MARK PRINGLE STODDART (1819-1885)

Mark Pringle Stoddart has an interesting history as a traveler, explorer, poet, angler and gentleman-farmer.

He was born in 1819, four years after The Battle of Waterloo. The son of an admiral in the British navy, he entered a well-established and well-off Edinburgh family with a tradition of public service in the army and church.

His childhood appears uneventful but as a well-fed, well-read and well-bred  young man he displayed a Scots restlessness; a desire to explore.

He travelled to Australia where he brought a sheep station in Victoria. By 1851 he was on the move again, chartering a ship to carry 2000 sheep to Lyttelton. He brought a run on the north bank of the Rakaia River, selling the property two years later.

In 1852, he  became the owner of 55 acres of land in Diamond Harbour while leasing land in North Canterbury. A few years later he was focusing his attentions on his Diamond Harbour land. He had joined the ranks of the shagroons - those canny, pragmatic and hardy men, mostly Scots, who had come to Canterbury from Australia.

By 1858, together with his cousin, Mark Sprot, Stoddart had planted walnuts, gums and wattles above the small bay he christened Diamond Harbour after seeing its water glinting in the sun.

In the early 1860s, Stoddart sailed to England, returning with fresh supplies and the materials for a prebricated cottage. Brought in from Australia, it is thought that he incorporated two buildings originally taken to Australia as spec homes to house miners in the Victorian goldrush

Stoddart settled into his new home with his new bride, Anna Schjott, the daughter of a Norwegian clergyman who had come to New Zealand as a companion/governess. On February 28 1862, the day after his wedding, Stoddart put in his diary "settled in the new cottage."

With a growing family of six children, including the girl who would eventually become one of New Zealand's leading 19th century artist, Margaret. Mark Pringle Stoddart would eventually move across the harbour and over the hill to Fendalton, Christchurch, where in 1885, he died.