Town Clerk of the Borough of New Brighton, was born in 1832 in Hampshire, England, where he was also educated and brought up as a civil engineer. Mr. Blake came out to Australia in the fifties, and after some years in the sister Colonies crossed the Tasman Sea to Port Chalmers, in the ship “Aldinga.” After a short experience on the Otago goldfields, he settled in Christchurch about the end of 1863. He entered the service of the Provincial Engineers’ Department, and was employed in opening up the West Coast, being one of the first to lay out and make roads during the great “rush” to the coast. Subsequently, he was engaged in telegraph and railway construction under the General Government, and has since had a general colonial experience. Mr. Blake was appointed town clerk of the Borough of New Brighton on its incorporation. He was married in 1868, to a daughter of the late Mr. C. B. Bishop, of Christchurch.
The New Brighton Public School, which occupies two acres of land fronting Sea View and Hawkes Streets, is a single-storey wooden building, with three classrooms. There are 275 pupils on the roll, with an average attendance of 240. This school was first opened in February, 1889, in a small building belonging to the Wesleyan church, with thirty-eight scholars. The headmaster is assisted by three certificated and two pupil-teachers.
