Page:Ashburton•Scotter•1972.pdf/117

exchange the area for land less remote from the tiny huddle of buildings on the river-bank, and then did nothing else. Again it was the Canterbury Provincial Government which, among its last acts, provided funds and trees for improving the site, so that in 1877 the board’s recently appointed gardener, H. S. Charlton, was able to carry out the first systematic planting in the domain—indeed, the first in the township.^[1] A year later, the Ashburton Road Board made a grant of £250 to the domain and the Ashburton County Council handed £100 to the local cricket club thus enabling the latter body to lay out and sow a cricket field in the south-east corner of the property.

One result of this activity was that the Ashburton Mail expressed the hope that Baring Square could similarly be tidied and planted and that residents would begin to make both flower and vegetable gardens in their sections. A critic, deploring the prevailing bareness and dustiness around homes and public buildings, urged that a start should be made towards improving the appearance of the town by growing shrubs and flowers in plots alongside the churches.

Lack of water was the main cause of this neglect. The Ashburton Road Board had held a competition for water supply plans and accepted a scheme involving the use of 6-inch pipes from an intake in the river. But, partly because the board was confused by opposition among local engineers, the scheme faded out. Obtaining adequate water for the town was clearly to be one of the main problems facing the first borough council.

Two nominations were received for the mayoralty; those of Thomas Bullock and Donald Williamson. Hugo Friedlander, although he proved in due course to be not only the ablest but also the most public spirited of the early residents, was not in the field. During the previous year he had fallen while carrying a sack of wheat along a high plank between stacks in his warehouse and was so seriously injured that at first it was thought he would never recover. He lay paralysed for months but was then able to travel to England for treatment. For the rest of his life he suffered almost without intermission and walked only with the aid of a stick. Yet when he returned at the end of 1879 he was elected as the town’s second mayor.

If not as able as Friedlander, Bullock nevertheless showed energy and enterprise. During the election campaign he felt it necessary to refute his opponent’s quip that he owned three-quarters of the town and was willing to take the other quarter as