Rev. Charles Martin Torlesse, the vicar of the parish of Stoke by Nayland in Suffolk, was the brother-in-law of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a major figure in the development of the British Empire’s settler colonies (Canada, Australia and New Zealand) in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Rev. Torlesse’s son, Charles Obins Torlesse, became a surveyor of parts of New Zealand’s South Island in the early 1840s before becoming the first British settler in the area he named Rangiora in 1851. Over the next twenty years, over fifty Stoke by Nayland residents (plus forty from neighbouring parishes) made the enormous journey to New Zealand. The stream of migrants included some of the village’s main tradesmen and most ‘reputable’ labourers.

 

 In April 1841 three ships left Gravesend carrying surveyors and emigrants to what is now Nelson in the north of New Zealand’s South Island. One of the surveyors was the Rev. Torlesse’s 17-year-old son, Charles Obins Torlesse, and amongst the emigrants was William Songer, from Stoke by Nayland. Songer was described as a 29-year- old servant to Captain Arthur Wakefield, R.N. Arthur was Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s brother, and the leader of the expedition.