Dunedin and the Otago Settlement, 1848: The Free Church "New Edinburgh"

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

Arrival dates and the details of the 1844 purchase are well documented. The Waitangi Tribunal's findings on the purchase are the basis for the account of Ngāi Tahu's grievances. The account of recruitment draws on Marjory Harper's Adventurers and Exiles (2003), which uses the Otago Association's records, the Otago Journal and settlers' diaries. Her judgement that the settlers were less devout than the promoters is an interpretation, not a measured fact.

A Free Church colony

established After the Disruption of 1843, members of the new Free Church of Scotland formed a Lay Association to found a Presbyterian settlement in New Zealand, working with the New Zealand Company. They planned a community with church and school at its heart. Captain William Cargill, a veteran of the Peninsular War, led the settlers, and the Rev. Thomas Burns, nephew of the poet, was their minister.

Recruiting the settlers

established The historian Marjory Harper, in Adventurers and Exiles (2003), treats Otago as the most striking example of clerical recruitment in nineteenth-century Scottish emigration. George Rennie proposed a Presbyterian colony in 1842; the Disruption gave the idea a church behind it; and by early 1844 over 200 people had registered an interest. Thomas Burns, minister of Portobello, toured Scotland, often preaching the scheme from the pulpits of sympathetic ministers. Because those ministers were wary of involving the Church in "worldly" transactions, the business side was handed to the Lay Association of the Free Church, formed in 1845.

established John McGlashan, secretary of the Otago Association from 1847 until it was dissolved in 1853, edited and distributed thousands of copies of the Otago Journal and advertised in provincial newspapers. In January 1850 he held meetings across Aberdeenshire, from Peterculter and Inverurie to Keig and Tough, where he found tenants anxious about leases not being renewed. His report to his directors was candid: the immediate result was two families, though he expected his talks to cause "a fermentation in the minds of many".

established Personal example mattered more than print. James Adam, an Aberdeen shipwright, recalled hearing Burns speak in the Free South Church and being persuaded less by the information, which was thin, than by the fact that the minister was going himself. Adam sailed with the pioneers, and in 1857 the provincial government sent him back to Britain as an agent. Harper credits him with encouraging some 4,000 new colonists in a year, 800 of them relatives of existing settlers.

Arrival

established The Philip Laing embarked 247 emigrants at Greenock on 26 November 1847, with Burns, his wife and children among them; public worship was held twice a day on the voyage. His daughter Jane, aged twelve, later remembered the rain at the station and a mate predicting that half the passengers "will never cross the line", as quoted by Harper. The John Wickliffe arrived at Otago Harbour on 23 March 1848 and the Philip Laing on 15 April, carrying the first settlers. Their first impression was of mud. They began to build a town on the hills around the head of the harbour, naming it Dunedin and its streets after Edinburgh's. Other ships followed.

A Scottish colony, but not a church one

established By Harper's figures about 80 per cent of those arriving in Otago between 1848 and 1860 were Scots-born, so the promoters did build a distinctly Scottish province. An English writer of the time complained that the Scots had taken "the coldest" end of the country and seemed to want to keep it to themselves.

shared The church settlement the founders imagined did not follow. Harper argues that religious enthusiasm was more evident among the promoters than among the settlers. Once in the colony, settlers declined Cargill's advice to keep Presbyterianism "the religion of the place", and in 1854 the Provincial Council insisted that colonists be invited from the whole of the British Isles, appointing an emigration agent in England. Schooling was controlled by the provincial government rather than the Church, and in 1853 fewer than 100 of about 270 children in and around Dunedin attended school. Later, under the Aberdeen-born merchant and politician James Macandrew, Otago built over 100 schools by 1871.

The land

established The settlement was built on land bought from Ngāi Tahu, the main Māori iwi of the South Island, in the 1844 Otago Purchase. Ngāi Tahu later argued that the Crown failed to keep promises, including reserving enough land for them. The Waitangi Tribunal upheld many of these claims, and in 1998 the Crown apologised and agreed a settlement.

Gold

established In 1861 Gabriel Read discovered gold at Gabriel's Gully in Central Otago. Thousands of miners arrived from Australia and elsewhere, and the Free Church settlement became a bustling commercial city. For a time Dunedin was New Zealand's largest and wealthiest town, with fine stone buildings, banks and the University of Otago, founded in 1869.

The Edinburgh of the South

established Dunedin keeps strong Scottish links: a statue of Robert Burns in the Octagon (1887), a Scottish-style railway station, and pipe bands. It is twinned with Edinburgh.

• Dunedin is the Gaelic name for Edinburgh.
• The settlement's minister was Robert Burns's nephew.
• Dunedin's main street is Princes Street.
• Gold made Dunedin briefly New Zealand's biggest town.
• The University of Otago is New Zealand's oldest university.
• A recruiting tour of about a dozen meetings across Aberdeenshire in 1850 produced just two families who promised to sail.
• After James Macandrew's death in 1887, Otago funded a scholarship sending medical students to finish their training at the University of Aberdeen.

• Myth: The settlers found empty land. The site was bought from Ngāi Tahu in the 1844 Otago Purchase, on terms later found to be unfair. The Crown apologised and agreed a settlement in 1998.
• Myth: Dunedin remained a purely Scottish town. About 80 per cent of arrivals between 1848 and 1860 were Scots-born, but from 1854 the Provincial Council recruited across the British Isles, and the gold rush from 1861 brought thousands of miners from Australia and elsewhere.
• Disputed: Otago as a Free Church colony. The founders imagined a church settlement. The historian Marjory Harper argues that religious enthusiasm was stronger among the promoters than among the settlers, who declined to make Presbyterianism "the religion of the place". That is an interpretation, not a measured fact.