John Grigg, Ashburton

During a recent stay in Ashburton, I visited the memorial of Cornish-born settler John Grigg. The statue is situated in Baring Square East, conveniently located near the central council offices. The statue is quite grand but it’s a shame there’s no plaque explaining the decision by the council in 1905 to honour him. 

The Story of John Grigg

There is a statue in the centre of Ashburton to John Grigg who was a respected Canterbury farmer and pioneer of the frozen meat industry in New Zealand. It was unveiled on Canterbury Anniversary Day in 1905.

John was the eldest son of John and Christiana Grigg, born in May 1828 near Duloe in Cornwall. His mother died while he was small and he lived with his pious, evangelical grandmother in Bodmin. He was weakened by a serious accident as a child and his family thought farming would be too strenuous for the boy. After completing his education in Bodmin grammar school and then a private school in Plymouth, he was destined to enter the clergy. However, John was determined not to let his limitations prevent him from becoming a farmer. When his father died, he inherited Bodbrane Farm at the age of 16 or 17 and became responsible for providing for his stepmother and three siblings.

He met and fell in love with a local girl, Martha Maria Vercoe, but, before they could marry, she emigrated to New Zealand with her family. After two years of negotiations, Bodbrane Farm was sold and John followed his love to NZ in 1854. They were married in Otahuhu the following year and settled on a farm there where he bred Leicester sheep and experimented in cross-breeding them with merinos. He imported various types of modern farming technology.

In late 1863 Grigg persuaded his brother-in-law, Auckland financier and businessman, Thomas Russell, to join him in a partnership. They bought Longbeach, an area between the Rangitata and Ashburton rivers in Canterbury. Much of the land was swamp, but Grigg diverted the Hinds River to drain it. The Grigg family left Auckland in 1866 to live in Christchurch until a house at Longbeach could be extended to accommodate them all. John and Martha eventually had 10 children. Grigg initially capitalised on the demand from gold miners on the West Coast. When that declined, he ran a mixed farm raising a range of animals and cropping thousands of acres. He continued to develop the land and his farming techniques.

He was the founder and a long-serving director of the Canterbury Frozen Meat and Dairy Produce Export Company. Carcasses from Longbeach formed part of the first refrigerated cargo sent to London in February 1882. The farm had grown to about 30,000 acres and included a self-contained village that was home to up to 200 staff. Financial problems followed the end of the land boom of the 1870s. The property was heavily mortgaged and Grigg was forced to downsize, selling some of the land and stock to his employees. At the same time he moved to dairying, importing Dutch Friesian cattle in 1863.

Grigg was active as a lay reader in the local church and in public life. He was elected to parliament in a by-election in Wakanui in 1884 but resigned his seat less than a year later after realising he was not suited to party politics. He served on the Ashburton Roads Board, the Ashburton County Council and various other bodies.

He remained on the board of the Canterbury Freezing Co. until shortly before he died at Longbeach in 1901. His eldest son, also John, inherited the farm and, in 1926, it passed to yet another John Grigg who owned it until 1973. In 2014 the 150th anniversary of John Grigg’s first purchase of the land was marked by the fifth generation to run Longbeach. Many of the original buildings remain standing and are listed with Heritage NZ together with an architecturally significant homestead built in 1937.

On the pedestal of the statue there are three carvings of farming activities - harvesting, shearing and ploughing.