English: On November 8 1855 Crosbie Ward, an elected member of the Canterbury Provincial Council, requested to the Provincial Government that a cricket pitch was put in place at Hagley Park in Christchurch. An earlier application for land in town for the purpose of cricket (between Chester and Armagh Streets) had been declined by the Provincial Government. In 1856 Christchurch Cricket Club were successful in securing a lease for a piece of land at Hagley Park, designated for cricket. The acceptance of the lease offer can be seen in this document
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They had in any case been based at Hagley Park since 1851 (though it wasn’t until the 1860s that their ground was located on the actual Hagley Oval site – as it stands today). This link from Papers Past records the first meeting of Christchurch Cricket Club in 1851 paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=s...
The record presented here is from the Christchurch Office of Archives New Zealand in a series of inwards correspondence received by the Provincial Secretary. The Provincial Secretary was the most important civil servant of the Provincial Government, and his office was its hub. His inwards correspondence is a large series, and it covered all possible facets of the Provincial Government's activities - immigration, education, charitable aid, health, public works (until 1864), goldfields, justice and so on. For further enquiries please email Christchurch.Archives@dia.govt.nz
Reference: CAAR 19936 CH287 CP7 ICPS 1098/1855 archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=22185071
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