Charles Simeon

Early life

Charles Simeon was born in Grazeley, Berkshire, England in 1816 into a wealthy family. He was baptised in St Helens on the Isle of Wight, where his family came from. He was the second son of Sir Richard Simeon, 2nd Baronet and his wife Louisa Edith Barrington, the oldest daughter of Sir Fitzwilliam Barrington, 10th Baronet. Nothing is known about his education. On 5 May 1842, he married his second cousin, Sarah Jane Williams (1818 – 3 April 1903) at Winchester. She was the daughter of Philip Williams KC, whose wife Jane Blachford also had Sir Fitzwilliam Barrington, 10th Baronet as her grandfather.

Simeon obtained the rank of captain in the 75th (Stirlingshire) Regiment of Foot. On 17 October 1850, he joined the Canterbury Association and immediately joined the management committee. The object was to create an Anglican settlement in New Zealand, which happened with the Canterbury region, with Christchurch as its capital. His elder brother John had been a founding member since March 1848, their younger brother Cornwall was to join the association in August 1851. His brother John probably also introduced Henry Sewell to the Canterbury Association; Sewell was to become a key member of the Association, and interacted greatly with Charles Simeon. Sewell became New Zealand's first Premier in 1856.

Charles Simeon gave £2,000 to his friend John Robert Godley for land purchase in the colony; Godley was one of the core members of the association, and is today regarded as the founder of Canterbury in New Zealand. His brother John left the Anglican church, left the Canterbury Association in May 1851, resigned his seat in Parliament, and joined the Church of Rome instead.

After the First Four Ships hired by the Canterbury Association to bring emigrants to Canterbury had left England in September 1850, Simeon became chairman of the Colonists' Society, an organisation of land purchasers. Amongst other roles, he addressed meetings of those who were interested in emigrating.

When news that Godley had resigned his position as the agent for the Canterbury Association reached the management committee in London in October 1851, they looked for a successor. Sewell was their first choice, but he was in charge of sorting out the Association's financial affairs and saw a conflict of interest. Sewell suggest that William Fox be appointed instead. The management committee, at its meeting on 2 December 1851, appointed Captain Simeon as Godley's successor; at that point, Simeon had already reached New Zealand.

New Zealand

The Simeon family with five children, a housekeeper, a governess, a lady's maid, a housemaid, a nurse, a cook and a footman left England from the East India Docks on 18 June 1851 on the ship Canterbury and arrived on 21 October in Lyttelton. Lyttelton inhabitants were amazed about the size of the party. The children and servants were put up at the Mitre in Lyttelton at a cost of £4 10s per day until he had found a town house to rent on the Bridle Path. He bought town section 102 in Lyttelton's Coleridge Street (today Coleridge Terrace), not far from the rented house, and built a substantial house with eight rooms near where the Bridle Path goes over the hill to Christchurch. This latter house is still standing and is registered as a Category II historic place by Heritage New Zealand.

Within weeks of his arrival, Godley resigned as resident magistrate and the role was conferred to Simeon by the Governor of New Zealand, George Grey, with whom he met. In this role, he commissioned a lock-up in Christchurch, which was built by Isaac Luck in the Market Place. On behalf of the Canterbury Association, he brought 1,500 books to Canterbury, which were to be given to the colony's college.

Simeon also took on the role of representative of the Canterbury Association from Godley. He resigned from that position in July 1853, when some functions of the Association were transferred to Guise Brittan as the region's land agent, and other functions to Henry Sewell, who had arrived from England.

Late in December 1851, Simeon put his name forward to be elected onto the Council of the Society of Land Purchasers, but Guise Brittan, the council's chairman, announced that the role was incompatible with that of a Resident Magistrate, and Simeon therefore withdrew his name. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed Visiting Justice of the Gaol at Lyttelton.

Simeon chose 500 acres (2.0 km2) of land and had frontages with the road leading to the Ōpāwaho / Heathcote River and the road leading from Christchurch to Halswell. The land was numbered in the order of it having been chosen, and his land was thus known as Rural Section 154. He also owned town properties in Armagh, Gloucester, Manchester and Madras Streets.

Like other wealthy colonists, Simeon participated in horse races, which were held in Hagley Park. He also played cricket.

Family and commemoration

The Simeons had five children before they emigrated to New Zealand, including:

Philip Barrington Simeon (12 December 1845 – 9 December 1926; buried at St Peter and St Paul's, Lingfield, Surrey)

Algernon Barrington Simeon (20 February 1847 – 12 March 1928)

Geoffrey Barrington Simeon (9 March 1848 – 2 March 1906)

While in New Zealand, they had three more children:

Jane Elizabeth (27 November 1851 – 24 February 1852)

Lionel Barrington Simeon (6 November 1852 – 30 August 1896)

Walter Barrington Simeon (24 February 1854 – 30 April 1854)

After they left New Zealand, they had at least four more children:

Emma Mary Simeon (28 October 1856 – 7 February 1933)

Hugh Barrington Simeon (12 January 1858 – 21 January 1941)

Beatrice Anna Simeon (c. February 1859 – 20 March 1859)

Mabel Selina Simeon (26 August 1860 – 11 January 1935)

All his sons had Barrington as their middle name in commemoration of their maternal grandfather, who had no heir and whose baronetcy thus became extinct. Three of his sons became priest: Philip in Grahamstown, Algernon in Yattendon, and Hugh at Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire. Two of his daughters married priests: Emma married Alfred Willis, who became bishop of Honolulu; and Mabel married Rev. Herbert Andrew Dalton, who was headmaster of Felsted School in England and then Harrison College in the Diocese of Barbados.