Heritage

Christchurch: a chronology

A timeline of some Christchurch events in chronological order from 1700s to 1989.

Go to a year between 1700 & 1989

Begin at the beginning Start here

This week in history

November 29, 1901
Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s first Antarctic expedition arrives at Lyttelton in ”Discovery“.
November 29, 1978
Concert at Q.E.II Park by rock singer David Bowie.
November 29, 1988
Visit by Chinese delegates from Sister City of Gansu Province.
November 30, 1865
Canterbury Medical Association formed (the first in New Zealand).
December 1, 1863
Opening of the Ferrymead to Moorhouse Avenue railway, New Zealand’s first public steam railway. (The gauge was 5ft 3ins.)
December 1, 1871
First rose show.
December 1, 1873
Westland becomes a separate province. It had already become a separate county on January 1 1868.
December 1, 1889
First New Zealand-built locomotive completed at Addington railway workshops.
December 1, 1949
Sidney G. (later Sir Sidney) Holland (Fendalton) becomes Prime Minister.
December 1, 1950
Kerrs Reach cutting on the Avon River completed.
December 1, 1975
Rolleston satellite town project scrapped.
December 1, 1987
Visit by King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola of Belgium.
December 1, 1988
125th anniversary of the opening of New Zealand's first steam passenger railway from Christchurch to Ferrymead. (Commemorated Labour Weekend with a steam train cavalcade. See 1863)
December 2, 1854
Canterbury Jockey Club formed (the first in New Zealand).
December 2, 1866
Moa bones discovered at Glenmark. The international sale and exchange of these helped Haast, the Canterbury Museum’s first Director, to finance the new museum.
December 2, 1960
Rehua meeting house opens, the first new meeting house in the South Island for over 100 years.
December 3, 1867
Canterbury Museum (New Zealand’s first) opened to public in an upstairs room in the Canterbury Provincial Government Buildings The collection had been assembled by Julius (later Sir Julius) Von Haast. See 1872
December 3, 1924
Children’s Library opens in Hereford Street.
December 3, 1972
First jumbo jet lands at airport.
December 5, 1881
Earthquake damages Cathedral spire.
December 5, 1987
Rev Margaret Wood elected the first female Archdeacon in the Christchurch Anglican Diocese.

Related