Long-dead investor still owns sliver of red-zoned Chch land
There is a small windfall available to the descendants of Jabez Rhodes – if they can befound.
The wool merchant and property speculator likely died more than a century ago in Australia, but his dealings in Christchurch in the 1880s are still of interest to council officials. In particular, a sliver of land that he owns along the Ōtākaro-Avon River in Bexley.
The Christchurch City Council wants the land to rebuild the bridge into New Brighton village and for stopbanks to prevent flooding. However, it can’t just seize it. It has to find – or make an honest attempt to find – Rhodes’ heirs and offer to buy the land from them at a fair price.
If no descendants can be found after three months, the council can take the land under the Public Works Act and deposit some money with the Public Trust in case heirs turn up later.
Jabez Rhodes first appears in Christchurch newspapers in the early 1880s as a wool merchant and later as the owner of a wool scouring facility at Dudley Creek in Shirley. Newspapers reported at the time that he was active in politics, trained dogs, and helped set-up a tramway to New Brighton.
In 1885, he bought a large parcel of land at 657 Pages Rd, subdivided it, and on-sold the sections.
For reasons that are unclear, Rhodes kept ownership of a sliver of land parallel with the river bank. In places it is only a few metres wide. It stretches along the south bank of the Avon for about 1km from the Pages Rd bridge.
The whole area was red-zoned after the 2011 earthquakes.
In Britain, where Rhodes probably grew up, landowners along rivers can also own the river bed up to the centre line of the watercourse. Landowners next to a watercourse sometimes also owned the fish in their portion of the river.
So maybe Rhodes was preserving rights that might be valuable one day.
Or maybe it was a surveying quirk that didn’t matter for 140 years.
From the 1890s, a Jabez Rhodes turned up in the Sydney area as a wool merchant, inventor and dog trainer, according to Australian historical records available online.
It’s not certain that it is the same Rhodes, but the distinctive first name - probably a reference to a minor character in the Old Testament - suggests it is. Plus the interests in wool and dogs.
That Jabez Rhodes married in Australia and after his death in September 1921, his daughters, Rebecca Gerrard and Ethel May Brown, were named as the executrices of his will. There were other children.
The land sought by the Christchurch City Council is about 200m². It declined to estimate its value.
The bridge replacement project and associated works are scheduled for 202628 and are subject to approval and funding.
Jabez Rhodes is buried near Bondi.