Charles Kettle

Charles Henry Kettle ( born April 6, 1821 in Kent, England; † June 5, 1862 in Dunedin, New Zealand), was a surveyor, planners and politicians in Dunedin.

Life

About Charles Henry Kettle's childhood is not much known, except that his father Matthew Kettle said he should have been well educated and already at 14 years, from 1835 to 1839, assisted at Queen's Grammar School in Faversham, Kent, as a mathematics teacher.

In 1839 he decided to emigrate to New Zealand. He reached Wellington on 31 January 1840 and first worked as a clerk. When it was recognized his mathematical skills, he got a job at the New Zealand Company as an assistant in land surveying. He explored the area around Wellington, Hutt Valley and in the Manawatu, and later he passed along with Alfred Wills the Tararua Range to the Wairarapa and came with these explorations to recognition.

In January 1843 Kettle was no longer needed, he traveled back to England. There he came into contact with George Rennie (1802-1860), sculptor, politician and active promoter of settlement in Otago. Rennie won it for the Otago settlement project. After that he traveled almost two years in England and Scotland around, often with George Rennie and Thomas Burns together to advertise as a planning expert for the settlement project.

On September 10, 1845, he married Amelia Omer, with which he was to have 10 children. In the same month he was appointed by the New Zealand Company for exploration Head of the Otago settlement. On February 23, 1846, he reached with his wife Otago Harbour. Based on the work of Frederick Tuckett almost two years earlier, to Kettle went to work Port Chalmers and New Edinburgh, later to Dunedin to plan. It was at this time, known as a solid and reliable "workers" who sometimes brought by its commitment to its limits and appreciated for it.

Kettle, developed a strong personality, lay down more and more with his superiors and eventually came into conflict with William Cargill, the ungefochtenen head of the settlement. Cargill tried in 1851 after the New Zealand Company had adopted because of economic problems in the settlement project to terminate Kettle. Kettle successfully defended itself and was finally appointed as a compromise in 1852 as a planner for Otago and six months later to the court. But his position was systematically weakened, whereupon Kettle 1854 resigned from both positions and was in the Clutha district for several years for sheep farmers.

Kettle had already begun in 1848 to secure its future. With land purchases and sales, he was so successful that he was finally in 1860 with only 39 years in Dunedin could be put to rest. Kettle was a socially committed person, with sense of education and youth work in a row and was active in the temperance movement. He missed election to the Otago Provincial Council in 1857, but was able to prevail in the election for the House of Representatives in 1862 and got a seat in January 1862, he was still named to the auditor of the Otago Province. But a sustainable action in both positions was denied.

He died on 5 June 1862 in Dunedin with typhus, the cause of the catastrophic hygienic conditions in Dunedin at the time of the Otago gold rush.