An intermittent agitation against the continued transportation of convicts to Australia was also being carried on, point being given to the protest by the avowed dread lest New Zealand should become a convict station.
This survey of the first year of settlement would be incomplete without some reference to sport. It will have been gathered from Mr. Godley’s reference to the subject that cricket had been acclimatised at a very early period in provincial history. The formation of a Jockey Club was projected at a meeting held in the Reading-room at Christchurch on September 18, 1851, and Riccarton was then suggested as a suitable site for the racecourse. The names of the members of the Provisional Committee created on that occasion gave a preliminary guarantee for the clean sport for which Canterbury afterwards became famous. The Committee consisted of J. R. Godley, H. Lockhart, Hon. J. Stuart Wortley, T. Hanmer, J. C. Watts Russell, E. M, Templer, W. G. Brittan and E. J. Wakefield. Those readers who are interested in the story of the Canterbury Jockey Club will find a short account of its inception and growth in the Appendix.
The political ambitions of the community, still lacking the privilege of self-government, found an outlet in the proceedings of two societies. Early in 1852, the Society of Land Purchasers dissolved itself, with the expressed object of making room for a new Society, which should represent all classes of settlers. The proposed society was to have been called the Society of Canterbury Colonists, and initial meetings were called at Christchurch and Lyttelton. The outcome, probably due to local jealousy, was the formation of separate Colonist Societies for Christchurch and Lyttelton. Mr. Henry Tancred was Chairman of the Christchurch Society; Mr. Godley of that of Lyttelton, with Mr. J. E. FitzGerald as his active lieutenant. Mr. W. G. Brittan, who had
