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.
John Coster
Coster emigrated to Sydney at the age of 16. He quickly rose to leading positions and the management of the Union Bank of Australia sent him to Christchurch in March 1859. There, he transferred to the Bank of New Zealand and became manager of the branch in Christchurch. On Coster's initiative, the New Zealand Shipping Company was founded in 1873, and he was its managing executive for many years.