Skip to main content

Story: Perceptions of the landscape

Nelson in 1842

Image
Nelson in 1842

John Saxton’s hand-coloured lithograph, published in Edward Jerningham Wakefield’s Adventure in New Zealand, was intended to attract settlers to New Zealand. It showed Nelson as prosperous and progressive, with comfortable houses in the distance and people in the foreground surveying, building houses and working the land.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: PUBL-0011-06-2

by John Waring Saxton

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Jock Phillips, Perceptions of the landscape – European settlement, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/14387/nelson-in-1842 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Jock Phillips, published 1 March 2009.