Geologically, New Zealand is a relatively young country, but it is a country of rich heritage - both Maori and European. Maori have lived here in the "land of the long white cloud for over 1000 years.

The first Europeans to visit New Zealand was Abel Tasman in 1642, but it was James Cook who claimed it as British territory. The first Europeans set up temporary settlements from 1790 onwards and were primarily sealers then whalers from Sydney in It was not until after 1840 when New Zealand was formerly claimed as English Territory that people emigrated en-masse.

Thus New Zealand missed the mass assisted emigrations of the 1830s and 1840s that populated much of New South Wales, instead turning to Scotland.

The Scots have been described as being to New Zealand what the Irish were to Australia. One historian has seen them as "the chief lieutenants of settlement". Though huge numbers of Irish emigrated to Australia it was New Zealand that drew the majority of Scots. In peak years, more than one third of all Scots emigrants went to New Zealand. At first, they clustered in Otago and its offshoot, Sutherland, in the South Island. Both places were half-Scottish in 1871.