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Tauwharekākaho Rolleston

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NameRollestonTauwharekākahoDescriptionIn 1866, the railway being built from Christchurch across the plains reached this area. A small settlement sprang up to service its temporary end-point.

The place was named after William Rolleston, a leading colonial politician in Canterbury. And for quite a long time, a railway station and a few scattered buildings was pretty much Rolleston.

The arrival of Pākehā settlers brought a new way of thinking about whenua, the land – that it was something for people to buy and sell. The colonial government took control of Ngāi Tahu whenua to enable this to happen in Canterbury.

Land surveyors then got to work, measuring the land and marking out boundaries. The surveyor’s chain and the theodolite were essential tools of their trade. The 1856 map shows how the land was divvied up at first, cut into huge chunks called ‘runs’. Present-day Rolleston’s area was part of run 111. By the 1860s, runholders were cutting up their runs into smaller lots. These were then sold as farms to other settlers. So the district’s population grew.

In 1973, Labour Prime Minister (and Canterbury man) Norman Kirk announced a project to develop Rolleston as a New Town to house the overflow from Christchurch’s swelling numbers. That plan was abandoned with a change of government.
Little changed in the small rural centre (population 1000) over the next 20 years. However, in 1989, Rolleston became home to the new Selwyn District Council. By 2000 the population had crept up to about 2000.

Rolleston has had dramatic growth this century – to 16,350 residents at the 2019 census. It parallels the jump in Selwyn District’s population overall, accelerated by the post-earthquake exodus of Christchurch residents, along with a flood of new migrants. In the past 80 years, Rolleston has grown from a small town of a few hundred residents in the 1940s, to well over 20,000 in 2022. And we’re still growing!

You can see this related objects on display at Te Ara Ātea.

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