New Zealand Company
The New Zealand Company, chartered in the United Kingdom, was a company that existed in the first half of the 1800s on a business model focused on the systematic colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principles devised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the southern hemisphere. Under Wakefield’s model, the colony would attract capitalists who would then have a ready supply of labour—migrant labourers who could not initially afford to be property owners, but who would have the expectation of one day buying land with their savings.
Ireland–New Zealand relations
Historically, both Ireland and New Zealand were joined as one when the United Kingdom formally established the Colony of New South Wales in 1788 which included most of present-day New Zealand. In 1840, New Zealand formally joined the British Empire after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The first major contact between both nations was during first wave of Irish immigration to New Zealand. Because the Irish were considered to be "British", it is unknown who the first Irish were to reach New Zealand, however, the first Irish migrants to reach New Zealand would have occurred around 1840 when the New Zealand Company first began assisting would-be migrants to settle in New Zealand. In comparison to Irish immigration to North America and Australia, very few Irish people migrated to New Zealand, mainly due to the cost of travel and the enormous distance between both nations. Over the years, however, several waves of Irish people would migrate to New Zealand and as a result, approximately 18% of the population of New Zealand today can claim Irish descent.