Canterbury Provincial Council – 1855 to 1857

*2nd Canterbury Superintendent – 1857 to 1862, 1866 to 1868

*Main influence behind bringing the railway to New Zealand – 1863 (Ferrymead to Chch)

*Canterbury Executive Council – 1863

*3rd Mayor of Wellington - 1875

Moorhouse’s Influence Today:
Moorhouse Avenue, the Moorhouse Statue (Christchurch Botanical Gardens), Spreydon (Christchurch suburb), the Merivale Manor/Jackson’s Hall (31 Naseby Street, Merivale, Christchurch), the Lyttelton/Moorhouse Railway Tunnel (Heathcote/Lyttelton), the Three Sisters (a Mt Pleasant cliff face which overlooks Lyttelton named after three of Moorhouse’s sisters), Moorhouse Range (Canterbury), Sefton Peak (Canterbury), Wadestown (Wellington), Moorhouse Street (Wellington) & Sefton Street (Wellington).

Interesting Facts:
With his startling ‘she’ll be right’ attitude, William Sefton Moorhouse unwittingly witnessed some of the most defining historic moments for Canterbury and New Zealand. From those he met to those who married into his family, Canterbury’s history couldn’t have a better representation than by his life story. It will be shorter to display these as points:

- Two of William’s brothers, Benjamin and Thomas, also immigrated to Lyttelton on the ‘Cornwell’. Sharing this sea voyage were brothers, Samuel and John Bealey – Samuel later becoming Canterbury’s 3rd Superintendent after Moorhouse first resigned in 1862. While William pursued politics, Thomas became a Canterbury land owner/ gentleman farmer and Benjamin practiced medicine, one of his first places of business being today’s Pegasus Arms building (the front section being built in 1852). At the Pegasus’ front door, facing onto Oxford Terrace and the Avon, the emergency night bell used during this era can still be seen.

- The Moorhouse brothers first settled together on 50 acres near Moa Point Cave. In those days, Redcliffs was known as the Poverty or Fisherman’s Flats. They didn’t stay there long, deciding to move on to Australia to ‘…chase a bit of the colour…’ in the Victorian goldfields. First stopping over in Wellington to change ships, by pure chance, Moorhouse ran into his fiancée, Jane Anne Collins, who had unknowingly followed him from England. They were quickly married and Jane’s first marital home was a tent at Yan Yean, Victoria, as her new husband tried his hand at gold panning. It was Moorhouse’s interest in gold that cause him to be the first and only passenger on Cobb and Co’s first trip through Arthur’s Pass to the goldfields of Hokitika in 1865. He did this historic journey beside the driver and one can just imagine the scenery that unfolded before him. Other areas of Christchurch that bears the Moorhouse influence is the suburb of ‘Spreydon’ which was once his farm and named by Moorhouse himself. The other is ‘Jackson’s Hall’ at 31 Nasby Street in Merivale. Known today as the ‘Merivale Manor’, sadly this historic home has been red-stickered since the 2011 quakes. Already a huge home, this is only half of the original homestead, the house being subdivided, sold and moved on some time in the past.

- One can easily understand why Canterbury’s first Superintendent, James Edward Fitzgerald, didn’t like Moorhouse as his replacement in 1857. Fitzgerald had left his position with Canterbury debt free and here was Moorhouse running right back into serious debt with his foolhardy plan for a railway tunnel through the Port Hills. In a war of words and a new newspaper later (the Press), the Moorhouse Railway Tunnel opened in 1867, the first tunnel in the world to be taken through volcanic rock. At 2.7kms long, it is and remains New Zealand’s longest railway tunnel. Much to Fitzgerald’s disgust, the tunnel was a great eventual success. The railway line between Ferrymead and Christchurch was New Zealand’s first railway line, officially opened by Moorhouse on 1 December 1863.

- Through the marriage of William Barnard Rhodes and Sarah Ann Moorhouse, the family now had ties with those who first introduced cattle to Canterbury in 1838. This line married into each other again, with the scandalous union of Mary Ann Rhodes and her step-uncle Edward Moorhouse – as Sarah Ann Rhodes was only a step-mother to Mary Ann. Edward and Mary Ann’s son, William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse was the first British Maori fighter pilot in WWI.

And we are not quite done yet.
Rossetta Moorhouse, one of William’s nieces married Arthur G. Rhodes (Chch’s 24th Mayor), the nephew of the aforementioned William Barnard Rhodes. Their daughter was Rose Mairehau Rhodes and she is remembered today in the naming of the suburb of ‘Mairehau’ – as the Rhodes family owned most of the land that sat between Marshlands (once known as Rhodes Swamp) and Merivale.

Through the marriage of John Studholme and Lucy Ellen Sykes Moorhouse, the family now had ties with the first Europeans to walk from Dunedin to Christchurch. The Studholme brothers also drove the first hoof-stock across the Wataki River. John is believed to have been behind the naming of Merivale, correctly spelt Merevale, which was the name of his hometown in England. He is also remembered in the naming of Studholme Street in Somerfield.

Taken from Christchurch Cemeteries: Filling You In On Our Buried Past – William Sefton Moorhouse