New Zealand - Christchurch - Sumner School - 1972 Do you have more information about the school or the people in this photo? Please use the comment section below to share. To search for other photos from this school, please type the schools name in to our search engine. Sumner - Sumner is a coastal seaside suburb of Christchurch - Surveyed and named in 1849 in honour of John Bird Sumner, the then newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury - The first European to carry out work in Sumner is believed to be Charles Crawford, a whaleboat owner (Reference: Wikipedia)