Teviotdale
(Run 5, N.Z.R., afterwards Run 469)

Teviotdale, of twenty-five thousand acres, took in the whole coastal range between the Waipara and Slip Creek, and ran from the sea back to the Omihi Valley, where it joined Glenmark. Originally the lease included the country right back to the Waikari, but in 1854 Moore bought the freehold of this part of the run. Teviotdale was first occupied in 1850 by Robert Waitt. His friend, John Caverhill, of Motunau, spotted it for him and he took it up on Caverhill's recommendation. Waitt applied for a lease on 20th February, 1851 (the same day that Caverhill applied for Cheviot). It was brought under Canterbury Regulations, I think, in 1854. Before 1855 Waitt had bought nine hundred acres of freehold on the run, I suppose to protect himself from Moore.

Waitt was my grandfather, but I know very little about him. I did not begin to take an interest in the North Canterbury runs until everyone who remembered much about him was dead. He came to Wellington from Scotland in the early 'forties and started as a merchant and auctioneer. He had a schooner, and a page 270wharf and store somewhere near Manners Street in 1843, in partnership with a man named Tyser. He had sheep on terms with a man at Kaikoura at least as early as 1850. He was a member of the Wellington Provincial Council in 1854-54, and of the Canterbury Provincial Council in 1857-58.

Soon after Captain Thomas came out to prepare for the settlement of Canterbury, Waitt started a branch of his business in Lyttelton. In 1850 he and Thomas rode over a good deal of the northern part of the province together and got as far as Motunau, where Caverhill tried to get them into a paddock with a rowdy bull, but they noticed just in time that he was not taking any chances himself. Waitt left Wellington and finally settled in Canterbury in 1854. By that time he had 4500 sheep at Teviotdale. These had increased to 8000 in 1858.

In 1858 Waitt wrote a pamphlet on the Progress of Canterbury in the form of a letter to Thomas.

He divided his time between his station and his business in town until his death at Opawa in 1866 at the age of 50. Most of the time he had Teviotdale his manager was James T. Meldrum, who afterwards owned Balmoral in the Amuri, where he was ruined by scab. Meldrum became a stock inspector at Gisborne, where he died. After him a man named Drury managed the station. Three or four years before Waitt's death he let Teviotdale with the sheep to Colonel Reader and Llewelyn Price Traherne (Tra-herne was Waitt's son-in-law). Reader and Traherne had not had the station a year before they were fined £400 for having the whole of their 12,000 sheep scabby. Neither of them had had much experience, and they were next to Glenmark, which was a notoriously scabby run. They did no good with the station, so after Waitt's death in 1866, Waitt's executor, John Tinline, took it back and let it to W. Dunford, of Rakaia, who did no good with it either. Soon after Dunford failed (in 1867), Tinline sold Teviotdale to George Greenwood, the grand-father of the present owner. He was a brother and sole surviving partner of page 271the owners of Motunau. Tinline and Greenwood made their deal verbally, but both being clear-headed and honourable men, there was not a word of dispute at the time of the delivery. During the interval between Dunford and Greenwood, J. W. M. Cox managed Teviotdale for Waitt's executor.

Colonel Henry Elmhurst Reader was born in Naples in 1826. He served with the 14-th Light Dragoons (of which he was Adjutant) and the 12th Lancers, and saw a lot of service, including the latter part of the Crimean War, and the Mutiny. He sold out in 1862 and came to New Zealand. After he left Teviotdale he commanded the Militia and Volunteers in Canterbury, and afterwards held various military appointments in Wellington, where he died while Commissioner of the Armed Constabulary, in 1885.

Traherne went Home after he left Teviotdale and died there early in this century.

Greenwood went home to England immediately after buying Teviotdale, and died six weeks after landing. His son, Dr. H. Greenwood, a barrister at Home, appointed L. C. Williams manager. Williams stayed until G. D. Greenwood, the father of the present owner, came out to take charge in 1878, having spent six months there in 1875. Since that time the greater part of the land has been sold, but Teviotdale is still one of the best stations in Canterbury, and is notable for having one of the oldest Corriedale stud flocksoriginally Leicester-merino.

Later managers of Teviotdale were J. Pilbrow and Murdoch McDonald, afterwards of Glenborne, Waiau.