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However, in spite of Wilkin’s and Carter’s prior residence, Joseph Beswick may fairly be claimed as the founder of the village. He was one of four brothers, among the first settlers in Kaiapoi in 1853. He had been a member of the Provincial Government. He established himself early in Ashburton, but transferred his corn business across the river in the middle of 1877 and a blacksmith and a saddler joined him. In August 1878 he opened his saleyards. By that time Royse, Stead and Company of Christchurch had erected a grain store and before the end of the year, the rising township had a comfortable and roomy hotel, two bootmakers and two building firms. Both the school and St. Andrew’s Anglican Church opened in March 1879. There was a large enough population in 1884 to justify the formation of a town district, and the board secured a good reputation for its surface drainage of the area. But Tinwald remained a pretty little village of some five hundred residents. At the end of the period the school roll was actually falling.

Some of the largest of Ashburton’s early houses—Dr Trevor’s first house and the vicarage for example—were situated over what was called ‘the South-East Belt’. But in general this area developed as a workingman’s suburb. At the end of 1884, a side school opened with Miss Stewart as mistress. It grew so rapidly that it became independent in almost exactly a year taking the name of ‘Hampstead’ presumably from that of the farm of Frank T. Mayo, the school committee chairman and son of Ashburton’s first temporary teacher. In the following year, when its first headmaster, J. B. Mayne arrived, the roll reached 262. In 1886, also, the suburb acquired town district status, being separated from the Wakanui road district and electing a town board of its own. As name for the district the Wakanui Road Board chose ‘Hakatere’, but the residents protested. They understood that the word meant ‘hunger’ or ‘poverty’. Instead the town board, with Mayo as chairman, obtained the substitution of ‘Hampstead’. The district also secured its own post office in 1885.

Each year the householders paid altogether £100 in rates to the town board and £75 to the County Council. They received in exchange the very minimum of service. Few of the streets were formed, fewer shingled, and few if any of the footpaths were gravelled. The board approached the borough for a street water supply but was unwilling to pay £30 a year for it. The manager of the flourmill received unsympathetically the board’s request for