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In spite of its small size, Ashburton was a boom town while the demand for land lasted. Everybody bustled. There was work for all and those with money were excited by the opportunities for profitable trading. When the depression descended suddenly at the beginning of 1879, it struck a more serious blow at businesses in Ashburton than in towns with a longer established and more stable economic life. Serious demonstrations took place in the larger towns; but the orderly meeting of two hundred men who met in Baring Square after the harvest of that year had ended represented a far larger proportion of the population. However, the men merely elected a committee to present the case for relief to the local borough and county authorities. A Magistrate’s Court, set up in the previous year, reported fifty-six bankruptcies for 1879; for years the number did not fall below thirty-three. From time-to time a number of suicides shocked a public quite unused to such evidences of despair.

The depression produced some strange side-effects. One was the holding of an exhibition. Not surprisingly, businessmen turned eagerly to search for alternatives to wool and wheat as staples of trade. In Ashburton, as elsewhere, they organised a local industries association for the purpose, and a year later (1881), decided to take up the suggestion of Charles Braddell, the town clerk, to hold a display of articles. The first proposal was for a mere addition to a flower show. It developed into an industrial exhibition. Such a venture seemed premature; there was so little to exhibit. Nevertheless, John Grigg’s sneer at the ‘jumped-up little town’^[1] which tried to follow the example of Christchurch, however justified, did not increase his local popularity. The town hall, a building erected on East Street by a local company about 1877, and two or three marquees nearby provided the space for the 200 exhibits in sixty-one classes, from bricks and harrows—important local products—to tatting and oil-painting, which appeared somewhat out of place. Parliament requested a special report from the member for Geraldine, Edward Wakefield, and he commented enthusiastically—he could hardly do otherwise—on the value of drawing attention to good coal from the Rakaia Gorge, building stone from Mount Somers, and sugar-beet and tobacco grown in the county. The last, made into cigars and plug, served as a reminder of that grown by