Pawsey's Run
(No. 34, N.Z.R.)

In the early days, if a man thought a runholder was using more country than his license entitled him to, he could, by paying certain charges, have the run surveyed and get a license for the extra country. In 1850 George Cooper Pawsey seems to have suspected that there was more country in the Motunau and Teviotdale runs than the owners paid rent for. On 18th February, 1851, he applied for a run between them and was given a license for three thousand acres at Bob's Flat, in January, 1852. He called his station the Boat Harbour, but it was generally known as Pawsey's Run. It was taken over in the early 'sixties by the owners of Teviotdale. Afterwards, until his death about 1900, Pawsey lived on a small farm that he had near Leithfield.

Bob's Flat is called after the first man who lived on it—the original boundary keeper between Motunau and Teviotdale. His surname was never used. Even his wife was 'Mrs Bob.' They were both said to have been ex-convicts from Tasmania.

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Wattie, who kept the boundary between Pawsey's run and Teviotdale, was the father of James Wattie, a crack jockey of the 'seventies and early 'eighties.

After Wattie a man named Tom Leonard kept the boundary. He drew a cheque at the end of a year and went to Christchurch to cash it. When there he went to the Land Office and bought the pick of the land on which he had been keeping boundary. His employers had to give him a handsome profit to get the land back.

Pawsey's Run was the only Class III run of under five thousand acres in Canterbury. This was, because he applied under the N.Z. Regulations which only recognised Class III runs, and because there were only three thousand acres to give him.