Plains offered good farmland. The 1860s saw rapid commercial expansion after Gabriel Read discovered gold at Gabriel's Gully, near Lawrence, and the Central Otago gold rush was under way. Many fortune-seekers from around the world, poured into the then Province of Otago, eroding its Scottish Presbyterian character. Further gold discoveries at Clyde and on the Arrow River round Arrowtown led to a boom and for a while Otago became the cultural and economic centre of New Zealand. New Zealand's first daily newspaper, the Otago Daily Times, originally edited by Julius Vogel, dates from this period.

Click here to view large version of map.