The New Zealand Company has sent out eighteen ships with one thousand and fifty-two men, eight hundred and seventy-two women and thirteen hundred and eight-four children within eighteen months.

However, fewer than ninety of the settlers have the capital to start as landowners.

Notably, the early settlement of Nelson province includes a proportion of German immigrants, who arrive on the ship Sankt Pauli and form the nucleus of the villages of Sarau (Upper Moutere) and Neudorf.

These are mostly Lutheran Protestants with a small number of Bavarian Catholics.