A social history of early Canterbury, its farming, local body politics, and the important issues from the arrival of the Holland and Eastwood families in Canterbury in the mid-1860s. It is also a family history of the Holland family, and particularly Henry and Jane Holland (née Eastwood) and their busy, successful lives. Henry Holland, a farmer and then owner of a farm machinery company, was also mayor of Christchurch for seven years before and during World War One and a Member of Parliament during the difficult, depression-dominated decade, 1925-1935. His son Sidney was later prime minister and grandson Eric a cabinet minister. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including Jane Holland's very detailed diaries from 1882 to 1942, the book is a--glimpse of family, church and community life as well as the social, political and moral issues facing Canterbury and the country in the later decades of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th.