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.
New Zealand Land Commission
His appointment followed the signing of an agreement in November 1840 between the Colonial Office and the New Zealand Company that awarded the company a royal charter of incorporation. The company would be given a Crown grant to land in defined areas of the country, including Wellington and New Plymouth, but abandon claim to the 20 million acres it claimed to have bought during the 1839 expedition of the company vessel, "Tory". On 3 December the British Government told the company that a commission would be set up to investigate all the company's New Zealand land titles, after which bona fide purchases would be confirmed with a Crown grant.