Lowry Bay District & Road (Wellington)

Biography:

Samuel Charles Brees (1809-1865)

Samuel Brees arrived in Wellington in 1842 to fill the position of surveyor
and civil engineer for the New Zealand Company. During his time in Wellington
he was responsible for continuing the work of his predecessor, William Mein
Smith, surveying the Karori Road and the hills surrounding Wellington Harbour.
He oversaw the completion of the initial Wanganui and Manawatu surveys.

In 1843 he led an exploratory journey to the southern Wairarapa through
Upper Hutt and the Rimutaka range, and prepared the preliminary subdivisions of
these areas. By August 1844, six months before Brees’s contract was due to
expire, the New Zealand Company was in financial difficulties and was no longer
able to pay him. Throughout his period as principal surveyor he had given as
much of his spare time as possible to his favourite leisure activity of
recording his surroundings in pencil and watercolour.

The ending of his employment freed him to devote more time to painting,
while he settled his affairs and arranged for his family’s return passage to
England. He had produced a substantial portfolio of views of all the areas he
had visited, particularly scenes in and around Wellington. These works would
normally have become the property of the New Zealand Company, but the company
waived its claim to them in the expectation that Brees would publish the
sketches and be somewhat compensated for the loss of income he had suffered
through the early termination of his contract.

On 8 May 1845 Brees, with his wife, now four children, and a servant, sailed
on the brig Caledonia for London. His drawings were superbly engraved by Henry
Melville in London and remain an important record of early Colonial settlement
in New Zealand.