The two main islands of New Zealand were first settled by Polynesians – whose Maori culture continues to be a distinct part of life – around seven centuries ago. It was 1642 before a European traveller, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, reached its shores, and the 1760s when James Cook first circumnavigated and mapped the land.

The earliest European settlers, who began to arrive slowly in the later 1700s, were mostly itinerant sailors and whalers, traders, escaped convicts and missionary families. The lack of European women meant that many men lived with Maori women and had children of dual heritage. Larger numbers of British immigrants began to settle in New Zealand in the early Victorian era, enduring an arduous three-month sea voyage to their new lives. People needed a good reason to leave their homes for the far side of the world. To many struggling in Britain, a new country with fledgling industries and political systems offered a fresh start, the promise of jobs, fewer diseases and better weather. Posters encouraging people to migrate, though, often painted a false picture of what the land was really like.

In 1839 the New Zealand Land Company was founded with the aim of buying and developing Maori land for British colonisation by settlers from a variety of backgrounds, who would often have their passages paid. The first official settlement the company set up was Wellington, and early immigrants included those with valuable skills such as rope-making, woodworking and farming.

In 1840 the Maoris signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Britain, which brought New Zealand into the British Empire. Although the treaty had promised Maori equal rights, there were varying cultural understandings of land ownership, and disputes broke out as Maori land was bought or removed and taken by the ‘Pakeha’, as British and other European settlers were called. The origins of this term are unclear, but it possibly comes from a similar name found in Maori myths about fair-skinned semi-humans, sometimes described as coming from the sea.

The establishment of further settlements such as New Plymouth offered migrants jobs such as road building, but lack of money to continue financing such projects meant that many left, joining more established colonies or voyaging to Australia. A settlement for Scottish Presbyterians was founded in Otago in the 1840s, which proved to be a prosperous venture into farming and agriculture. Another similar settlement at Auckland proved so viable that this site was originally chosen to be the capital.

If you have ancestors who were among New Zealand’s founding fathers, TheGenealogist.co.uk’s Roll of Early Settlers and Descendants in New Zealand is an excellent place to begin a search for them. The records include titles, forenames, surnames and dates, the name of the ship settlers arrived on, their dates of arrival and original places of residence. Additionally, among the resources in the British and International Records’ New Zealand section of the website are various books, almanacs and directories for New Zealand, valuable for searching out further information and finding out about what life was like for those brave enough to travel to the other side of the world.

Timeline of new zealand:

In the print edition
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