Wellington. – Te Aro Flat.

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.