The New Zealand Company, chartered in the United Kingdom, was a company that existed in the first half of the 19th century on a business model that was focused on the systematic colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principles devised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the Southern Hemisphere. Under Wakefield's model, the colony would attract capitalists, who would then have a ready supply of labour: migrant labourers who could not initially afford to be property owners but would have the expectation of one-day buying land with their savings.
The New Zealand Company established settlements at Wellington, Nelson, Wanganui and Dunedin and also became involved in the settling of New Plymouth and Christchurch. The original New Zealand Company started in 1825, with little success, then rose as a new company when it merged with Wakefield's New Zealand Association in 1837, received its royal charter in 1840, reached the peak of efficiency about 1841, encountered financial problems from 1843 from which it never recovered, returned its charter in 1850 and wound up all remaining business with a final report in 1858.
History
The company's board members included aristocrats, Members of Parliament and a prominent magazine publisher, who used their political connections to ceaselessly lobby the British government to achieve its aims. The company made many questionable land purchases from Māori and in many cases resold land that it did not own, and launched elaborate, grandiose and sometimes fraudulent advertising campaigns. It vigorously attacked those it perceived as its opponents—chiefly the British Colonial Office, successive governors of New Zealand, the Church Missionary Society and the prominent missionary Reverend Henry Williams, and it stridently opposed the Treaty of Waitangi, which was an obstacle to the company's obtaining the greatest possible amount of New Zealand land at the cheapest price. The company, in turn, was frequently criticised by the Colonial Office and New Zealand governors for its "trickery" and lies. Missionaries in New Zealand were also critical of the company for fear that its activities would lead to the "conquest and extermination" of Māori inhabitants.
The company viewed itself as a prospective quasi-government of New Zealand and in 1845 and 1846 proposed splitting the colony in two, along a line from Mokau in the west to Cape Kidnappers in the east, with the north reserved for Māori and missionaries and the south becoming a self-governing province, known as "New Victoria" and managed by the company for that purpose. The British Colonial Secretary rejected the proposal.
Only 15,500 settlers arrived in New Zealand as part of the company's colonisation schemes, but three of its settlements would, along with Auckland, become and remain the country's "main centres" and provide the foundation for the system of provincial government introduced in 1853.
1825 expedition
The earliest organised attempt to colonise New Zealand came in 1825, when the New Zealand Company was formed in London, headed by the wealthy John George Lambton, Whig MP (and later 1st Earl of Durham). Other directors of the company were: East India Company merchants George Lyall, George Palmer (snr), Stewart Marjoribanks and Russell Ellice; politician and merchant Edward Ellice (brother of Russell, and also brother-in-law of Lambton); political economist Robert Torrens snr; landowner and politician Edward Littleton (later 1st Baron Hatherton); Royal Navy officer and politician Courtenay Boyle; banker James Pattison (sometime chair of the East India Company, and later Governor of the Bank of England; writer and politician Aaron Chapman; politician and banker Abraham Wildey Robarts; shipping insurer Ralph Fenwick; solicitor John William Buckle; William Mannings; and James Faden.
The company unsuccessfully petitioned the British Government for a 31-year term of exclusive trade and for command over a military force, anticipating that large profits could be made from New Zealand flax, kauri timber, whaling, and sealing.