 Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Irish-born John Robert Godley, the guiding forces within the Canterbury Association, organised an offshoot of the New Zealand Company, a settlement in a planned English enclave in an area now part of the Wairarapa in the North Island of New Zealand.The inaugural meeting of the Canterbury Association took place at 41 Charing Cross, London, on 27 March 1848.The meeting passed a resolution "that the name of the proposed settlement be "Canterbury" and the name of the chief town be "Christchurch"."