The location of Canterbury College in Christchurch was not a random act. The growing educational and cultural precinct around Canterbury Museum and Christ’s College was deliberately chosen by the Provincial Council for the new College, in the knowledge that this institution would add to the intellectual and social life of the district.
As the College has matured over the decades, its relationship with the town around it has also grown, both benefitting from the interaction. Canterbury College, (and its modern counterpart), needed the support of the local community in order to function effectively. Conversely, staff and students at the College have enriched the life of the city, by sharing their skills, knowledge and enthusiasm with the community at large.
For this reason, Professor C.F. Salmond wrote in ‘University and Community’ in 1923 that it was the responsibility of Canterbury to extend beyond the physical limits of the College itself, if it was to be able to “assert its claim to recognition as a real university centre with a community life of its own, essentially one with what is best in the larger community life of the Province.”
