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other opinions even from London, New York and Amsterdam, to which specimens had been taken. Immediately following Jacobson’s announcement, the Pioneer Diamond Mining Company Limited was launched in Ashburton and excited investors eagerly bought the shares. An Irishman found a ‘diamond’ of two pounds weight. The ‘diamond fever’ lasted several months; but by October disappointed speculators were demanding their money back.

Prospectors found tin at Alford Forest, even before the excitement over the diamonds had died out, and Professor A. W. Bickerton of Canterbury College declared the sample to be rich in metal. But tin mining required capital and years afterwards an announcement of a similar discovery at the same place showed that the earlier one had been forgotten and that nothing had been done. Throughout the 1880s prospecting companies were formed to work in the Wilberforce River and other places in Canterbury and men did in fact eke out a living by panning for gold in rivers and on the Ellesmere beach. When, in 1888, the gold rush began to Kimberley, West Australia, young men from Ashburton and even older men, perhaps miners of an earlier day, like George William Herbert Augustus St Hill, builder and borough councillor, set off in search of wealth.

No man counted more in the business life of Ashburton than Hugo Friedlander. In the early 1880s a number of large stores were evidence of the fact. Later, his export trade increased; he chartered ships to Britain and dealt largely on the Australian and other wheat markets. In spite of his physical disability, he travelled much about New Zealand, to Australia, and on at least four trips to Europe, these last for reasons of business as well as of health.

The three brothers, Hugo, Max and Rudolph Friedlander, began their partnership in 1876 as general storekeepers as much as grain merchants. In 1882 they bought Montgomery’s Building in East Street and the brick kiln belonging to the same firm. However, in the mid-1880s, Max became a full-time farmer and the others reduced the scope of their local business. Henry Zander took over their grocery and Andrew Orr, their drapery and clothing departments. In the meantime, however, they had enlarged their main West Street grain store and did so again in 1887 thus increasing