plural noun

• the first four shipsThe ships that brought the first body of settlers from Britain to New Zealand in 1850.

  ‘he traces his family lines back to the first four ships’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The passenger lists of the first four ships are recorded in stone in Cathedral Square.’
  • ‘He arrived in Lyttelton Harbour in January, 1851, while the first four ships of the Canterbury settlement were still at anchor.’
  • ‘The village name came from one of the first four ships that arrived in 1850 transporting workers who built Christchurch.’
  • ‘It's tough luck if it turns out he's descended from people on the first four ships.’
  • ‘Auckland, he points out, had not celebrated first settlers like the Wakefield brothers of Wellington, the first four ships of Christchurch's Anglican gentry or the Scottish Free Kirk settlers of Dunedin.’
  • ‘This mother of seven was widowed just after arrival in one of the First Four Ships, and supported the family by opening a small drapery business.’
  • ‘He does not like the people who came on the first four ships, so he is to redistribute those rights to the people.’
  • ‘He was a pioneer who came to Canterbury in 1950, sailing on the George Seymour, one of the first four ships to bring organised settlement to the area.’
  • ‘What this bill will do is allow, for the first time ever, for competing applications for a limited resource to be considered on their respective merits, rather than simply dished out to the first people to apply - probably hot off the first four ships.’
  • ‘The phenomenon of the Overseas Experience is an inherent part of Kiwi culture and this has created a demand for the predominant "first four ships" Anglo-Celtic culture to take off the blinkers and experience what other cultures have to offer.’