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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Canterbury Provincial District]

Mr. John Grigg

Mr. John Grigg, Pioneer Colonist and Founder of Longbeach Estate, was born at Liskeard, Cornwall, England, in 1828, and was educated at the Naval College, Stoke, and at other schools. He inherited from his father a freehold farm, which he sold in 1853, and then sailed for Australia in the ship “Blackwall,” by which he reached Melbourne early in 1854. Mr. Grigg remained only about six months in Australia, and then came to New Zealand. He took up land in the Auckland district, where he also married Miss Vercoe. He began in Auckland by devoting his land to the cultivation of potatoes on a large scale, and sending the produce to the Australian markets, but this did not prove a profitable business. During the time of the war with the Maoris, Mr. Grigg contracted with the Government to supply hay for the army horses. This contract was broken by the Government, where-upon Mr. Grigg bought up all the hay in the district. Then the Government, after all, had to obtain its supplies from him, and under the circumstances he exacted double the price agreed upon in the original contract. Mr. Grigg was for some time engaged in sheep and cattle-farming in the Auckland district. He afterwards bought some land in Southland, but did not settle there. It was in 1864 that he bought the first portion of “Longbeach,” and his brother, Mr. Joseph Grigg, managed it while Mr. Grigg himself wound up his affairs in the North Island. When Mr. Grigg first removed his family to Canterbury in 1866, they resided for some years at Avonbank, near the Fendalton bridge, but he personally at once began to apply himself to the reclamation of the Longbeach land, which consisted very largely of peaty swamp, covered with flax, rushes, and other rank vegetable growth, interspersed with deep and dangerous bog-holes filled with water. Then, and up till 1882, his brother-in-law, Mr. Thomas Russell, was in partnership with him in the ownership of the estate, which for a number of years was used solely for raising and fattening sheep and cattle, in the sale of which a large trade was done with the West Coast goldfields. While this was going on, the partners kept adding to their property up till 1871, when it consisted of 30,000 acres, half of which was afterwards sold from time to time in moderate-sized areas: On the balance Mr. Grigg carried on that work of reclamation which ended in making “Longbeach” famous as the finest farm in the world. The huge swamp was effectually drained and cleared, sown in grass, and brought under cultivation with such results that from 4,000 to 5,000 acres have been under crop year by year; with an average in wheat of from thirty to fifty bushels per acre, oats from fifty to 100 bushels, barley forty-seven bushels, and peas about twenty-two bushels per acre. Besides devoting great enterprise, intelligence, and energy to the development of “Longbeach,” Mr. Grigg actively assisted in the establishment of the Belfast Freezing Works, in the management of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association, and in the work of the Ashburton County Council, the Longbeach Road Board and school committee. He was also for some time a member of the House of Representatives. Mr. Grigg died at Longbeach on the 7th of November, 1901, in his 74th years, and was buried in the Longbeach churchyard beside his wife who had predeceased him by about sixteen years. There had been ten children in the family, but only seven were alive at the time of Mr. Grigg's death.

The late Mr. J. Grigg, Mr. J. C. N. Grigg and Master J. Grigg.

The late Mr. J. Grigg, Mr. J. C. N. Grigg and Master J. Grigg.