Walpole Cheshyre Fendall

Walpole Cheshyre Fendall (1830-1913) was an early settler of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Walpole was the son of Rev. Henry Benson Fendall I (1795-1882), Vicar of Nazeing, and his wife, Anne Catherine Johnson (1814-1842). He was born at St. James, Nunburnholme, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. He resided in Crambe, Kirkham, Yorkshire, England, and in 1850, along with his father and other siblings applied to the Canterbury Association in New Zealand for the right to select a 50 acre section. Walpole immediately came out to claim the section, paying 3 pounds an acre for it. It is supposed that he came aboard the “Randolph”, but his name does not appear on the list. However, it is said that Walpole raced C. J. Wentworth Cookson around the ships on the way to New Zealand, in waterproof cloak boats. It is known that Cookson came aboard the “Sir George Seymour”, and thus one could assume that Fendall came aboard the same. Especially considering the fact that Cookson leased his farm in Riccarton to Fendall in 1854.

Walpole’s father and other brothers arrived in different ships at different times. They did not come to the north-west area of Christchurch but worked in the parishes of Avonside, Heathcote and later Cust.

The land Walpole selected was Rural Section 18, land running in between the Wairarapa and Waimairi Streams, in which he purchased for 150 pounds. It is thought that he built a whare, or cob cottage, where Quamby (Holy Lea) would be built later. He lost no time in beginning sub-division of his land. This along with the fact that a road was cut through the land, led to the area being called Fendall Town. However, at this time the area lacked a Church, shops, and everything else that constitutes the organization of a town. Walpole and his wife left the Fendalton area for the Kowai district near Leithfield, in North Canterbury in 1860 and even before this, about 1854, had leased a 100 acre Riccarton farm, so his association with the Fendalton area was limited.

Walpole’s farm that he purchased in the Kowai district was called Nunburnholme. It was on the north bank of the Kowai River, just across the road from Poralkenfield and was about 2 miles inland from Amberley. In 1863 he was treasurer of the Mt. Grey Ploughing Match and was helping to form a farmers club in the district. He organized the Ploughing Match again in 1864 and took the chair on the usual dinner in the evening at Leithfield Hotel. He continued his activities in ploughing matches and the Farmers Club and was elevated to the Kowai Rd. Board in 1865. He was elevated to chairman in 1867. After being defeated many times in his bid to enter politics, Walpole sold his farm in May 1883. It was said that he was going to South Canterbury. Fendall then bought a farm at Pleasant Point, where he built a concrete house naming it “Fendall’s Folly”. Fendall’s main interest was in horse-racing and he was an original member of the Canterbury Jockey Club. He was one of the stewards at the first race meeting held in Canterbury, in Hagley Park in 1852 and his bay mare won one of the races there. Fendall served as a member of the Old Provincial Council of Canterbury.

Mrs. Frank Courage in her book entitled “Light & Shadows of Colonial Life”, described eleven portraits of the local celebrities. She described Fendall under the pseudonym of “Solomon Jolliboy”, as being “a short rather stout built man with a longish beard which made him look rather older than he really was, he seemed to have an old head on a young body. He had a reputation of being addicted to the pleasures of the table. He was very good company in his way, genial and jocular.... Everyone laughed at his witticisms and said he was a capital fun... I had decided he was not a handsome man by any means, though two or three handsome men might have been made out of him. There was enough in the flabby acreage of his pendulous cheeks for two or three good-looking faces, if they were made up differently. In the domestic circle he was a demi-god, whose word was law and whose wishes had to be anticipated”. Walpole married, Lucy Hyacinthe Swann (1832-1897) in 1854. Lucy was the daughter of Thomas George Swann V (1801-1868) and Lucy Wrigglesworth (1801-1871).

Walpole died in Christchurch, Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand in 1913.