Captain Henry Cain (1816 – 29 January 1886) was the second

Mayor of Timaru The mayor of Timaru is the directly elected head of the Timaru District Council, the local government authority for the Timaru District in New Zealand, which it controls as a territorial authority. List of officeholders There have been 40 mayor ...

. He was at sea from age 13 and was one of Timaru's first settlers, where he lived for his last 30 years.

Early years

Cain was born in 1816 in England. He went to sea at the age of 13 and traded between Sydney in Australia, the

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, China, and

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

in New Zealand. In circa 1850, he owned a bar in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

, California. In the following year, he traded with his 150-ton schooner ''Pauline'' in New Zealand, and his first consignment was kauri pine that he sold to Henry Le Cren of Lyttelton. The ''Pauline'' was lost during a June 1851 storm in Lyttelton Harbour that claimed a total of five vessels, and he bought the vessel ''Kaka'' to transport goods between Lyttelton and the

Ferrymead Ferrymead is a suburb south-east of Christchurch, New Zealand. It is the main thoroughfare for reaching the eastern sea suburbs such as Sumner, as well as home to a number of cliff-top residences and businesses along the estuary front. After t ...

wharf on the

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for

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under contract for Le Cren and his business partner, Joseph Longden. In 1852, he supplied diggers in the

Victorian gold rush The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony, and an influx of population growth and financial capit ...

with the ''Fly'' that he bought from

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. After that, he owned ''The Ocean'' and traded with Auckland.

Timaru

In 1857, he was asked by Le Cren to set up a trading post in

Timaru Timaru (; mi, Te Tihi-o-Maru) is a port city in the southern Canterbury Region of New Zealand, located southwest of Christchurch and about northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to ...

, then merely a sheep station owned by George Rhodes. By the following year, Cain had become established in Timaru, was managing the landing station (there was no deep water in the port at that time), and Le Cren himself moved to Timaru and built a homestead for his family. Cain was poisoned by his son-in-law, Thomas Hall, and died on 29 January 1886. His wife had died on 26 July 1878. A statue of Captain Cain is placed in front of the Landing Service Building. Cain was one of the owners of that building; it is registered by

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as a Category I heritage structure. ''

The Timaru Herald ''The Timaru Herald'' is a daily provincial newspaper serving the Timaru, South Canterbury and North Otago districts of New Zealand. The current audited daily circulation is about 14,500 copies, with a readership of about 31,000 people. The pap ...

'' reported on Cain from "their archives" as part of the 150th anniversary of their first publication in 1864.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cain, Henry 1816 births 1886 deaths Deaths by poisoning Mayors of Timaru 19th-century New Zealand politicians