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The story of the road boards has been carried for convenience a little beyond the crucial year, 1876, when the provinces were abolished and counties established. The local county would have been named ‘Rakaia’ but for a protest from Charles Reed, supported unanimously by an Ashburton meeting in July. It consisted of four ridings, the four road districts, which each returned two members. The first election for the County Council, held on 23 December 1876, resulted as follows:

South Rakaia Riding: C. N. Mackie 61, J. C. Wason 39 (elected), W. A. Brown 38, R. R. Pitt 27.

Lower Ashburton Riding: T. B. Bullock 154, A. Saunders 113 (elected), J. Grigg 81.

Upper Ashburton Riding: E. G. Wright, C. Reed (elected).

Mount Somers Riding: W. C. Walker 75, F. Polhill 65 (elected), W. S. Chapman 13.

William Campbell Walker became chairman and occupied that position until 1892. He and his brother, Alexander John Walker held Lower Lake Heron in the 1860s and owned Mount Possession tun from 1864 to 1890. About 1872, W. C. Walker also acquired the lease of Valetta run from Charles Hurst and apparently free-holded some 5000 acres. Yet he was not, as this account suggests, a successful landowner and pastoralist. His father-in-law, Archdeacon James Wilson, had to come to his rescue and take over Valetta about 1882. Walker devoted his time to public affairs although he was neither a ready speaker nor an able administrator. He was elected, perhaps, because he was Ashburton’s last representative on the Provincial Council. However, he had other qualifications. He was the son of a man of title, if a Scot, was educated at Oxford, and his manners were perfect. The length of tenure of his office owed something to the practice, which had grown up in the road boards, of allowing a man to remain as chairman until he resigned. Walker held the same position on the Mount Somers Board from 1872 to 1889.

Of the others elected to the council, only Francis Polhill needs further mention. He held Upper Lake Heron run from 1865 to 1883, and farmed in the Ashburton district for a few years after that date.

The establishment of the County Council opened a new era in the history of the Ashburton region. It is discussed at the end of this account of provincial times because the decision to become a fully active local body, not merely an agency for distributing