Torlesse, Charles Obins

Born in 1825, he was the eldest son of Charles Martin Torlesse, Rector of Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, and Catherine (nee Wakefield) the eldest of the Wakefield family which played a prominent part in the settlement of New Zealand.

Charles Obins Torlesse was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School and at Stanmore, in Middlesex. In 1840 he went to the College of Civil Engineers, at Putney, and the following year although he was only sixteen years of age, his uncle Captain Arthur Wakefield, who was appointed leader of the expedition to found the Nelson Settlement, offered to take him as a survey cadet, and he arrived in New Zealand in 1841 as a member of the survey staff.

At Nelson he assisted in the laying out of the allotments end acquired proficiency in surveying. Following the Wairau Massacre, which occurred in June, 1843 and in which his uncle Arthur Wakefield, and other leading settlers lost their lives, Torlesse returned to England as also did his friend, John Cowell Boys and other junior members of the survey staff including Frank Moline and William E. Wilkinson. In England Torlesse and Moline spent some months surveying railway lines and then Torlesse became private secretary to his uncle, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who was engaged in promoting the Canterbury Settlement.

Although it was contrary to his uncle’s wishes, Torlesse in due course was appointed a member of Captain Joseph Thomas’s survey staff. Captain Thomas, Thomas Cass (his First Assistant Surveyor) and Torlesse, sailed for New Zealand in the Bernecia which arrived at Port Nicholson on 21st November 1848.

In Canterbury Torlesse carried cut extensive topographical and trigonometrical surveys on a systematic basis as advocated by another of his uncles, Felix Wakefield who was also a surveyor. This system enabled the colonists to select the land, for which they held land orders, prior to the sectional surveys.

Writing to Torlesse in October, 1850, Captain Thomas said, inter alia, ‘from my arrival in New Zealand you have accompanied me and most materially assisted me, in my first exploring operations and subsequently with no other assistance than a Boy (a Maori youth) and at a cost to the Association of £3/9/- you discovered and explored another block of nearly 2 Million of Acres on the South side of the  Cholomondeley (sic) (Rakaia) River. ... It gives me the greatest pleasure to record in the Journal of the Association the zeal and diligence with which you discharge your duties, the information and assistance you have always afforded me, but more particularly adding so largely to our previous knowledge of the country by exploring it at great personal risk, the District to the Southward of the Cholomondeley.”

The preliminary surveys were terminated in May 1850 and subsequently Torlesse, in partnership with J.C. Boys, engaged in contract surveying in laying out the rural sections for the Canterbury Association’s settlement. In December, 1851, Charles Torlesse married Alicia, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Townsend, early Canterbury settlers. John Boys, Torlesse’s partner married another daughter, Priscilla Townsend.

Torlesse and Boys had acquired land in the district that was then known as Rangiora Bush and added the occupation of grazier to that of surveying. There homes became the nucleus of the town of Rangiora. The partners continued with surveying particularly Boys, while Torlesse, who travelled widely through the Canterbury Province purchased large tracts of grazing country over the Ashley River. In 1861 Torlesse and his family went to England and on their return to Canterbury the following year he gave up farming, sold his sheep stations and became a partner of Henry Matson as a stock agent and sheep inspector, with headquarters at Christchurch. In 1864 he became seriously ill and as soon as he became well enough to travel he went to England with his family. He remained an invalid and died on the 14th November, 1866.