The Early Settlers

Arthur's Past is based on the following three historical events which took place in the years after the first Europeans settled in the Canterbury Province.

On 16 January 1863 the clipper SS Sebastopol left Gravesend, England with 249 emigrants bound for Lyttelton. Among its steerage passengers was a nineteen-year-old milkmaid from Lanark named Margaret McKinlay. On the day of the ship's departure Margaret's intended travelling companion failed to meet her at the station, leaving her to travel alone. On the voyage she met the ship's third officer, George Gardner, who later deserted his post to marry Margaret. They lived a long and prosperous life together in Canterbury Province and left many descendants.

In 1850 the barque Cressy was one of the first four ships to be sent by the Canterbury Association to found the Christchurch settlement. Among the migrants were Edward Dobson, an English engineer and surveyor, and his eldest sons George and Arthur. Both followed their father into his profession, and on 11 March 1864 Arthur Dobson, aged 22, and a station hand named John Marshall crossed the Otira Gorge. After gold was discovered on the West Coast in 1865, Arthur's Pass became the main route over the mountains to Hokitika, and Arthur Dudley Dobson went on to become a prominent Cantabrian, ending his career as City Engineer for Christchurch.

Historical photograph of Edward, Arthur and George Dobson
Edward, Arthur and George Dobson

The Burgess Gang

Historical illustration related to the Burgess Gang

On 5 July 1866 the partly decomposed body of a young surveyor was found by a police search party in the bush outside Greymouth, on the West Coast. He had been murdered by the Burgess gang, bushrangers who went on to kill five gold prospectors at Maungatapu, near Nelson. At the subsequent trial one gang member, Joseph Sullivan, turned Queen's evidence and incriminated the others, saving himself from the gallows. The murdered surveyor was Arthur's older brother, George Dobson, aged 26.

In the social histories of those years much is recorded of the Dobson family, Burgess, Sullivan and the others. But of the station hand, John Marshall, there is little known beyond a single mention in Dobson's Reminiscences. John Marshall's story and the imagined life he might have lived alongside those others is the thread of Arthur's Past.

Setting

The story follows the characters from Lyttelton near Christchurch to the Canterbury High Country and finally to Hokitika and Greymouth on the West Coast.

Map Region: Canterbury and West Coast, New Zealand

Key locations: Lyttelton, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Hokitika, Greymouth