Charles Obins Torlesse (2 May 1825 – 14 November 1866) was a prominent surveyor for the

Canterbury Association The Canterbury Association was formed in 1848 in England by members of parliament, peers, and Anglican church leaders, to establish a colony in New Zealand. The settlement was to be called Canterbury, with its capital to be known as Christchur ...

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

, New Zealand.

Biography

Torlesse was born in

Stoke-by-Nayland Stoke-by-Nayland is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England, close to the border with Essex. The parish includes the village of Withermarsh Green and the hamlets of Thorington Street and Scotland S ...

, Suffolk, England, in 1825. He was the eldest son of the Rev Charles Martin Torlesse, who was on the management committee of the Canterbury Association. His mother Catherine Torlesse was the sister of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Aged 16, Torlesse started a survey cadetship under his uncle Arthur Wakefield for the

New Zealand Company The New Zealand Company, chartered in the United Kingdom, was a company that existed in the first half of the 19th century on a business model focused on the systematic colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principl ...

in Nelson. He stayed in Nelson from 1841 and returned to England in 1843, after his uncle was killed in the Wairau Affray. Torlesse together with fellow surveyor Thomas Cass returned to New Zealand by the ''Bernica'', and arrived in December 1848, to work under chief surveyor, Captain Joseph Thomas. Torlesse took up land in

Rangiora Rangiora is the largest town and seat of the Waimakariri District, in Canterbury, New Zealand. It is north of