When Charles Kettle was commissioned by the Otago Company to lay out the city of Dunedin, some four years before the Otago colony was settled, he had a set of strict instructions from Captain Cargill, the chairman of the Otago Company.

Regardless of any other factors, he was to lay the new "city" out using exactly the same street network as Edinburgh had.

When he got to Dunedin, he found this was totally impractical. However instead of completely antagonising his employer by telling him so, he proceeded to lay the new town out in "chunks" of the Edinburgh street layout. Nonetheless, it was still not a 100% practical solution. Half the streets, as laid out by Kettle, were actually underwater in the harbour or were theoretical concepts "laid out" on tidal mudflats.

Kettle, quite rightly, realised that by the time this became a problem, ie the population of the new town warranted expansion beyond those few streets which were actually laid out on dry land, his part in the deal would be largely forgotten. And, of course, he was right. The city as he laid it out extends from Carroll Street in the south to Albany Street in the north, and Canongate to the west. Anyone from Edinburgh would recognise the street names of the central city. If NOT the layout!

History hasn't recorded what Captain Cargill said to Kettle when he realised what Kettle had done, but it can't have been that strong - Kettle remained in Dunedin until his death in 1860!