The Canterbury Association initially administered Sumner, with the valley being surveyed by Edward Jollie in 1849 and he drew up a street plan in November of that year. However, the planned settlement was rejected by Godley and the land was not subdivided. When the first allocation of rural sections was made public in February 1851, rural section No.2 was allocated to Felix Wakefield. This section was bounded in the North by a road along the coast, in the West by the road between Christchurch and Lyttelton, by an "accommodation road" against the hillside in the East and another "accommodation road" across the valley in the South. The street names on the 1850 settlement plan were not used and Wakefield subdivided and leased or sold off parts of this rural section in smaller lots to create a settlement he called Wakefield Township.