Joseph Brittan (12 January 1806 – 27 October 1867) was a New Zealand surgeon, newspaper editor, and provincial councillor, was one of the dominant figures in early Christchurch. Born into a middle-class family in southern England, he followed his younger brother Guise Brittan to Christchurch, where he and his wife arrived in February 1852 with four children. Joseph Brittan soon got involved in the usual activities of early settlers and gained prominence in doing so. He had bought 100 acres on 10 July 1851 and took up 50 of this to the east of Christchurch that he converted to farmland. There, he built the family residence, and the suburb of Linwood was subsequently named after Brittan's farm and homestead of Linwood House.
The members of the Brittan family were devout Anglicans (although the Brittan family had been Methodists) and had a close association with the neighbouring Holy Trinity Avonside, where Guise Brittan was a lay reader. William Rolleston became Joseph Brittan's son-in-law in 1865, when he married his only surviving daughter Mary; Rolleston was elected Canterbury's third Superintendent just months after Brittan's death.
Brittan was a member of the Canterbury Provincial Council for just over three years. He served as Provincial Secretary from 1855 to 1857 and was expected to succeed James FitzGerald as the second Superintendent of the Canterbury Province, but was beaten by William Sefton Moorhouse in October 1857. He established the third newspaper in Canterbury, the Canterbury Standard, which existed for 12 years until shortly before Brittan's death. Brittan was a very eloquent speaker, but he had a biting and sarcastic character, and was disliked, and even feared, by some. Later in life, he suffered from gout and frequent headaches, and this together with financial trouble, often made him irritable and impatient. He died at his homestead in October 1867 after a long period of declining health.
Early life Joseph Brittan was born on 12 January 1806 in Bristol, England, into a respectable middle-class family that originated in Bristol.Baptism certificate His father was a brewer. He was listed in Kelly's 1848 Directory of Dorset for Sherborne under the heading "Traders" as "agent to Royal Exchange & fire office," and also with his brother William G as "proprietors of 'Sherborne & Yeovil Mercury'". He lived at some point in Linwood, Hampshire. His first wife was Elizabeth Mary Chandler with whom he had seven children. Three of them died in infancy, and then his wife died in 1849, two weeks after the birth and death of their last child. The surviving children were Joseph (Joe), Arthur, Elizabeth Mary (Mary) and Frances (Frank).
Brittan married his deceased wife's sister Sophia as his second wife. This was not legal in England or acceptable to the Church of England. He intended to marry in Denmark where it was legal and the necessary documents for the application were eventually collected and countersigned by the lord Mayor of London on 1 September 1851. However, for some reason the wedding was performed in Gretna Green in Scotland. As was not unusual at the time, having caused such a scandal was responded to by emigrating, which the newly-weds did a month after the ceremony. They sailed for Christchurch in New Zealand on the William Hyde with his other sister-in law and her 2 children, which left Deal, Kent on 21 October 1851. Brittan's younger brother William Guise Brittan (known as Guise Brittan) had immigrated to Christchurch earlier aboard in 1850. Guise Brittan had married Louisa Chandler, a sister of Joseph's wives. Charles Fooks, who by this time was in Melbourne was married to another of the Chandler sisters; his wife and children did not travel with him, though. Instead, Mrs Fooks and her two daughters came out on the William Hyde together with Joseph Brittan and family. Also on board was some livestock brought by Joseph Brittan, including a Devon cow, ducks, geese, pheasants, and some rabbits.
During the journey, Brittan performed the duties of the ship's surgeon. He and the ship's chaplain produced a play, The Merchant of Venice, and his contribution was to invite women to act the female roles, which was unusual for the time and a hot topic of conversation causing great amusement. Arriving in Lyttelton on 5 February 1852, most of the immigrants had to find somewhere to live and many slept in tents or under the open sky. The Brittans were among the fortunate few, as a house on Christchurch's Hereford Street had been arranged for them by Guise Brittan. Like everybody else who was heading for Christchurch, upon disembarking from the ship they had to make their way over the Port Hills then follow the steep Bridle Path to reach the city. They carried as many of their possessions as possible, but following months at sea, their fitness was rather poor. The remainder of their possessions was shipped by whaleboat around the coast and up the Avon River, which was a dangerous undertaking due to the Sumner sand bar located at the entrance to the Avon Heathcote Estuary.
Life in New Zealand
Christchurch, still a very small settlement (it had around 140 buildings in early 1852), already had two doctors, so Brittan's services in that area were not required. Instead, he followed his brother's interest and became involved in land speculation. He bought rural section (RS) 300, a triangular piece of land of along Canal Reserve (later called Linwood Avenue), with the northern tip of the land touching the Avon River. He leased the adjacent RS 301, which he later purchased. In total, the property had , which was in addition to land he owned at Papanui Bush.
Brittan converted the land in Avonside to farming, with set aside for a homestead, garden and orchard. He called the property Linwood after his place in Hampshire. Linwood House was ready in 1857 and the family moved there from their first home on Hereford Street. Adjacent to his farm was Holy Trinity Avonside, which at the time was a cob church. On 24 February 1857, it became the first Anglican church in Canterbury consecrated by Bishop Harper, and Guise Brittan, as churchwarden, read the lesson at the service. The entire Brittan family had a close connection to the church, with Joseph Brittan helping to raise money for its construction, and Mary Brittan singing in the church choir. They faithfully attended church on Sundays, and when subscriptions were taken for the construction of ChristChurch Cathedral, Brittan pledged a generous £100.
Brittan had sundry interests and immediately upon arriving in Christchurch, joined others in various activities. He played cricket in Hagley Park within a fortnight of reaching Christchurch, and later helped improve the grounds and raised money for fencing the area. He also pursued horse racing, later bred horses, and hosted Canterbury's first steeplechase on his Linwood farm. The Brittans enjoyed music, and not only did Sophia play her piano brought from England, but Joseph played a portable harmonium. He joined a musical group in the port town of Lyttelton, which in the early years was culturally more important than Christchurch, and walked there over the Bridle Path with his instrument strapped to his back. Musical evenings were also held at the Brittan home.
Newspaper proprietorship
Before they emigrated, Joseph and Guise Brittan had been proprietors of the Sherborne Mercury, a newspaper covering Dorset and outlying areas. In his new country Brittan continued this line of work, becoming the founder, proprietor and editor, of the Canterbury Standard, published from 1854 to 1866. The advertisement announcing this new paper appeared in the Lyttelton Times in August 1853. Owned in part by William Thomson and James Willis, the paper was first published on 3 June 1854, and became the third newspaper in Canterbury, following the Lyttelton Times (first published in 1851) and the short-lived Guardian and Canterbury Advertiser (published for three months in 1852).
Brittan was also part of a ten-member syndicate that in February 1862 attempted to formalise the ownership of another Christchurch newspaper, The Press, which had been founded in the previous year. A deed of association for "The Proprietors of The Press" was drafted, but surprisingly, the deed was not executed. Four months later Brittan's political colleague, James FitzGerald, who had no funds, was the sole owner "through the liberality of the proprietors", as he called it later. Part of Brittan's interest in The Press was its declared opposition to the proposal to connect Christchurch and Lyttelton via a rail tunnel, a project that he himself was strongly opposed to. Brittan and Henry Jacobs, the first headmaster of Christchurch's first school, Christ's College, are listed as two major writers for The Press during its early years. Before mid-1863 FitzGerald had a prolonged absence from Christchurch, and Brittan became the acting editor of The Press. In 1866 the Canterbury Standard was sold at auction to The Press, which within days, on 23 April, stopped its publication.
Political career Elections were first held in New Zealand in the second half of 1853, and two levels of government were introduced: a House of Representatives at the national level, and Provincial Councils for the six provinces. Brittan first stood for public office in 1855, when membership of the Canterbury Provincial Council was expanded and various seats across many electorates became available. As a resident of Hereford Street, he stood in the Town of Christchurch electorate, where two positions were to be filled. For weeks campaigning filled the newspapers, with candidates using derogatory language towards each other, and Brittan being accused of "assiduously frequenting the public houses". When the nomination meeting was held on 8 March in Market Square, only Brittan and Dr Alfred Charles Barker were nominated, and both were thus declared elected.
In May 1855, the Executive Council, led by John Hall as Provincial Secretary, resigned. James FitzGerald, the Province's first Superintendent, tasked Brittan to form a new Executive Council, and he succeeded Hall as Provincial Secretary. While FitzGerald was attending the first session of the 2nd Parliament in Auckland in 1856, Brittan deputised for him. Brittan resigned as Provincial Secretary in February 1857 and was succeeded by Richard Packer, but remained on the Provincial Council until the end of the first term in July 1857, when he did not seek re-election.
Later in 1857, FitzGerald resigned from Parliament on the advice of his doctors, and also decided not to seek re-election as provincial Superintendent. Robert Heaton Rhodes offered a requisition to Brittan to make himself available for the by-election that would result from FitzGerald's resignation from Parliament in the Lyttelton electorate, but Brittan replied that he could not absent himself from his private affairs as yet; Parliament at that time met in Auckland, and the 1858 session lasted from 10 April to 21 August, which required an absence from home for several months. Instead, Crosbie Ward, the editor and proprietor of the Lyttelton Times, was the only person nominated on 28 May 1858 and was thus declared elected.